Thelma Hairston enjoys cooking so much that she can’t help but teach others how.

Hairston, who lives on Blackberry Road in Bassett, began her culinary education as a young woman about to be married. Her mother, the late Eva P. Price, cooked for her up to that point, and then taught her to cook to prepare her for marriage.

Don’t let the old fashioned, homey look of the ArtJam invitations and logos fool you.

This exhibit is wide open. An embrace of vibrant color and inviting texture awaits visitors to Piedmont Arts.

ArtJam is a collaboration of six female Virginia artists. Each has a distinctive style and medium, but the underlying compatibility of their work is revealed in the way Piedmont Arts Director of Exhibitions Tina Sell arranged the displays.

He has taken no formal art classes, but you could never tell by looking at Daniel Robertson’s “Evening Perch” or “Shiny Dipper.” They are among his paintings on display in the Lynwood Gallery of Piedmont Arts.

Robertson, who lives in Reidsville, N.C., began watercolor painting about 10 years ago. “I always wanted to paint that way (detailed),” the 39-year-old said, so one day he bought some supplies and started painting. “I just couldn’t stop once I started,” he added.

Scientists and gardeners have all sort of ways to create new types of roses and analyze familiar ones. They go to the extremes in laboratories and greenhouses to get just the right colors, fragrances and shapes — and we buy those varieties, then wonder why the roses in our back yards don’t look like the ones pictured on the packages.

Well, how about a rose that was studied and analyzed just by dropping it out in a field and seeing if it lived on its own? Would that one do well in your garden?