RIGLEY SISTERS continued from 17
Ellen went to college in Missouri for two years and worked as a probation officer in Johnson and Brown counties for years before she and her husband, Jay, created and ran The Artists Colony Inn in downtown Nashville in the early 1990s. Ellen said she was working in a restaurant at the time but does not recall exactly how she got“ roped into” running the inn.
The couple loved antiques and decorated all the rooms with furniture from around the 1840s, including Shaker beds and handwoven, hand-dyed rugs.
They named each of the rooms after an artist.
The restaurant served home cooking, with dishes named after the artists, such as an Ada Shulz salad.
The inn and restaurant had as many as 60 employees. The couple sold the restaurant a little over a decade ago, in part because they were getting older.
“ I was tired of working day and night,” said Ellen, 75.“ The restaurant business is hard.”
Ellen still keeps busy, though, collecting antiques and paintings.
Both sisters stay involved in the Brown County art community. Ellen serves as president of the Brown Art Guild and is on
the board of the Brown County Historical Society. Joan has served on the Indiana Heritage Arts board.
Joan lived in Brown County for 18 years before moving to Arkansas with her then-husband.
When she was younger, her mother, who worked in the store seven days a week, would send her off with her father, often to deliver paintings.
She remembers going to the homes / studios of Amanda Kirby and Anthony Buchta.
“ Marie Goth, I remember taking her to the Hoosier Salon with daddy,” Joan said.
In Arkansas, she worked as a dental assistant and moved back to Brown County in 2001, in part to help take care of her father, who died in Nashville in 2009 at age 94.
Joan said that she sometimes wishes that the family had kept the arts supply store.
“ We loved the artists and being part of that community,” she said.
The family got out of the business in part because of competition from big box stores.
The sisters have kept— and even reacquired at auctions— some of their father’ s paintings. And while they don’ t paint much themselves, they have found other creative outlets to make use of the knowledge and skills they absorbed by interacting with the Brown County masters.
“ This whole place is nothing but flowers,” Ellen said, pointing through the windows of her home into her yard.“ My creativity is in my gardens.” •
20 Our Brown County March / April 2022