[upbeat music] [upbeat music] - Oh boy, it's an old one.

I think I have three of that one.

I have no idea what this is.

I see an interesting bottle over here.

I never have too many cheese slicers.

I have to have it.

- [Speaker] You like that one?

- I don't like them to look too new.

Those are good.

- [Speaker] If you need.

- I don't need a receipt, nope.

- [Speaker] Let me get you some candy.

Great.

[upbeat music continues] If I think I'm gonna use it, I'm gonna keep it.

I mean, I don't hoard other things, but just things that I think I'm gonna make something.

Something for art.

[upbeat music continues] [light music] I had worked very hard, single parent taking care of everybody, not me.

[chuckles] After my children left home, I knew I could go anywhere I wanted.

[light music continues] I love old houses and old things.

And when I saw the house at Glencoe Mills, it was an entire mill village that was abandoned in 1954.

Preservation North Carolina was able to acquire it in 1998 and I bought one of the houses in 1999.

People thought I was insane for plunking my money down on the first day I saw it.

Nobody else lived there for two years.

So I finished and moved in and still waiting for the other people to do their houses.

I had access to all the properties.

I would just take a metal detector and go walking around and I mean, if it's in the ground, they don't care if I dig it up.

Oh, look at this little rusty thing.

I'm going to put that aside right now, start collecting all of this stuff.

[light music continues] My son worked for the town of Chapel Hill and the art people in Chapel Hill had a call for self-portraits.

And my son called and said, "Mom, make a self-portrait.

And I said, "I don't have anything."

I don't have paint, I don't have canvas, I don't have anything to do a self-portrait."

But he bugged me about it because he knows I like to make stuff.

Said, "Okay, I'll make sort of a collage outta things I have, things like coasters and little pieces of railroad track, Scrabble letters.

I used a spring to go around to make my hair 'cause I always wanted curly hair.

It was displayed in the town hall and it was such a hit.

I was excited that other people really loved it.

Immediately, the spark just took off.

[energetic music] I started doing three dimensional things, an old tin, like an old canister that's got a lot of wear on it.

I think somebody may have given me a box of old metal spice tins.

They make a really good base.

[energetic music continues] And I just took 'em to show my colleagues.

I didn't take them there for other people, but they sat on my desk.

And people, "Where'd you get that?"

"I made it."

[chuckles] "Can you make me one?"

So the Spice Girls became sort of the staple of my beginnings, and I thought, "Well, I'll make some more."

But then I started making them and then I had nowhere to put them all and I would just pile stuff on top of stuff and I couldn't find it.

So I said, "I've gotta have bigger space."

Put my house on the market in Glencoe.

That was enough of that.

I wanted to do something else.

[light music] I saw this house and the studio.

I thought, "Wait a minute, this looks like it was designed by me."

Smaller house, bigger studio.

That building is a 1900 oddly, mill house.

[door creaks] [light music continues] Luckily, the building has very high ceilings, so I can go all the way to the ceilings with all my things.

It's very organized.

Go in and just start imagining what these things could be.

So often though, it is based on what I acquired recently.

Often, people leave things on my porch.

[car swooshes] Go that way and reach for this one.

Well, I have to just let 'em speak to me.

And often, the head is determined by the size.

Not that I'm trying to make him anatomically correct, but I try to steer away from just spheres.

But I like to say, I fall back on that.

Because if you think about what you can find for a head, if they're rusty, all the better in my opinion, 'cause I like my guys to look like they weren't born yesterday.

[light music continues] This piece, the body is an old sifter, but I thought the patina on it and the little embossing was super.

And I love old clocks and gauges and I have a lot of them.

Clocks make really good faces anyway.

Oh, these are porch railings.

The feet are pieces of railroad track from a child's toy.

[light music continues] Well, one thing is I didn't know a soul in Hillsborough here, and I thought, "I've got to get myself known in this town if I'm gonna sell art.

Well, if I paint the building crazy, people will talk about it."

While I was working on it, people would stop by and go, "Oh yeah, somebody at the bar told me that, "Who's that crazy lady with the colorful house?"

So it worked.

[rooster crows] - Good morning.

- Morning.

How are you?

- I'm good.

- [Speaker] Hello.

- [Ann] Hey, how are you?

- [Speaker] Good, we're good.

[light music continues] - [Ann] People say, "Oh my goodness."

- I mean, at first you're like, "What?"

But then as you make your way through, everything makes sense and it's- - [Speaker] Absolutely.

- [Speaker 2] I believe that's called organized chaos.

It's just so wonderful.

[light music continues] - [Ann] For me, it's really fun to talk to the people that are interested in the work.

A spool, a coaster.

