Karen Montgomery crafts a sculpture in the studio at her home in Brookeville, Md. After serving as a delegate and senator in the Maryland legislature from 2000 to 2016, she recently returned to her lifelong love of art. Photo courtesy of Robin Quinter

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Due to vision problems from macular degeneration, Karen Montgomery prefers to sculpt more abstract works. Photo courtesy of Robin Quinter

Most days you’ll find Karen Montgomery in a makeshift carport that she and her husband adapted into an art studio. There she wields hammer and chisel to bring forth sculptures from her ideas. She’s currently coaxing a large angel to emerge from a hunk of marble.

Montgomery, 83, has recently returned to her first love, art, following a 16-year stint in Maryland politics.

From 2000 to 2003, she served in the Maryland House as a state delegate from Montgomery County’s District 14. She focused on the environment, healthcare, support for veterans with behavioral health needs, women’s leadership, and assistance for individuals with developmental disabilities.

In 2010, she moved over to the Maryland State Senate, where she served until 2016, when she resigned due to worsening eyesight. “I couldn’t drive at night anymore,” she said regretfully.

The macular degeneration she suffers from is worsening, but she’s found some help thanks to a monthly injection that slows down the disease and offers respite.

Ever positive, Montgomery thinks her changing vision offers her new perspective and a different way to look at the world as an artist.

She even believes something similar was part of the genesis of Impressionism. “This is why many people — Matisse and others — painted in a blurry fashion, because their eyesight went. I look at some of [their pieces] now and think, ‘this is how I see it, too,’” she said.

Waiting for inspiration

Her vision problems may explain why Montgomery shies away from hyper-realistic pieces, preferring to create more figurative, abstract works.

Sometimes, she approaches a piece with no prior idea at all, choosing instead to wait for a brilliant inspiration to strike.

But she’s the first to admit she’s not always successful. She even displays some of the pieces she considers less impressive on the steps of an old staircase that she rescued from a dilapidated building across the street from her home in Brookeville, Md.

“The lousy pieces are there — like marching steps of failure,” she laughed.

But over the years, there have been many pieces of sculpture she’s proud of, and Montgomery recently displayed a number of them in a large exhibit that “took over” the Sandy Spring Museum. The show included works made of marble, bronze, wood, soapstone and other metals.

One of her favorite pieces, a marble Medusa-like lady with snakes for hair, was especially fascinating to her.

“Snakes have had different representations for different beliefs, both good and evil. They were considered sacred [by pagans], and then Christianity turned [snakes] into an evil thing. You could even say that Cleopatra used [a snake] as a ‘way out,’” she said.

An early love of the arts

From an early age, Montgomery was exposed to art.

“I grew up in a neighborhood in Baltimore during World War II. There was hardly any housing. You couldn’t buy bicycles. You couldn’t even buy butter,” she remembered.

She and her group of friends had to get creative to entertain themselves. “Goucher [College] threw out wonderful stuff we made vigorous use of. We became trash pickers as young kids. There were boxes of half-used crayons and pencils.”

She and her friends would often assemble stick figures, something that likely started her fascination with three-dimensional art, she believes.

She looks back on her childhood fondly, despite the difficult conditions. To escape the city heat, she and her friends would take refuge in the Baltimore Museum of Art.

“We were a bunch of dirty, scruffy mixed-race kids,” she laughed. “We’d go inside and wash our faces in the bathroom, take a drink from the water fountain, then lay on the terrazzo floor of the museum [to cool off].”

The kids were well-mannered, respectful and never touched any of the art, she said. The guards eventually got to know them, and allowed them to view the collections at their leisure.

“We’d walk around and see sculpture, often with our younger siblings as well. It exposed us once or twice a week to art, and it inculcated in us a respect for art. It was an education for many of us,” she said.

After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree from George Washington University, Montgomery taught art there for several years.

In the years before entering politics, she pursued a career in sculpting, while volunteering in various capacities for the Art Barn Gallery in Gaithersburg, the National Building Museum in Washington, the National Rehabilitation Hospital, Olney Theatre, Arts for the Aging and the Arthritis Foundation.

She also did volunteer work with organizations to advocate for women’s issues and for individuals with developmental disabilities.

More time for art

With her formal retirement from politics, she’s excited to have more time for herself, her family and her work.

“I loved [politics]. I did. But I also love getting up and being able to cook a fancy breakfast and not dashing out,” she said.

Montgomery also has more time to devote to her art now, which she said she had to keep separate from her political career.

“People don’t take artists very seriously,” she said sadly. “I have a very serious side, and I realized it was not going to enhance my serious political side to talk about my art.”

Montgomery still takes time to give back to the community, even with her reduced eyesight. For example, she volunteers to pick weeds at the garden at Friends House, a nearby senior community in Sandy Spring.

“Generally, I can still tell which are weeds and which aren’t,” she laughed.