Painting new paths: Florence couple share their artistic journeys

By Chelsea Retherford | Living 50 Plus

When Donna Steele urged her husband, Kurt Vetters, to unplug from the stressors of his career and take a retreat with her to North Carolina, she didn’t know he’d return, paintbrush in hand, with a passion that would reshape his plans for retirement.

What she did know — from her own artistic journey — was how life-changing it could be to finally make space for creativity.

Today, the couple shares studio space and a late-blooming discovery of their creative voices, but on canvas and on the page, their paths are distinctly their own.

While Vetters blends his newfound joy in painting with his longtime passion for history, Steele is rediscovering her voice through poetry and finding new inspirations for her paintings.

Together, they’re building community around the arts scene in Florence through their individual projects.

Vetters, who was born in Sheffield and grew up in Birmingham, met Steele when they were both in school, but they wouldn’t become a couple until 30 years after graduating from Huffman High in 1979. When they reconnected at their class reunion in 2009, Steele said they “fell pretty hard, pretty quickly.”

“It was nice because we were both from Alabama, and we had this connection,” Steele said. “We knew a lot of the same people, and we even went back to when he was in Little League and I was a cheerleader. We just didn’t know each other at that time.”

The couple hit it off but by 2015, living in Greenfield, Indiana, at the time, they began to feel some of the strain from Vetter’s 40-year career in medical sales.

“It was a very stressful job,” Vetters admits. “I mean, I couldn’t even take a vacation without the phone ringing or a problem coming in. Something was always interrupting. So, about 10 years ago, Donna said, ‘We’ve got to get you away.’”

Get away they did, to the Blueridge Mountains of North Carolina, where Steele had found a two-week immersive workshop in watercolors.

“It was less about getting Kurt to become a painter and more about getting him away from technology,” Steele recalled. “I felt like technology had really invaded our lives, and it was causing a lot of stress. You know, being in the mountains, you don’t get a good signal. He didn’t take a laptop or anything like that, so that’s really why I suggested that trip. I think it was a real revelation for Kurt.”

Vetters, who had sketched and doodled as a child, abandoned that sense of creativity as he grew older. While attending the workshop, something had reawakened inside of him.

“I fell in love with it,” he said. “I couldn’t stop painting. I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of little watercolors since that retreat. Now, I’m no Picasso, but I love doing it, and I have a lot of fun with it.”

Steele’s creative journey began much earlier.

After earning her degree in interior design, she worked for about 10 years in construction and design. While she enjoyed the artsy side of her career, she also realized she wasn’t chasing her true passion.

In search of a creative outlet that could also sustain her financially, she found a love for sculpting, pottery and, on occasion, painting.

“I knew I was an artist in my heart, and I knew that I didn’t want to be in corporate America,” she said. “I knew that I needed to be able to make a living as an artist quickly, so I made many different types of things. I took them to shows, and then I needed to figure out what really resonated with people. Then I developed that concept further.”

Her career in ceramics took off, but Steele could feel her creativity waning after about 12 years.

“By the time I ended that career, I was so done with it because it was a factory. It took the joy out of it,” she said, adding that although she was experiencing some burnout at the time, she’s grateful for the lessons she learned from taking up pottery.

“I was in my early 30s, but my family gave me 100% support, because I think they knew the struggle I had. I was trying to be a square fitting into a circle, you know? I really found my voice and I found my place when I became an artist.”

After earning her master’s degree, she worked as a high school librarian for about two years before she met and married Vetters. While she too had abandoned her craft, she never fully gave up her love for the arts.

Not only had she been an advocate for the arts in education through her work as a librarian/ She often collaborated with English, math and science teachers on projects that fostered creative and critical thinking skills among students in their classrooms, but after she and Vetters made the move north, she rediscovered her love for writing and poetry.

“Growing up, people told me I should be a writer, but I didn’t take them seriously. I didn’t take myself seriously,” Steele said. “I think I’ve always wanted to express something — myself, primarily — and you know, I love to write about contemporary issues.”

Around 2014, Steele became a contributing writer for the Greenfield Daily Reporter, often writing on social and women’s issues and commenting on controversial agricultural practices in her neighborhood.

