Guild Members
Fulfilling a long time hope, I have recently had the opportunity to learn and practice skills in
both oil and acrylic paints as well as in oil pastels. The guidance of gifted and gracious artists
has produced in me an appreciation for the core technical skills and creativity required to bring
a painting to life. Working mostly on landscapes, painting has been a joy as I contemplate
God’s creation on these beautiful Sea Islands and beyond. Psalm 19:1 convicts and inspires
me, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”
Although I derive most of my paintings from photographs taken by my husband, I am looking
forward to discovering plein air painting at an artist workshop in Italy this fall. I look forward to
After a career in New York City, I found my place behind the camera. Our three children were my earliest subjects as I documented their growth from toddlers to young adulthood. As an empty-nester, I turned more to travel, using photography to capture family experiences and time spent outdoors. I am especially drawn to nature-the low country’s flora, fauna, and its wildlife and all of the seasonal changes. Kiawah Island continues to inspire my work each day.Over time, my practice has expanded into mixed media. I began working with resin to preserve and build on my photography, often layering in natural materials. I continue to explore acrylic painting, encaustic, oil, resin, and screen printing, taking classes at the McColl Center and CPCC in Charlotte, NC. I am grateful to reside on tis beautiful island with my husband and pup as I continue to expand my love of art.
I am inspired every day by the Lowcountry life, particularly its beauty and mystery of nature. I carry my easel and paints into the marshes, islands and beaches. Marshes and beaches teaming with sunrise and sunset inspire vibrant colors and varied textures in layers of transparent sky color. I try to capture in my paintings the beauty and mystery of nature, and her constant transitions. It is a joy like coming a primordial state.
I came to painting later in life, after rich and fulfilling careers in both banking and education. It wasn’t until retirement, and the introspective pause brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, that I began to explore watercolor painting. After several years I expanded into oil painting, where the possibilities feel endless. With oils, I find freedom in texture, movement, and abstraction. My current work is an exploration of color and form, often still centered on themes of flowers as well as coastal landscapes and abstract expression.
These subjects allow me to blend representation with imagination.
Art has become a way for me to engage a new part of myself and shift from logic and precision to intuition and expression. It’s a joyful, evolving process, and I’m continually inspired by the endless opportunities to see the world, and myself, in new ways.
Tacey Phillips Carroll dreamed of being an actress (much to her parent's chagrin), became an investment banker (much to their delight), got married, and adopted a son and daughter (who are now growing into amazing adults in spite of Tacey's lack of routine and discipline). She is now attempting to live happily ever after with her patient and remarkably supportive husband in Kiawah, SC.
Throughout her life, Tacey doodled, took a class with Betty Edwards (Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain) and a beginner painting class at the Silvermine Art Guild in Connecticut. She recently took a workshop with Chris Groves and longs for more. Tacey would like to become a painter someday although her parents are skeptical even in their graves.
The day her mother died, Tacey took a long walk on the beach and found a beautiful shell with a crack in it. Her mother would have disapproved: "Must be perfect to bring home." Curiously, that shell lit a spark in her. She realized that she had her own view of the world, a view that she could embrace at last.
When I paint, I strive to create beauty and interest in what I see.
l try to bring a vibrancy to the scene or object that I am painting.
Gwen is a retired physician. Her media is fluid acrylic art. She enjoys the abstract joys of color but am also inspired by the beauty of my surroundings in Kiawah. Fluid art allows the viewer to interpret the design and lose themselves in the layers of shapes and color.
Katherine Gagnon is a contemporary artist and teacher based in Charleston, SC. With an interest in the meeting of time and place, Gagnon explores how the beauty and surprise of a light condition helps us see with new eyes to expand our thinking. She combines watercolor and oil pastel on paper, layering these mediums to find harmony and contrast. She shows her work at the Lambert’s Cove Inn on Martha’s Vineyard and is getting ready for an exhibition at Julep on Queen Street in Charleston this November. Her work is featured in private collections locally and throughout the United States.
Gagnon holds a BA from Colby College (Waterville, ME) in Art History and Studio Art and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art’s LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting (Baltimore, MD). Residencies include Wintertide Retreat at Millay Arts, Austerlitz, NY (2023), Edward Albee Foundation, Montauk, NY (2017), Art Farm, Marquette, NE (2014), and being the first Maryland Institute College of Art-St. Mary’s College of Maryland Artist House Teaching Fellow in Residence in 2014. She currently teaches at Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston and gives private art lessons.
Lisa Giles paints what inspires her from nature. Primarily painting landscapes and abstracts in oil. She has taken lessons and been members of the Deerpath Art League, American College of Women Artists, and now Kiawah Art Guild. She has studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago and drawing at Palette and Chisel Art Academy under Max Ranft.
