From the Chapel Hill News

VALARIE SCHWARTZ

Forrest Greenslade is having the time of his life.

After a career as a scientist and manager, Greenslade retired to Fearrington and took on writing and public speaking.

Then his wife, Carol-Ann, dragged him out to the Chatham County Studio Arts Tour in November. By the new year, he was involved in a new career -- he has become a sculptor.

Greenslade, 62, said he came home after seeing the artists' studios thinking, "These people are having so much fun." Then he saw Martha Stewart on television mixing up peat moss to make planters.

"I could see that if you could mold it into something, maybe you could sculpt it," Greenslade said.

So Greenslade mixed peat moss with concrete, spread it over forms he made with wire and went to town, making frogs, pigs, dragons and other creatures for adorning a garden, patio or yard.

"It's more fun than anyone deserves to have," he said. "It's so different from anything I've ever done. I retired primarily to write, but I've spent more time sculpting than anything else. I'm enjoying it more than anything I've done."

Greenslade doesn't need a kiln and doesn't have any special equipment. He turned a potting shed into his outdoor studio and has let the right side of his brain run loose, creating not only "Forrest dwellers," as he calls them, but also creating clever names for each, such as "Frog Henge," "Sleeping Dragons Lie," a winking pig called "Fresh Ham," a collection of bugs on a stick called "Bouquet de Buggue" and a slew more.

"I'm an extremely lucky person," Greenslade said. "I've felt this enthusiasm about everything in my life. I'm just a lucky guy."

The stage may have been set for his shift in brain use after Greenslade suffered a heart attack in January 2001.

He was grounded for a month.

"It caused me to rethink, to change priorities and begin to explore other parts of my mind," he said. His only activities were some slow, short walks and reading.

"His first project was painting the bridge red," Carol-Ann Greenslade said.

The Greenslade property extends deep into the land beyond their home. Some distance behind the house, a Chinese-red bridge spans a dry creek bed. The bridge is of Asian design, and the shiny red paint makes it pop out from the beautifully planted and tended gardens around it. It sounds like Forrest Greenslade learned the meditative force of painting while out on the bridge.

Born in Endicott, N.Y., he studied biology at State University of New York, where he and Carol-Ann met.

They spent the first three years of marriage living in New Orleans, where he continued his education, receiving his master's degree and doctorate from Tulane. He was a postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at the Argonne National Laboratory before joining Ortho Pharmaceuticals of Johnson & Johnson and then Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.

Greenslade spent almost 10 years as the senior consultant for contraceptive introduction with the Population Council -- where he oversaw the worldwide introduction of two contraceptive devices -- followed by eight years as president of IPAS, a nonprofit agency dedicated to improving women's health by focusing on their reproductive health.

The career was rewarding, and Greenslade used some of what he learned from working with people to write "The Simple-Minded Manager: Cutting Through Your Work-Life Chaos." The book offers some sound -- and, yes, simple -- advice on organizing not only productivity in the workplace, but in one's life.

The book, published in 2000, utilizes the design talents of his daughter, Kathryn Greenslade Armstrong, and could be seen as a precursor to his new career, with the ideas of the book illustrated with a perky frog.

Greenslade's respect for trained artists is so great, he won't call himself an artist.

"I'm a 'tchotchkeist'," he said, having coined a word from the Yiddish word for "trinket."

Though Greenslade may not consider himself an artist, he was recognized as one and participated in the Second Friday Art Walk last week, during which he was seen hanging out with artists at Zodi Gallery in Carrboro.

"My guess is, everybody has creativity," he said. "As we go down life's path, we mask that creativity."

He has found his niche now and his left brain is taking a rest. Look for the tchotchkeist's work at Carolina Waterscapes on Airport Road, Zodi Gallery, Glazed Expectations on U.S. 15-501 south of Chapel Hill and the Potting Shed in Fearrington Village.

Click on the frog...