A Heritage of Finger-painting The focusing and refinement of an artist's way of seeing always has a degree of complexity to it, and only rarely do single influences take hold the way one did for Parks Reece. You could say this single influence was really two, and as it turned out they were both women. One was his mother, Gwyn Finley Reece, and the other was her mentor, Ruth Faison Shaw. They were close, they were very serious artists, and to the young Parks they made it clear that he was one of them, and that he too would always be free to see things the way he liked. Having no notion of possibility in mind, he learned from them for certain he could have a future in visual expression if he wanted it. And fortunately for us, he did. Read on to hear what Parks has to say about his late mother and enjoy some of her finger-paintings: My mother, Gwyn Finley Reece, was an artistic child, always drawing, painting and acting in little plays. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying Drama and Art. Each summer her job was acting in the popular outdoor pageant, "Unto These Hills". One of her fellow actors was classmate and friend Andy Griffith who went on to become the famous sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina. Page 1| Page 2 | Page 3