By Marcia Barnes
Guest Writer
“I never knew I’d wind up in financial management, but that’s what I grew into in Albany, Ga. I grew up in a farming area in Thomas County, 60 miles south of Albany, the town of Coolidge,” Margaret Windham said.
Coolidge has been birthplace of other notable people. Ken Terrell, a Hollywood stunt man and actor was born in Coolidge and Mike Keown, a former candidate for U.S. House of Representatives and Baptist minister.
Windham’s journey from Coolidge after graduating high school was a simple move to a sister and brother-in-law’s home in Albany. She was hoping to find a part time job. When she was hired on at Kaiser Chemical, she decided to stay.
“During those years at Kaiser many changes were taking place in the farming industry. Kaiser hired me in 1972 and during the years of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, Kaiser experienced even greater change in a major restructuring.
“My personal life was changing too. I married Buck Windham who owned his own business in Albany and when Kaiser closed its doors I went to Palmyra Hospital, a flagship hospital of Hospital Corporation of America.
“They had an opening for a receptionist at the hospital and I applied for the position. Their director wanted to hire me. The controller didn’t. I was overqualified, but a doctor’s wife went to bat for me, the hospital hired me, and the next 28 years with HCA was a journey. Three times, the hospital put me in the office of director of finance while they searched out a new director. People who filled the position either left or were let go. After the hospital’s third try, they permanently gave me the position. When the hospital was sold to the county I stayed for about 5 years before retiring.
“I worked, but I loved my domestic life of baking and sewing for my daughter.”
Those who know Windham find it strange that in all the time spent in Albany she never touched a watercolor brush or sketched a scene from a family vacation and never worked with wood.
Friends and associates who see the Windham who moved to the mountains know she also moves easily from medium to medium, from a two-dimensional painting to a three-dimensional wood turning.
“Every year we took a vacation somewhere and always a trip to the mountains. We looked every year for a place here and as we got older the search became serious.
“In 2010, we bought a house and some land and in 2015, we built a one-level home. The dream home came later. I retired April 29, 2016, we moved to Hiawassee on April 30.”
Never once in those years had Windham painted in watercolors or acrylic paints, printed cards, made wood turned pens or wooden vases. Windham said, “The want to and the desire were there.” Art became a reality when the couple moved to the mountains.
Buck wanted a lathe and wanted to work in wood. “Show me what you do,” I asked him and then I added an artist’s spin on my husband’s wood working.
“When Buck decided he wanted a computerized router my desire to create in wood became greater. I was a member of ArtWorks, an arts and crafts gallery in Hiawassee, so it was a place to display and sell pieces.
“While all of this was going on, someone who knew me and owned a business came with a quilt she’d sewn. She showed me a picture saying ‘this is what I want, will you make it for me?’
“That was my first barn quilt painting and I had some extra wood left over and created another one. When I put it on an Internet marketplace a lady in Asheville bought it. Then, her sister-in-law in Robbinsville wanted one for her cabin.
“So as ArtWorks was moving to a new location, I took three more in. More commissions kept coming, all barn quilt paintings.”
Leaning toward creating her own designs, Windham made one she named Mystery Star. It was 3-foot by 3-foot, black, red and white, the University of Georgia colors.
The artist’s decision to make a Georgia Bulldog barn quilt painting for her grandson was a natural next step. Creating a “G” on Microsoft word, Windham completed the entire design in a personal style. When it posted on Face Book, everybody who saw it wanted one.
Hilda Thomason, the Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds general manager saw it too. Thomason approached Windham about creating signs for Hamilton Gardens, the well-known rhododendron gardens located at the fairgrounds.
“More orders were coming in for barn quilt paintings of the “G” and I started getting bored. It was profitable, but I was painting the same thing over and over,” Windham said.
“Although I was terrified about the offer, I bought eight-foot pieces of wood and began sanding. It just so happened that in 2021, the fairgrounds became the manager of the gardens and its existing signs had copyright. The general manager needed new signs.
“Talk about pressure. I took out all my photos of rhododendrons and began. I was trying to create what they wanted and I’m my worst critique, but all three signs were accepted.”
Windham’s desire for perfection in what she does extends from the cakes she bakes to the Hamilton Gardens signs. One sign is visible from the first turn coming into the fairgrounds and the second, at the top of the hill. On the third sign, the stylized flower is enlarged and announces the gardens beyond it.
Windham says she hasn’t even thought about what she might create next. “I’m still perfecting the things I’m doing now, learning to play the guitar and piano and I bake for a local meat market. I didn’t plan for that either.
“Growing up in a rural place with eleven siblings, four brothers and seven sisters, I was in the middle. I watched my mother and there was nothing she couldn’t do. I learned so much from her and strive to make a difference in the lives of those around me just as she did.
Windham accomplished touching the lives of others in a positive way in her working days at the hospital in Albany. She received a First Humanitarian Award from HCA near the end of her career and in her involvement with the community, she helped with the March of Dimes and United Way campaigns.
Here, in Windham’s new home she volunteers at the fairground’s Music Hall, is a member of ArtWorks and the sheriff’s auxiliary. It’s not surprising Windham’s art is also touching lives near and far in the mountains.