Creative confidence: County’s Krena Poole wins art challenge

In the creative world, talent and passion work hand-in-hand to form art, but often times external forces converge on a person’s life and affect their art. Times of incredible happiness or extreme hardship can manifest themselves through someone’s paintings or written word. Franklin County’s Krena Poole has learned how to harness all of these factors when creating her art, and a recent accomplishment has encouraged her to continue doing so.

Poole has a list of goals she is constantly working toward, and one of those was placing in the reader challenge presented by Quilting Arts Magazine. In the June/July issue, she will see that goal realized when her art quilt square is published alongside nine others that have been selected from submissions from all over the world.

“I’ve always liked the magazine. I’ve entered these contests before, and they really challenge your mind. For this one, you had to create something that you saw out of your window,” Poole said.

For Poole, that “something” just happened to be a birdhouse.

Recently, Poole and her husband moved back to Russellville into what used to be her grandparents’ house. In the backyard are several birdhouses that her grandfather made. So, she used one of them as the subject of her creation, combined with some leftover scraps from one of her great-grandmother’s projects and the surge of inspiration their new living situation had created, to design her art quilt square.

“It reflects how I was feeling at the moment,” Poole said. “I was happy, so I used bright colors. I’m leaving the dark behind and going toward the light.”

The quilt square was the first piece of art she created when they moved into the house that her grandfather built. He also built the barn Poole is transforming part of into a studio.

“I feel a deep connection to this house. It’s like they’re looking down on me and encouraging me,” Poole said.

Encouraging people is part of what Poole said she wishes to accomplish with her art.

“I’m all about taking the negative and turning it into a positive,” she said. “It’s a matter of pushing yourself and stepping outside of the norm.”

One of her next goals is to get her studio up and running so she can not only use it to create herself but also host classes and help others find their creative confidence. Poole works with a little bit of everything, from painting to sewing to photography, and she said she wants to help people find their niche and have fun with it.

“I plan on succeeding more than failing, and to do that you have to surround yourself with positivity,” she said.

Winning the Quilting Arts Magazine challenge has encouraged and motivated her to push forward with her goals and not give up, and living in her grandparents’ home has provided her with an abundance of positive inspiration.