In 2017, she was awarded first place in “Best General Commentary” by the Hoosier State Press Association for her work with her local newspaper. She continued to write for the publication until she and Vetters moved back to north Alabama to be closer to Vetter’s parents amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

At her new home in the Shoals, Steele continued to pursue writing. She had a short story, “Exhale to Ascension,” published in a literary journal by Bluewater Press, and she and Vetters are regular contributors to “theStudio,” a biannual creative journal published by Robert Rausch, a local photographer and professor at the University of North Alabama.

Steele eventually found her way back to painting. At times, she has even found inspiration for her canvas through her written words. One such work, “Unbecoming,” started as a poem before she reinterpreted the piece as an abstract painting.

“It was about a woman and what is considered ‘unbecoming,’ and how women really need to unbecome the things we’ve been relegated to,” she said, adding that in her rediscovery, she’s found a new joy and purpose in her work, whether that comes from writing or painting.

“I have the privilege now to create something just for myself, and to let it stand on the merit that I give it,” she said. “I notice a lot of my poetry is centered around social justice themes, and I don’t know, just the unfairness of life sometimes. To me, if I can comment on that through a poem, an article, or whatever, I’m really saying something. That’s where I am right now. I don’t want to just make pretty things. I want to be able to say something with my words and my art.”

Of her recent projects, perhaps the one Steele is most proud of is her spearheading a monthly poetry circle in Florence. The first Open Mic Night was held in October 2024 and has continued every first Tuesday of every month at the Kennedy Douglas Arts Center’s Southhall House.

“I’m really excited about the community that is building around Open Mic Night,” Steele said. “I had attended a poetry reading by Seven Points Press before I approached Florence Arts and Museums Director Brian Murphy about holding a regular poetry night. I was so inspired by that. I just thought, it’s time that this is a more regular feature in Florence.”

At the event, attendants first hear poetry by an invited guest — someone who has been published and recognized for their work — then everyone in attendance has the opportunity to share their own words, Steele said.

“We want to start with someone who we know has some chops, because we want people to want to come back,” she said. “Then we open it up to people who are new to poetry, or maybe they’ve been writing forever but, you know, they’ve hidden their work in their desk drawer. So, then it’s just wide open. Anyone from any stage in their poetry writing is welcome to participate. It’s very open, and it’s familial. There’s a lot of encouragement.”

Steele said she’s seen lots of area poets and artists blossom through that encouragement.

“It’s nice to watch that happen. We’ve all gained confidence because it’s such a non-judgmental environment. Everyone feels safe to stretch,” she said.

As she found new footing in the arts in the Shoals, Steele said she’s also been overjoyed to watch her husband’s own self-discovery as he continues to flourish as a new artist.

“I think what I find the most interesting about both our journeys is that we both paint so differently,” Steele said. “We each have our own ways of expressing ourselves, and those do not overlap at all. He’s going for realism and historical representation whereas I come to the canvas from a more emotional place. My work is abstract. We have very different approaches, but it’s wonderful to talk about it and explore that together.”

Painting and history

When Vetters returned home to the Shoals in 2020, he continued to spend most of his free time pursuing the hobby in watercolors that he’d picked up from the artist’s retreat about five years prior.

He also found himself developing friendships with neighbors and colleagues who shared his interest in American Civil War history.

“As I got to know these guys, I also got to know some of these stories from the Civil War, specifically in this area, that nobody really knows about. I found a niche,” he said.

It was a familiar forte. Vetters actually found that niche as a college student when he joined the National Guard.

After he’d been assigned to an armored unit in Oneonta, about 40 miles northeast of Birmingham, he joined members of his unit and even some of his commanders who held Civil War reenactments every other weekend.

“I loved it. It was right up my alley,” Vetters said. “This would have been in the early 1980s, and my grandmothers here in the Shoals went over to Corinth (Mississippi) and bought my kit. That experience gave me the ability to transpose. I was able to internalize the things like living outside, sleeping cold, you know, walking long distances, and that gave me insight. I think that’s what really allowed me to write those two books.”

In 2012, Vetters published his first novel, “Confederate Winter,” a fictionalized account of two of his ancestors, father and son soldiers who fought on opposing sides during the war. About six years later, Vetters was writing his second novel, “Freedom Spring,” which was inspired by another true tale from the Civil War.

