What is art?

Is it painting? Sculpting? Is it designing light fixtures, furniture, and waterfalls? For Audwin McGee, it is all these and more – for him, art is simply a way of life.

Florence native and now Tuscumbia resident Audwin McGee is a household name in the art community, both locally and across the country. His pieces have appeared in galleries in Sante Fe, N. M. and in Aspen, Colo., and he was featured in the February issue of “Food & Wine” magazine as a notable Southern artist, along with several others from this area. But McGee’s work reaches far past art enthusiasts and touches us here in the Shoals with his soulful contributions to the place he calls home.

If you’ve visited Spring Park in Tuscumbia, you’ve seen for yourself the magnificent waterfall that makes the park unique to the Shoals. McGee, while working for Harvey Robbins to help restore downtown Tuscumbia, designed and oversaw the construction of that picturesque addition. It is the largest man-made natural rock waterfall in the world.

McGee worked for Robbins for about four years, and during that time, he designed and built the waterfall and the kids’ reading cave inside Cold Water Books. He also designed the interiors of the Pilot House, the Palace, Audie Mescal, and Regazza Italiana, which is now Frank’s Italian Restaurant.

“I’ve tried to incorporate my art into my architectural and interior designs,” McGee said.

And he has done just that. The charming light post outside the Palace was his creation, and he not only designed the light fixtures in the Regazza building, but he and his fiancee, Sandi Stevens, handmade them, as well.

There is more to McGee, however, than his remarkable architectural and interior design talent. He is a multi-media artist whose pieces include paintings, furniture, bronze casting, and steel sculpture. But of all of his abilities, painting is the medium that has his heart.

“If I could do anything, I would paint,” McGee said. “I love selling a painting more than anything else because it’s more personal.”

McGee has no formal training, but has loved art, especially drawing, his entire life.

“I was in Wyoming on vacation with my parents when I was 8 or 9 years old, and we went to an art gallery,” he said. “I saw a painting of a buffalo in a snowstorm, and I remember thinking, ‘I wish I could do that.’”

But McGee didn’t really try his hand at fine art until after college when he bought his first paintbrushes and began painting on and off. Soon, he moved on to sculpture and designing furniture, and when word of his work got around, he was making commission pieces for people across the Southeast. He began doing architectural and interior design about six years ago, and during that time, he has helped paint a new face on Tuscumbia.

Last year, McGee ventured into yet another area of artful design to an idea known as Kurtz and Marlow, which is a line of items and design themes geared toward men. McGee wants to be able to help men make their homes and offices tastefully masculine.

“I have hopes for Kurtz and Marlow to become a place for men to be able to decorate their space, as well as a place to buy gifts for them, and designers can buy for their male clients,” McGee said.

By the end of April, McGee hopes to have his Kurtz and Marlow line available at Cassetta Gallery Fine Art and Framery, which Stevens owns.

Included in the collection will be men’s items, such as old-style razors from Scotland with brushes made of badger hair, men’s vintage clothing and furniture, including leather smoking chairs from England.

Also available will be unusual items from McGee’s travels around the world, such as cufflinks, ashtrays and crystal decanters.

The Cassetta Gallery also has McGee’s paintings and sculptures for sale, including pieces he created on trips to Africa and other countries. Stevens is supportive of his art, as well she should be – it’s what brought them together.

“She [Stevens] graduated from UNA with a fine arts degree, and casting is her thing,” said McGee. “I used to have a shop on Highway 72 in Tuscumbia, and Sandi would come over and I’d help her cast things.”

When McGee is not busy creating, he’s working with other local artists, including Billy Reid and Natalie Chanin on the annual Alabama Adventure Weekend, which celebrates Southern life and is held in the Shoals.

Last year, participants visited W.C. Handy’s and Frank Lloyd Wright’s homes, Fame studios and ate at the Hollywood Inn.

This year’s theme is food, and scheduled to attend is well-known chef and owner of Highland’s Bar and Grill in Birmingham, Frank Stit, as well as the Kitchen Sisters from National Public Radio. The event is scheduled for the last weekend in April.

McGee has built an impressive resume, but he remains focused on the future.

He is in the process of designing several furniture pieces made of heartpine, which is the actual heartwood of the tree and is hard to come by, that he hopes to offer to other designers. His daughter, Mareth, is 19 years old and a student UNA, and she is planning to go into some type of art. He and Stevens have plans to wed in September in Sante Fe.

While McGee may be a jack of all trades of sorts, he is undoubtedly a master of art. Would he say so? Probably not, because he is charmingly unassuming. When asked to describe himself, he says with a shrug:

“I like to hunt and fish, and I like to go to the opera.”