Giles has been a healthcare business executive and public company Board Member for most of her career and now is returning to her painting passion. Now living on Kiawah where there is unlimited inspiration with its beautiful nature and wild life.
Primarily a watercolorist, I work figuratively in the tradition of Bonnard, Vuillard and Sargent. I endeavor to integrate the decorative with the authority of human emotion. The connection is at once intimate and fragile yet powerful and universal. Recognizing the humor, joy, melancholy – the spectrum of our condition -- the viewer is asked to consider that, while we are alone, we are profoundly connected to each other by experience and empathy.
Solo Exhibitions: “Beauty Is Life Deep” at Public Works Art Center, Summerville, SC 2021 (over 70 works); “Chasing History” at University of Connecticut, Stamford, 2010 (over 40 works).
Group Shows – include ARTFIELDS 2019-2016; Piccolo Spoleto 2019, 2017 (Award for Best Painting), 2016, 2015, 2013; South Carolina Watermedia Society (Member of Excellence), SCWS Annual Exhibition 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012, Awards; SCWS Traveling Exhibition 2016, 2013, 2012; Charleston Artist Guild (CAG) Exhibiting Member; CAG Signature Exhibitions: 2018 (Second Place for Painting); 2017 (First Place for Painting); 2016, 2015, 2013; Flinn Gallery, Greenwich CT 2010 (suite of watercolors).
See more of my work or contact me:
instagram #anitaharleyart
Betsy Hartman’s love of art started in high school when she took private watercolor lessons. She then put down her paintbrush for 40 years. Upon her retirement from practicing law, she decided to try another medium and enrolled in oil painting classes at the Indianapolis Art Center. Living on Kiawah Island, she has had the opportunity to study under noted low country artists Dan Graziano, Chris Groves, Curt Butler and Don Sahli. She also enjoys pastels. For years she served as a docent at Newfield’s, Indianapolis’ premier art museum.
“Painting for me is connecting the self to one’s own reality through color, mark making, and
moments”
—-Daphne P. Hobson
Background
After a life changing accident, Daphne was forced to abandon her career as an academic and
international educator and consultant. She rekindled a childhood talent for art and settled on
portrait painting in oils.
Daphne’s first project was personal and impassioned—painting her grandchildren. This led to a
number of commissions ranging from grandchildren, to loved ones and pets.
Personal Statement
I traveled internationally throughout my career capturing photographs of people from all over the
world. Painting these faces reminds me of my travels and the diversity of peoples discovered
throughout the world. But, painting portraits led me to other mediums and genres. I have a thirst
for learning and self discovery in art and have explored pastel landscapes and still lifes as well
as acrylic abstract painting. My work has been influenced by impressionists and post
impressionists like John Singer Sargent who possessed an exotic quality and Joaquin Sorolla
who was a master at capturing light.
Description of Artist’s work
Daphne is an award winning artist both in oils and pastels. She is an exhibiting member of the
National American Women’s Artists and an the Catherine Lorrilard Wolfe Art Club. She is a
member of several pastel societies such as the Degas Pastel Society and the Pastel Society of
America.
Her exotic travels as an international artist continues to inform and influence her work today.
Her thirst for knowledge and her need to continually explore has expanded her repertoire to
include abstract paintings in acrylics. Daphne is in love with the “Art of Painting”!
I work from a background in sculpture, printmaking, photography and painting. I am grateful to have benefited from many generations of artists in my family and enjoy supporting other artists. Sculpture and printmaking gave me structure and now I am enjoying a passion for light and color. Personal subjects are important to me.
After studying briefly at the U of Michigan College of Architecture and Design, I moved to NYC to study at The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. I also studied at Pratt Graphics Center, Pratt in Provincetown and the renowned Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.
For financial reasons, I had to drop Art and became an executive in the financial mutual fund industry. While being a mother of three, I studied the new scientific analysis with spectrography in the writings by experts of Rembrandt, Velasquez and Da Vinci. Always a student, I studied under a master Printmaker at the U of Minnesota. I owe so much to the great artists I have learned from. I have exhibited in Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Minnesota galleries.
Now, residing in Kiawah, SC with my husband and pup. I finally have my own studio!
Member of the National Portrait Society
Member of the Kiawah Art Guild
My art has been described as bold and bright. I like that because that is the way I want to live my life. I paint as if it is a diary. My work reflects my life at the moment. If I go to the beach, I try to capture the sunsets, the salt air, and the changing marshes. If I spend a week with my grandchildren, I want to catch the innocence and the playfulness in my paintings. Current affairs will sneak in occasionally. The African museum just opened in Charleston, and I’m painting women ( a favorite subject) of African descent incorporating native fabric. I concentrate on subjects that bring joy and have meaning to me while always looking for a new vision and a new way to tell a story.
The beautiful natural environment of Kiawah Island, SC, has inspired most of my landscape paintings. I want my artwork to capture the attention of the viewers and transfer them into my chosen beautiful spots, which I hope will give them pleasure. In my portrait paintings, I attempt to convey the character and emotions of the person behind the face.
