Southern Indiana Living Magazine - July/August 2024

Artists of Southern Indiana
12 • July/Aug 2024 • Southern Indiana Living
“Autumn Fire,” a watercolor by Cathy Hillegas // Photo by Cathy Hillegas
A Magician with a Brush
Students enrolled in Cathy
Hillegas’ advanced watercolor
class at Arts Alliance of
Southern Indiana (AASI)
on Market Street in New Albany are
grateful to be there, learning with a
Master.
Advanced student and artist
Judy Wasson summed up her experience:
“My skills have taken a leap
forward under Cathy’s guidance.
She is a generous and constructive
teacher who brings out each student’s
unique gifts.”
A former student and artist,
Cathy Thorpe, saluted Hillegas’
talent: “She is a magician with a
brush.”
For Hillegas, teaching is as rewarding
as painting. The two activities
do not compete in her life. “In
order to teach, I have to learn,” Hillegas
said, “so teaching pushes me
to grow as an artist. It is also gratifying
to watch my students move
forward. When a student sells a
work or gets accepted into a show,
I am elated, proud of their achievement.”
The classroom space at AASI
appeals to Hillegas, who often
paints there after class.
“The light is first-rate,” she
said. “There is a monarch garden
on the grounds that I have often
photographed and painted, and it
is quiet.”
Hillegas has been teaching
watercolor painting classes for 24
years. She began teaching at Preston
Arts Center in New Albany in
2000.
“I was invited to teach the
same watercolor class in which I
had been a student,” Hillegas said.
When that business closed 12 years
ago, she taught at the Mary Anderson
Center for the Arts at Mount
St. Francis and other venues before
settling at AASI.
Painting is not Hillegas’ first
career. She pursed counseling, interpreting
for the deaf and writing
in her younger years. But painting
and drawing were always part of
her life.
“Both of my parents loved to
draw and paint and encouraged me
to do the same,” she said.
The story of how she turned
back to art and became a full-time
artist is fascinating. Her mother
had been captivated by a watercolor
painting of a mill, offered for
sale at an art show at Spring Mill
Park. Hillegas, then around 37, secretly
purchased the painting as a
Christmas gift for her mother. As
she waited for Christmas to arrive,
she studied the artwork.
“I decided that I wanted to
learn to paint like that; it was a powerful
feeling,” she said. When Hillegas
gave her mother the gift, her
mother offered, in return, to pay for
the two of them to take watercolor
classes. “After those classes,” Hillegas
said, “I was hooked.”
Within a few years of that first
watercolor class in 1993, Hillegas
Watercolor artist Cathy Hillegas
Story by Judy Cato
Photos by Lorraine Hughes (except where noted)
began winning contests and awards
and was invited to exhibit her work
in some prestigious art shows.
In 2020, her painting “Rise
Up” was accepted into the National
Watercolor Society’s 100th International
Exhibition. In 2021, her work
“Autumn Fire” was accepted into
the 101st exhibition, only this time
she received the Winsor & Newton
Award and was granted signature
status in the National Watercolor
Society.
“Rise Up” is a painting of bare