By Marc Munroe Dion
Herald News Staff Reporter
Fall River —
A good teacher keeps learning and Annie Prescott kept learning as she made her way through a 35-year career as an English teacher at B.M.C. Durfee High School.
What she’d been learning since 1998 was how to make jewelry, most of it from clay.
And, when she retired last month, she was ready to learn a little more.
Wednesday morning found Prescott moving into her new studio space at the Narrows Center for the Arts on Anawan Street in Fall River. The business is called Annie’s Artifax.
“I retired from Durfee on June 19,” said the 56-year-old Prescott.
She signed the agreement for the space at the Narrows eight days later.
Teaching inspired Prescott as an artist, she said.
“Art has always been something I loved,” she said. “It was my release when teaching was frustrating or difficult.”
She created out of her home in those years and she said she hoped the new studio space would give her a bit more “discipline.”
“I started to really like it,” she said of the jewelry making that began as a kind of relaxation therapy.
Liking it took her out into the world of craft fairs, mostly in this area, where she found a good market for her creations.
“Craft shows can be undependable,” she said. “The weather and now the economy.”
Prescott will still attend craft shows as an artist, but she’s glad to have her own space, and she thinks the Narrows is a perfect fit.
“I’m really excited about the Narrows,” she said “I know that the kind of people who come to the musical events here will buy my stuff.”
Annie’s Artifax will be open during all concerts and also Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.
Prescott’s jewelry is colorful and draws from a variety of influences worldwide.
“I have a couple of different focuses,” she said. “One is Asian and ethnic and I like to focus on faces and female figures.”
She also produces higher-end multimedia creations that will be offered for sale at the studio.
Prescott said her husband, Frank, a financial analyst, was a huge help in her decision to finally get a space of her own.
“He has been the inspiration for all of this,” she said. “He was the one who made me do a business plan and really encouraged me.”
Prescott said that 56 is young to retire, but she thinks, “teaching may be for the young.
“I started teaching when I was 20,” she said. “Fifty-six was the earliest I could retire.”
E-Mail Marc Munroe Dion at mdion@heraldnews.com.
Source: http://www.heraldnews.com/
