Cortney Norman

My name is Cortney Norman and I am an artist! My favorite phrase is “Earth without Art is just.. Eh.” Art has been a very active part of my life since I could hold a pencil.  I doodled constantly. I re-told and re-illustrated my favorite fairy tales and cartoons into little stapled, neon papered booklets. I painted decorations on various things around the house for my mom. I created at my plastic easel in the kitchen while my mom cooked and cleaned, painting her bright and happy reminders of our lives with glitter paint. I won art contests all through my schooling, so it was no shock when I went into Marshall University in 2006 to major in Fine Arts. Professor Stan Sporny, who passed away before I graduated, was a larger-than-life mentor and opened my eyes to see like an artist. He literally re-taught me how to see, and how to use color the correct way. I graduated in 2010 with my Bachelors of Fine Arts, emphasis in painting. My specialty is portrait painting. I enjoy working with faces and all the details and unexpected color it takes to capture a likeness. Since I've graduated, I've done several commissions for family portraits. I hope to have my own studio and gallery in the future.  I praise God for the talent He’s given me, and I thank my parents and my husband for being so supportive.

Okay, now about the important part! The train! This train design I've rendered is made up of the first images that entered my mind when my boss sent me the ‘All Aboard! Artisans Express’ flyer. I've lived against train tracks my whole life, and I've watched coal trains blur by at any given hour. Even given all the negative attention coal, coal mines, and coal miners have gotten in recent years, I am supportive of coal and what it means to West Virginia. I felt some pride in it should be shown for a change. It is not an easy job! That formed my idea to paint a coal miner with a caged canary on one side of the old style model, in a West Virginia state colors pallet. Knowing the train would be displayed in Huntington, I felt some Marshall colors and something geared toward Huntington’s history was in order. That led to my molten steel and mold idea to come into play. Now add a pretty smoke sculpture and an interesting base to display it on, and we've got a work of art. All the better that the money from all of this will go to the Hoops Family Children’s Hospital. This was totally up my alley, plus I get my name out there in the public again. I call that a win-win! Please enjoy my train, titled “WV Proud.”

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