SOUTHPORT, N.C. — From the outside, it looks like an ordinary shed.
Inside, it’s where artist Katie Lewis finds peace and purpose.
“This is my art studio,” Lewis said.
She has always turned to creativity as an outlet.
“Always like to make stuff with my hands, you know, like since I was a kid. And I think it’s the idea of doing something and kind of being locked in on it,” Lewis said. “I can forget about the world here.”
As a child, she reached for a paintbrush. As she got older, she found inspiration anywhere she could.
“Whenever I started trying to get better at painting, I watched, like, YouTube videos. So I painted along with Bob Ross. I really like him,” she said with a laugh.
Like Ross, Lewis gravitated toward watercolors, landscapes, buildings, snapshots of serenity. One of her paintings captures the American Fish Company in Southport.
Katie Lewis is donating proceeds from her Southport painting to families of the shooting victims. (Spectrum News 1/Jordan Kudisch)
“My inspiration behind the painting was the sounds of the peacefulness that’s there. You know, I feel like with a lot of my paintings, that’s kind of what stems from like the feelings you get at certain places,” Lewis said.
At the time, she couldn’t have known how much that painting would come to mean.
“I feel like it captures the peace that maybe not many people find there right now,” Lewis said.
Saturday night, a gunman opened fire on the Southport restaurant from a nearby boat, killing three and wounding five others.
“I think especially for the people that were there during it and, you know, the families and stuff, I think that it may never feel like that. And it’s really sad, you know, because somebody can take that like precious place and turn it into something that it isn’t,” Lewis said.
She wanted to help.
“I couldn’t help the families in that way, but with the help of the community buying artwork, I’m able to give back,” she said.
Lewis started selling prints of her American Fish Company portrait, donating all proceeds to the victims’ funeral costs. That mission hits close to home.
“My dad passed away like less than a month ago and, on top of like, the emotion that comes from losing family members, you then have the payments for everything that comes after. And I wanted to try to help kind of a little bit with what I could,” Lewis said.
Her own grief pushed her to act.
“I think maybe if that had happened, no, it’s not the same situation, but losing someone hadn’t have happened to me like less than a month ago, I may, maybe not, I may have not been so quick to want to help. But yeah, it felt very personal. And I love Southport, you know, I love going there. I go there after work. Sometimes I just go there and walk, and I wanted to try to give back,” Lewis said.
Lewis has already sold out of her first run of prints. She is currently opening up 100 more prints for purchase after the high demand.
Jordan Kudisch
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