Becky Gillette – Eleanor Lux has long been one of Eureka Springs more admired artists because of her weaving, beading, jewelry making and being a mixed media artist. In addition to being one of the founders of the Eureka Springs School of the Arts, she and two friends also started the White Street Walk held as part of the May Festival of the Arts.
Now Lux been named the 2016 Arkansas Living Treasure, becoming the third person from Eureka Springs to be named by the Arkansas Arts Council. The program recognizes an artist who is outstanding in the creation of a traditional craft and has significantly contributed to preservation of the art form. An independent panel of craft and folk art professionals selects the recipient based on the quality of work, community outreach and overall contributions.
Lux is well deserving of the award, says fellow White Street Walk founder and artist Zeek Taylor. “I have been a friend and neighbor to Eleanor for almost thirty years and from day one I have been inspired by the endless dedication she has to her craft,” Taylor said. “She amazes me with her ability to produce innovative and strikingly beautiful artwork. Her work is fun, colorful, and finely crafted. She is truly a treasure.”
Lux was barely past the toddler stage when she knew she wanted to be an artist.
“There are people who at an early age know what they want to do and I was one of them,” Lux said. “So it is kind of handy because I never wondered. I was about four and was seriously into color crayons. It was just something I liked doing. Now I know I need to do it. It sort of centers me and calms me down to make things.”
She learned to sew at a very early age, and got very good at it. Her mother started taking her to Saturday school at the Memphis Arts School when she was only 12. “That was pretty amazing because I had some excellent teachers there,” Lux said. “I also taught young kids art so I could get extra spending money.”
In high school she was named the Tennessee State Sewing Champion. She graduated from Memphis State in 1961 with a degree in printmaking and history, then took her first weaving course at the Memphis College of Art. She went to work at a stained glass company where she did designs, primarily for church buildings, for ten years.
“Stained glass always fascinated me,” Lux said. “When I moved to Eureka Springs in 1970, I had two little girls and I thought I would do the stained glass studio myself. That doesn’t work with a three and a five year-old. So I quit that. I knew how to weave, and the Palace Bath Hotel hired me to demonstrate weaving on the weekends, which was perfect because the girls could hang out there. When the hotel closed in the winter, I produced and sold things made with my loom. They let me take the loom home, and I still have it. It is still my favorite loom.”
In 1974 she married Bob Wilson, who owns Bubba’s Barbecue. She recalls once finding a 130-year-old loom that was sitting in a mud puddle outside a junk store in Rogers. She paid for it with all the money she had on her at the time, $60 in grocery money. After she unloaded it from the car and told her husband, he said, “It was worth it. We’ll have potato soup this week.”
The Lux Weaving Studio is located in what was an old, vacant grocery store before she purchased it in 1978. The space has great ambiance with a molded tin ceiling, a wooden floor, and colorful weaving and beading supplies, in addition to the looms and spinning wheels.
Lux and Wilson are avid travelers, and have spent about a month in Mexico each winter for the last 30 years. For most of that time, they camped out on the beach to be close to the fishing that Wilson loves. More recently they purchased a home in Mérida, which she describes as a city plump with Mayan culture.
Lux takes her beadwork with her when she travels, and often ends up teaching. She has particularly enjoyed teaching in Mexico. She recently got back from Ghana, Africa, where she taught a bead class, and she has also taught in Mali, Africa.
“When I am beading, people will approach me and want to learn,” Lux said. “So I will end up giving them a class. It is just a neat way to really know people’s cultures. I’m trying to get a teaching job in Borneo next October.”
Lux dates the start of her fascination with beading back to taking a beading glass at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina.
“Then I understood that was what I wanted to do, weaving with glass,” Lux said. “It blends glass with weaving.”
The types of art she does include rugs, decorative wall hangings, chair covers, jewelry and much more.
“I just like to do everything,” she said. “I can’t seem to slow myself down to just one thing. But if it is not selling, you have to do something about that.”
She recalls that she, Zeek Taylor and Mary Springer, another local artist who attended the Memphis College of Art, met 26 years ago to discuss having an open house. The May White Street Walk was birthed, a street festival that attracts a big crowd.
“The whole neighborhood opens up and invites people to show in their homes,” Lux said. “It is not a huge moneymaker, but artists get their work out there, and it is fun to see everyone. Tourists like seeing so many local artists there. They get a feeling for what the town is like.”
Lux is also an avid gardener. “Mother was a gardener, so I had my own flowerbed at an early age,” she said. “There is something so peaceful and relaxing about walking through a garden. It is a peaceful, healthy exercise for me.”
The public is invited to a reception to honor Lux from 4-6 p.m. on Thursday, May 12, at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs. To reserve a seat, call (501) 324-9766 or email faye@arkansasheritage.org by May 6.
Other previous local recipients of the Arkansas Living Treasure award include woodworker, author and teacher Doug Stowe, and Larry Williams, who makes woodworking planes sold worldwide.
“We are the only town in Arkansas with more than one winner of the Arkansas Living Treasure award, and now we have three,” Lux said. “The majority of people here are artists.”
Photo by Becky Gillette