SOUTH BEND — Catherine McCormick used to put pen to paper while studying journalism in college.
Today, the evening instructor of pastel painting and drawing at the South Bend Museum of Art teaches about the different types of pastels and paper textures her students can use to tell their latest visual story.
McCormick, who has taught as SBMA since she moved from Phoenix to Granger in 2000, participated in several shows and organized some pastels-only exhibits during her early years in the community. Then, in 2006, she founded the Northern Indiana Pastel Society, which has the “Northern Indiana Pastel Society 20th Anniversary Exhibition” up now through July 12 at SBMA.
The society holds meetings in February, April, June, August and October with programs that include guest speakers, slide shows and demonstrations.
It members’ work is currently displayed in the Crowley Community Gallery of the local art museum. This year, the 20-year milestone exhibition is “a special showcase,” McCormick said. The exhibition is juried by South Bend artists and husband-and-wife art professors Bill Tourtillotte of Indiana University South Bend and Julie Tourtillotte of Saint Mary’s College, and features 37 works by 34 pastel society members.
But the gallery itself has more than four walls. In the center of it stands a glass display case that McCormick said is intended to educate visitors and passersby about the craft of working with pastels.
“People come up and don’t know what pastels are, or they think of powder blue, baby pink and meshing colors,” she said.
Since founding the pastel society in South Bend in 2006, McCormick has strived to debunk those common, surface-level notions and help her students and other museumgoers of the area define what art means to them.
“My feeling is that everybody can do art if they have time,” McCormick said, “and that’s the real determining factor.”
Classes draw multiple generations
Her weekly class sessions are made up of a multi-generational group of pupils — all with varied backgrounds, inspirations and degrees of skill.
Barbara Gordon — “like Batgirl” — works fulltime, but she studied art in college and enjoys the opportunity presented by the class to immerse herself back into the field of study.
“This is a nice way for me to carve out time to work on my art and to get some good feedback from Cathy, too,” she said.
Pastels — made from ground pigments and blended oftentimes by hand — can get messy. But with young kids at home, that is nothing new to Gordon. In fact, it appeals to her.
“It’s very immediate, and it’s very tactile, because you can use your fingers,” she said. “So you have direct contact with your media and the paper — which I find to be more stimulating than a paintbrush or a pencil.”
Similarly, Indiana University School of Medicine student Akilah Stewart said that, to her, the pastel classes are a nice “brain break” while earning her postdoctoral degree.
“I come from the lab, and I just change focus,” she said.
Stewart — a steward of environmental biology — said she is keen to use the pastoral medium to paint mosquitos, thus overlapping two of her deepest interests. But while working on shading a bowl of tomatoes June 16, Stewart said, “ I always like to paint fruit people give me as a memory of the things that somebody gave me from their garden. This is fruit from someone’s yard.”
She is certainly not the only one in the class who paints to keep memories alive.
Sisters Mary Hay and Denise Richards — “like the actress” — are daughters of award-winning pastelist and South Bend native MaryAnn Ross. Hay said she first joined the class “about four or five years ago” and found she liked pastel work much better than any other art medium she had tried at that time, including oil painting and watercolor.
“I just fell in love with” pastel work, Hay said. “I like it because it’s easy to blend the colors, and you can layer the colors a lot, and I really, really like it the best out of all three” mediums.
Richards later joined her sister in the class in 2023 when she was newly retired and “looking for something to do.” When their mother died in August of that year, Richards said, she found one of Ross’ unfinished paintings and brought it to the class to finish it in her memory.
Despite having their artist stations next to each other, they said no rivalry exists between the sisters.
“Our styles are so different. [Hay] does detail, and I just whoosh,” Richards said, gesturing to throw it all on the canvas. “Mary’s [paintings] are more like mom’s.”
But, as Hay put it, the real reason any of the students attend the class is “to be just as good as Cathy,” a statement seconded by every student in the room.
The class is currently beginning its six-week hiatus for summer but will resume in the fall. It is open to everyone.
On exhibit
● What: Northern Indiana Pastel Society 20th Anniversary Exhibition
● Where: South Bend Museum of Art, 120 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., South Bend
● When: through July 12
● Hours: noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays; open until 8 p.m. the first Friday of each month
● Cost: free
● For more information: Call 574-235-9102 or visit southbendart.org or nipastelsociety.org/events.
Email South Bend Tribune summer 2026 intern Katherine Hill at KTHill@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Northern Indiana Pastel Society in South Bend celebrates 20 years
Reporting by Katherine Hill, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
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By Katherine Hill, South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
