Trees are starting to “grow” in place of Don Sawyer’s Hollywood Fish in downtown Wetumpka.
It took a health scare and urging from Sawyer, but Debra Wilson is the newest artist on Company Street in Sawyer’s old studio. Four years ago, Wilson hadn’t picked up a paint brush but a bout with COVID-19 had her looking at life in a different way.
“I got real sick,” Wilson said. “I was in the hospital and there were days in which we didn’t know if I was gonna make it.”
Wilson went home, still on oxygen and was determined to try something — painting. With no formal training she picked up the paint brush and the strokes flowed from the heart. Wilson’s paintings of trees and sometimes their roots are found almost daily planted on the sidewalk of Company Street. It’s the sign Wilson is there and working.
“I’m rooted in my faith,” Wilson said.
Working in Sawyer’s studio is something she has been doing for the last 18 months since Wilson retired from handling the business side of a medical office for nearly 30 years. Her only training in art came from Sawyer. Wilson brought her paintings of trees to Sawyer for critiques.
“He said, ‘You got it. You don't need me for nothing,’” Wilson said the conversation with Sawyer went.
Wilson thought she needed him “a lot.”
Like Sawyer, Wilson found her calling to paint from God. Sawyer added churches and crosses to many of his works. Wilson’s reference to God is the tree.
“I was looking in the Bible one day and it was talking about the strength, structure and shelter a tree provides,” Wilson said. “Its roots also run deep.”
It stuck with Wilson. She shared her thoughts with Sawyer.
“He said, ‘You got to paint it,’” Wilson said Sawyer’s advice was. “He said, ‘You’ve got to have the feeling, not just something on your brain. I don’t want you to paint like a girl.’”
Wilson brought her trees to Sawyer who looked at them in the same Company Street studio she now occupies.
“He looked at them and just shake his head,” Wilson said. “He said, ‘I don’t know how you do this. There is just something about that tree. I don't know what it is, you keep doing it. You just keep doing it.’”
Their conversations led to ideas of Wilson her own studio someday.
Wilson wasn’t sure what was going to happen after Sawyer died in July. She had been helping him with the Company Street studio opening it up. Sawyer would drive by almost daily.
“He would toot that horn to let me know he was there,” Wilson said.
She got the studio in August but didn’t open up for a couple months. Wilson left the outside of the studio mostly like Sawyer left it. There are the bright flowers and Hollywood Fish. Inside, Wilson made a little more her own.
“I have painted some,” Wilson said. “But it still feels like his space.”
Wilson still hears the occasional horn blow but it's not Sawyer looking at her from under the brim of his hat. It’s more of a feeling of Sawyer’s presence.
“I miss him,” Wilson said. “I look up knowing it’s not him. It was all in God’s plan and timing.”