- [Speaker] Popsicle sticks, I love it.

- [Ann] They have multiple things that appeal to people.

This is an unusual piece because she has this ridiculously long neck, but that neck is part of this thing that already was this color with the red dots.

I had to have it, but then I thought, "I want it for a head."

Which again, I go searching for all my stuff for heads.

This one looked like a giant seed pod to me.

And I thought, "Well, if she's gonna be a flower gardener, she needs to have a compatible head."

I found little metal pieces that were shaped like flowers.

And then the grass is also green electrical wire.

[light music continues] - [Speaker] You guys are standing in her studio space right now.

- [Speaker] Yeah, I know.

It's amazing.

- [Speaker 2] Overwhelming.

- The first time I came here, I walked back here, and I said, "Is this for sale?

Is this for sale?"

And she's like, "No, this is my studio."

[laughs] But I wanted to buy all the things back here too, like this horse.

[light music continues] - [Ann] Being around people, talking with people is as interesting for me as making the art.

[light music continues] But I love the amount of time I spend per day by myself.

I love doing anything where you become so immersed in it that you lose track of time.

Marvelous.

I just decide and people say, "How do you decide?"

I don't know, I just, I look at it and sort of get an idea of what the guy will be like.

You know, do I like it?

Is there some part of it bothers me?

These are plastic.

I don't like to use plastic, but he does need a hat.

[chuckles] Oh, here's a choice.

[light music continues] Boy, the hats are just miscellaneous [chuckles].

Older one in here somewhere.

It's an old Vicks VapoRub cap.

Yeah, I like the look, but the color is just not quite right.

- [Speaker] What makes a good hat?

- Something with some personality or design or sometimes it's just the color or shape of it.

Oh, it's a wizard hat.

- [Speaker] I see all kinds of things that you can use as hats.

- Yep, look at that.

[light music continues] Find that one hilarious.

How about an army helmet?

Oh, but I think I see the perfect one.

I just said, "Color and design of that."

Perfect.

I think it's this one [light music continues] and it's gonna be called, And She Had Music Wherever She Goes.

[chuckles] [light music continues] On this one, I did start with this old cracker tin that somebody gave me.

When I was sitting on my table, I thought, "Oh, it looks like a drum major's hat."

Always thought being a drum major must be exciting.

So I said, "A drum major, he is."

These are cake decorator pieces that you put the icing in there and it comes out a little tip down here, and jello molds for his epaulets.

This one has cotton mill spindles, still has some of the cotton left on them.

- [Speaker] Yeah, you can tell you got into this one.

- I did and I thought it just... You know, again, he came out with a personality that I needed even without eyes.

[light music continues] The faces are the hardest thing I do.

It's a little thing of noses.

Things like hook and eyes.

Those little tiny things are wonderful.

Snaps, sewing things.

Yeah, I think that's a pretty decent nose.

Yeah, all sorts of just strange little hardware that I don't know what they are.

If I give her eyebrows, eyelashes, she'll be girl farmer.

[chuckles] [light music continues] Yeah, when I started putting the faces on, that's when they started taking on the individual personalities.

Oh yeah, see, that just makes her look cute.

People comment on the expressions.

[light music continues] I use a really soft wire that I twirl around for a mouth, because then you can make 'em smirk.

The personality is what's important to me is how they look like fun people.

Oh, and I think she's missing her ears.

[light music continues] Well, she's done.

[chuckles] [light music continues] I did think when I retired, I really did think I would just sort of kick back.

But I found after a week, I'm not good at kicking back.

I don't relax well, I have to be busy.

So I decided I would go, you know, into this full time and I've just enjoyed every minute of it.

And that's been 15, 17 years.

Oh, longer.

[chuckles] [light music continues] Then the box would be the next thing to carry.

Creating is, as I have discovered, it is such an essential part of me and my daily routine.

I'll do this until I can't do it anymore.

[light music continues] When you're required to write down how you want your label to be and such and such, I always put, "Figurative assemblage," because it's figures and assemblage, putting things together.

Oh boy, it's very wiggly.

But once I sort of thought about it, I went, "Oh, this is what I do is folk art."

- [Speaker] All right, what do you think of that?

- [Ann] Looks wonderful.

[light music continues] - [Speaker] Oh yeah.

- [Ann] Sorry.

[light music continues] The very first art I made, I remember it like it was yesterday.

[can rattling] My neighbor had the same birthday as me and I was six and he was 60 and he gave me a paint-by-number.

[light music continues] It was just an eye-opener for me.

I'd never seen paint before.

And since then, I can't remember a time that I didn't create.

[light music continues] I have the piece framed in my kitchen.

[chuckles] It's an old mill, strangely.

[light music continues]