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Alice Green Thornton was born in 1903 in Meekers, Oklahoma.  At an early age her teacher recognized her talent for art and encouraged her  in the subject.  She received a bachelor’s degree and was offered a position in the Art Department of East Central State College in Ada, Oklahoma.  Her husband was instrumental in her desire to learn more in  the area of weaving.

In 1953 she interviewed for a teaching position at Troy State University in the Art Department.  She and her children moved to Troy in 1953 and spent the next 18 years teaching art at Troy State.  She retired in 1971 and began volunteering her services and expertise in art at the Pike Pioneer Museum. 

This article and event occurred in 1977.

The City of Troy Council on the Arts and Humanities will sponsor an exhibition of the art work of Alice Thornton in the Farmers and Merchants Branch Bank on Park Street.  The show will be from February 15 to 29 and displays will include hand weaving and watercolor painting.

Mrs. Thornton has two looms at home, one now threaded in Valley Gorge, dogwood pattern, and the other Bronson lace.  She also demonstrates hand weaving at the Pike Pioneer Museum on the huge old four harness, overhead loom, threaded in a colonial overshot pattern named Honeysuckle.  The articles shown in the exhibit will be from these looms.

Mrs. Thornton studied weaving while teaching art at John Brown University.  While there, she received a life membership to the Arkansas Weavers Guild, a national recognition of her craft.

The painting in the exhibition includes a new series of pen and ink drawings finished in water color for framing.  The subject matter for the small paintings are items of nostalgic nature found in the Museum and some of the pioneer buildings on the grounds.

They are on sale at the Museum Gift Shop and by the Nineteenth Century Club.  Other paintings are scenes about Troy and the most recent one, is a house portrait of Bill Murphree’s home on College Street.

Mrs. Thornton has won many awards in water color.  One of her paintings was selected to hang in a permanent exhibit of Southern artist’s work in the First National Bank of Birmingham.

The public is invited to visit the exhibit during the regular banking hours.

All of these articles can be found in previous editions of The Troy Messenger.  Stay tuned for more.  Dianne Smith is the President of the Pike County Historical, Genealogical and Preservation Society.