When Kathy Hodge decides to make a series of paintings on a particular theme, she immerses herself in the subject. She has already spent time in a number of national parks as an artist-in-residence and her paintings reflect that immersion. When she found a custom shoemaker in the Cutler Mills in the East Bay, the machinery the artisan used fascinated her and she began to make studies of the machines that eventually became oil paintings. Shoemaking lore and legend had to be part of the process for her.

“Shoemakers tools are sometimes called St. Hugh’s Bones in honor of St. Hugh, who is the patron saint of shoemakers,” said Hodge. “There are a lot of shoemakers who are not aware of that. Tim Noonan [the artisan whose machines inspired her] didn’t know about that.”

Hugh was a Welsh prince who was never canonized but did became a pious legend in England after his devotion to the woman he loved ended with his death around 300 A.D.

Hugh was the son of the King of Powisland, now known as Wales. He fell in love with a beautiful Christian princess, Winifred of Flintshire, who in an excess of devotion, took a vow of chastity before Hugh met her. He was rebuked and then roamed Europe in despair. Then he decided that Winifred was just playing hard to get and headed back to England for another shot at winning Winnie. He was crossing the channel when he became the sole survivor of a shipwreck but lost everything in the wreck.

When he got home he became a shoemaker to make ends meet or, if not that, at least match on the foot end. He made shoes at night and gave sermons during the day until he got back to Winifred only to lose her again to faith, only this time her faith rubbed the Romans the wrong way and she was arrested and condemned to die. Hugh made such a fuss about Winifred’s virtue that he too was arrested. Winifred was bled to death and Hugh drank a cup of her poisoned blood before he was hanged. His fellow shoemakers kept vigil and consoled him as he waited and before he died, he willed all his worldly goods to his friends. Unfortunately, the only thing he owned was his bones.

“They took the bones and made them into shoemakers tools,” said Hodge. “After that, shoemakers tools were often called St. Hugh’s Bones in his memory.”

But more than the romance of St. Hugh, the machines that Noonan used in his shop inspired Hodge. She rendered them in all their worn, weathered glory and the rendering seems to speak of the years of work the machines achieved. These machines were made to last but they also were made to please the eye of the crafters who use them. A substantial amount of enamel and steel grew a patina but showed no signs of wearing out. The machines still look as capable now as they did when they were first built and a collection of Hodge’s paintings of the machines are at the Bert Gallery at 250 South Water St. in Providence through Feb. 12.

“She is able to look beyond the harsh, oily exterior and capture the implausible beauty and grace of this industrial equipment,” wrote gallery owner Catherine Bert. “Some of the pieces turn utilitarian structures into abstract forms, turning the seemingly mundane into a fantastical world of shape and color.”

Bert is not the only person who has been struck by the life that Hodge manages to infuse into her paintings. The machines she depicts look like they were used only moments before and some of the personality of the shoemaker is reflected in the wear patterns and rust, the apparent result of years of effort left almost tangibly on the surface of the tools by the artisans who used them.

She worked similar magic for railroads several years ago and continues to depict the beauty and isolation that can be found in our national parks every chance she gets, as a guest of the Park Service, and usually without the civilized amenities she can find at home in East Providence.

“I have spent some time on Cape Cod, in Montana and Maine,” she remarked. “Mostly in small cabins but I was in Glacier National Park for two weeks in a cabin, actually a house with a wraparound porch on a lake, that normally only a rich person could afford.”

Hodge, who is a graphic designer for the Providence Journal, was born in Providence and grew up in Warwick. Both her parents were graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design who gave up art in favor of raising children, but who succeeded in instilling a life-long appreciation for art in all of their children, not the least of them Kathy.

“I was very lucky,” she said. “I always had the very best art materials to work with. We all grew up around art.”

Hodge’s parents still live on West Shore Road, between Hoxsie and Conimicut. Kathy was not quite a straight through art student. She has a bachelor of fine arts in painting from the former Swain School of Design in New Bedford and left RISD after the second semester of her junior year to work in graphic design, even working at the Warwick Beacon in the early 1980s. That seems to be the rhythm of life she is most content with, as long as she gets to do a fair amount of hiking and quality time with the natural world. She has used her vacation time and sabbaticals to do eight residencies in as many national parks and looks forward to doing more, an activity she recommends.

“I think everybody should take sabbaticals from their usual work to do what they love to do,” she said.

She has kept a journal of her time at the Cape Cod National Sea Shore and admits that writing has become more and more appealing to her.

“People who have read it think its good,” she said modestly.

But the latest body of work establishes that Hodge is as comfortable in an industrial environment as she is camping out. Fascinated by the heavy shoemaking machines at Tim Noonan’s shop in Warren, Hodge made many sketches and charcoal drawings – very admirable in their own right – leading up to the extraordinary oil paintings at the Bert Gallery. Paintings range in price from $900 to $1,800, sums that do not promise to make her very rich very soon but that has never been Hodge’s goal from the beginning.

“I just love to paint,” she said, “and it pleases me that people like it enough to pay for it. But I don’t need a lot of money. If I just make enough money to pay for supplies, I’ll be happy.”

The gallery is located at 540 South Water Street in the Corliss Landing building in Providence. Hours are Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday, 12 to 4 p.m. For Monday or Tuesday viewing, call for an appointment. Parking is available on the street in front of the gallery or in the parking lot across the street.