“I had heard Peggy Towns, who is a great local storyteller and historian, speak about her ancestor, who was enslaved. Her ancestor then joined the Union Army. There were 7,000 Alabamians of color and 3,000 white Alabamians who had joined the Union Army, and learning all that gave me the nugget to write the second work of fiction, which is based on Peggy’s ancestor.”

Throughout his life, Vetters has continued researching true stories, especially tales local to his hometown, that took place during that period of U.S. history.

“To me, and to people who have this defective gene like I do, we love this,” he said with a laugh. “We love researching these stories. Ask anybody that does genealogy, someone who is a true crime reporter, or someone who is a detective, finding those nuggets and then chasing after truth is always exciting.”

After his move to Florence, it didn’t take Vetters long to find a way to marry his two passions, painting and Civil War research. He said he was motivated mostly by the circle of friends he’d found who were as dedicated to keeping many of those historic accounts alive.

“When you’ve already got really talented researchers and writers and speakers, how do you find your place in that group? Well, nobody was painting,” Vetters said. “So, I started doing paintings to find my place in this group, and it’s just taken off from there.”

Inspired by the late painter David Greenspan, who earned national fame for his Civil War battle illustrations in the 1960s, Vetters took up similar work. He collaborated with local historian and author Greg Gresham to begin painting battles that took place around the Tennessee Valley.

Shifting from watercolors to acrylics and armed with a magnifying glass, Vetters said it can take months to complete a painting like the one hanging in his foyer that depicts one of the largest battles to occur in the Shoals.

The painting offers a bird’s eye view of the calvary charge that took place near the historic Hanson property — the Hanson House, once located just north of present-day U.S. 72 near Locust Shores, once served as headquarters for Union Gen. F.B. Blair. The owner of the home at the time had two sons serving the Union under Blair’s command.

“I struggle sometimes, but I’ve also been a Civil War modeler,” Vetters said, adding that the painting blended his scale model skills with a little cartography as well.

“Probably 12,000 men fought at this battle over Little Bear Creek for over two days,” he added, pointing out tiny details mapped out on canvas. “This is how meticulous the research can get. I called the (Lauderdale County Extension Office) and talked to our Extension agent, who is also a little bit of a historian, and I asked him about how much cotton would still be in those fields at that time of year. Then I tried to depict that in this picture.”

That particular painting is one in a series that will be featured in a Tennessee Valley Civil War Trail being developed by the Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area. Soon after Vetters began working with Gresham to illustrate historic scenes from around the Shoals, he said Gresham enlisted him for the project.

“Dr. Carolyn Barske with the National Heritage Area, Clayton Davis and Jordan Collier with the Lauderdale Public Library, Greg Gresham and a few other guys were already building the plans for this trail,” Vetters said. “They had submitted a grant to start the Civil War Trail, but the missing component was an artist. Well, in walks me. I have just enough skillset and just enough hutzpah to say, yeah, I could do that.”

Vetters has been commissioned for six paintings, which will appear as prints alongside brief historical accounts of the engagements depicted in Vetters’ paintings at the sites where the battles occurred around the Shoals.

“The hope now is that when people walk by there, they will know the story. It’s a different way of telling those stories,” he said. “It’s compelling. Art just does that for you.”

He doesn’t plan to stop at six paintings, whether the MSNHA commissions additional illustrations or not.

“This is my calling. I see it as my mission. There are so many stories left to tell,” he said.

After retiring in April, Vetters has more time to dedicate to his paintings, but he’s also making time to further his education. Following in the footsteps of his mother, who earned a fine arts degree after 60, Vetters is pursuing a master’s in public history from UNA.

“I have a shining example of how fulfilling your retired years can look like because of my mom,” Vetters beamed. “I’m still young. I (turned) 64 in May, and can still contribute greatly, so I plan on doing my fair share through these paintings. I know it’s going to take years, but I’m trying to couple that knowledge in public history with art to better understand how to tell these stories.”

Vetters and Steele both relish chasing new dreams and even reflect deeply on the significance of picking up new hobbies at their age.

“I don’t think it’s ever too late,” Steele said. “I would say, first of all, you have to be aware of what’s going to bring you that joy, and then you find ways to incorporate it into your life. You don’t have to be an expert at whatever that is. As long as you’ve got breath in you and you’ve got the will, you can start. Just do it. Get started.”