Member Spotlight Series: Gudrun Stone-Hughes

This month at DART, we're peeling back the curtain on our own beloved "woman of mystery," Gudrun Stone-Hughes. 

Gudrun is a lifelong artist and crucial contributor to the DART ecosystem, the primary operative behind our many social media accounts, and a board member of more than 4 years.

Initially, Gudrun was drawn into our orbit for three reasons: "Sarah; Art; Accessible."

Sarah Marks, Creative Director and founding member of the Doraville Art center, has a friendship with Gudrun that predates DART by decades, spawned by their mutual enthusiasm for contact sports. 

"I knew Sarah from roller derby since 2006," she explains, "and I loved the idea of creating or seeing art without having to go downtown. Doraville was within a 10 mile radius of my comings and goings."

Mixed media collage and narrative photography are Gudrun's areas of specialty. Some of her compositions are on continuous display in our gallery space, including a corresponding pair of graveyard portraits, Spectre of Our Love and Mimento Vivere. These meditative gothic works were initially conceived as part of an art show for East Atlanta's Graveyard Bar, in collaboration with Cory McBurnett.

"Spectre is an ode to my parents," Gudrun says of the evocative work, which features a woman in black lace communing with an otherworldly male figure over a headstone. "My mother is here and my dad is in heaven."

For Gudrun, the experience of art points entirely back to family, in many ways a birthright of the Harvey clan.  

"Art is my inheritance," she says, "passed down from my mother's father to each of us in uniquely different ways. Some of us can draw, some of us paint, some of us sing while others garden."

Carl Harvey, Gudrun's maternal grandfather, was a man of many artistic talents, most notably painting and carpentry.

"My grandaddy was someone special and it's an honor to have an inch of his talent. He built the altar for his church and the structures for Cookie's Corner, his little penny cookie grocery store that I grew up in."

Gudrun's mother kept that appreciation for and curiosity about artful living active in her daughter throughout her childhood. She recalls early, profound responses to artwork beginning with a Claude Monet exhibit in the 1980s.

"I remember being in awe of the queue. I also remember getting to the front and viewing San Giorgio Maggiore, or House on Parliament, and NOT being impressed. By strokes I remember visiting several times as an adult the VAN GOGH exhibit, and every time, Starry Night made me weep with how beautiful I found the colors and the brush work."

Art will never be a passive thing for Gudrun, and it's not something she wants others to be passive about, either. The goal and the challenge of her artistic practice is to make, as she puts it, an impact with images.

"I love for my photography to grab you and make you have envy for missing that particular moment. PARTICIPATE IN life. It's easy to shut yourself away. I get it, but get out there and use your senses. Create something every day. Or at least try to." This is, in fact, her mantra.

When asked what art touches in her own day-to-day, her answer is at once simple and far-reaching: "Everything. I see the world differently. My eyes are my viewfinders, and a lot of the images I create are the way I see everyday items or occurrences that other people may not notice from that viewpoint."

Today, as it was when she was a child, the bonds of community, family and art are foundational to her creativity, with family acting as the north star.

"Carl, Donald, Deborah, Dwight, and my two little birds, Parks and Elle;" these are more than the names of relatives, loved ones and children. They are the replenishing fuel behind her artistry and the grounding element of her life's work.

The link between love and creation is something Gudrun has found a shade of in the Doraville Art Center, too. Here, her belief that emotion, passion and color are the benefits of art on one's local community is exemplified.  

"DART fills a void," she explains. "Being able to come into the center and see so many like-minded women creating, congregating and holding space, it's really beautiful, and I'm glad I have that space in my life."  

A fierce champion of the transformative nature of the artistic and a true believer of our mission here at DART, we are changed, strengthened and improved by her contributions every day.