Denise Sherman - a former reporter for the Eastern Wake News who spent four and a half years covering the town of Knightdale and eastern Wake County education - heard the town and Zebulon Chamber of Commerce co-sponsored art exhibits at town hall while she still worked for the Zebulon-based newspaper early this year.

"I thought it might be a good opportunity to show since at the time I was enjoying working in eastern Wake County and I had grown to know many people there," Sherman said.

Since Sherman first began painting and showing work four years ago her specialty became acrylic abstract painting, but not by choice, as she describes it.

She went on a church mission trip to Helena, Ark., and one of her projects was painting murals. She dabbled in painting as a child when her mother kept a supply of acrylic and watercolor paints around the house, but the art never stuck until her trip to Arkansas.

"I got a canvas and went out in my back yard and painted it, filtered through my imagination," Sherman said. "I started painting things I saw at my house. I painted my washing machine with clothes folded on them -- much more neatly than my clothes are actually folded. I let my imagination play and created something I liked with my dining room, my den, my back yard. Interiors are what I did more than anything else. It was just things in my life that I painted."

Good fortune landed her artwork in large venues throughout the Raleigh area.

The owner of ArtSource, Nancy McClure, stumbled across Sherman's art and became interested in her work, later deciding to put it on display. Other displays of Sherman's art have been shown at Little Art Gallery in Cameron Village and events through the Visual Art Exchange.

She entered pieces into a couple of VAE shows and her work was accepted for two of the group's monthly group shows and one of its art auctions, where one of Sherman's pieces won a third-place award. She was also chosen to be one of the four artists showcased in the VAE's exchange gallery in August 2010.

"I've had a lot of good fortune," Sherman said. "It was a creative, freeing experience. I didn't set out to become an artist. I was just having fun, and it helped me in my writing to not be so constricted and to trust my instincts. Having the validation, of course, was important to believing in it."

Until last week, Eclectic Garden in Raleigh and tarheel gallery .com were the only two places Sherman's could be found on display. She can now add Zebulon Town Hall to her list of venues for the next six weeks, as her exhibit in Zebulon runs until early January.

"It's really a great thing they're doing to let local artists show their work. There are things in eastern Wake County people are doing their neighbors ought to see," Sherman said. "I think everyone who has a talent likes to be able to share them with other people, and this was a nice opportunity to have."

A reception was held for Sherman's art Nov. 22, and the exhibit will remain open at Town Hall, at 1003 N. Arendell Ave., during the regular business hours of 8 a.m.-5 p.m. until Jan. 6.