I started to exercise my drawing & painting- skills seriously at an Art & Design Institute in Izmir, and after graduation, I worked as a textile-designer for two of the major textile manufacturers there. I had evening classes at the Stockholm art academy and the Cincinnati Art Academy for portrait and landscape paintings. I worked also for Ikea as an educational interior designer for 3.5 years in Stockholm, after I owned a clothing design business for 11 years.
I have more than 50 paintings, and many drawings, due to my not selling them. I'm still in learning level with each painting experience.
Now I look forward to this opportunity to share my artwork with you all.
Thirty years ago I began my foray into art. What began as a journey accompanying my best friend on her recovery from breast cancer resulted in personal metamorphosis and growth. I did not believe that I "had an artistic bone in my body" but agreed to accompany my friend to an art class in steel sculpture. It was an empowering experience when the sparks flew, but I had to challenge my “scientific side” and learn to enjoy the creative process.
Metalsmithing naturally followed steel sculpture as a medium. Like steel sculpture, silversmithing is 3-dimensional, and using fabrication, soldering and brazing. But silver and soft metals have their own unique characteristics that have actively kept me learning new techniques.
Every piece that I create is a new learning experience and a new way of manipulating the medium. My art may not look like there is a unifying "style," but each three dimensional work is based upon reassembling rigid stock into a fluid design that informs the remainder of the piece.
My husband and I have been Kiawah Island property owners since 1990 and permanent residents since 2019. I maintain my art studio in my home.
I have loved to draw and paint since childhood. My parents and art teacher recognized my interest and talent and recommended I attend weekly workshops. In college, I pursued art education and never looked back. Teaching children of all ages and abilities for thirty-plus years brought joy to my life. After retirement, I moved to Kiawah Island. Here, I begin my day painting in my studio or venturing out to photograph vistas and wildlife for inspiration. When people ask me which medium I prefer, I say anything and everything! I love working in oils, pastels, watercolors, acrylics, and pen-and-ink. I especially enjoy making people happy by creating portraits of their pets and homes.
Of Catalan and Cuban ancestry, I lived and studied in Barcelona, Spain through the 1960s. In this “modernista” (i.e, Art Noveau) city, I immersed himself in what would become a life-long love affair with the visual arts by visiting art museums and salons exhibiting the work of local and international painters. At that time, Barcelona’s prominence in the nascent Bauhaus, Noveau and Surrealist movements gave me much inspiration.
I emigrated to the United States and obtained a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Kansas in 1969. I then began a 48-year long career in neurotrauma and stroke research. I taught neuroscience to medical students at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. where I was professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology until my retirement in 2016. With my wife Lori, we currently reside both in Valparaiso, IN and Kiawah Island, SC. I am a member of both Kiawah and Seabrook Island Art Guilds.
During my long scientific career, I published numerous line drawings of brain cells using integrated microscopic, camara lucida and computerized techniques. However only a few years before my retirement, I began to understand the complexities of color, values and light intensity needed in depicting perspective and therefore, successful painting. This process was largely facilitated through my participation in workshops, demos, and critiques in the above Guilds. My preferred media are oils and acrylics and the subject matter for my paintings is eclectic, ranging from the Low Country flora/fauna and landscapes, as well as an occasional portrait done mostly in naturalistic/impressionistic styles.
I’m a contemporary abstract artist working in mixed media: acrylic, pastels, inks and collage. I’m inspired by the sense of wonder our coastal landscape evokes, and I’m drawn to vibrant color, subtle texture and unexpected collage elements that spark curiosity! In my artwork, I often incorporate hand-made papers from my travels - things like Japanese chiyogami, Egyptian papyrus, and Italian hand-marbled paper. I also integrate vintage "working" papers: maps, dressmaking patterns, microfiche, foreign currency & more! My paintings are infused with meaning, explained in each artwork’s written description. I accept commissions.
Growth, experimentation and exploration are central to my practice. For me, art is a visual and emotional language that expresses the goodness of God, the endless ways that beauty manifests itself around us, and the power of possibility.
Living with my art means...
Wrapping yourself in soothing color and rich texture
Feeling joy in your living space
Living creatively!
I started painting many years ago without formal training. I have gradually, over an extended time, transitioned from pastel to oil, to water based oil, and now I also dabble in water color. I paint to relax and have that feeling of personal accomplishment that comes with a painting that "works". We built a studio in our home several years ago to help keep my "hobby" reasonably under control. I paint for personal enjoyment, not selling any works, but the good ones seem to migrate to my children's homes so my studio walls are always changing. I do mostly landscapes and scenes involving fly fishing, which is my real passion.
I am an American painter who works with acrylic and pastel on canvas and paper. Influenced by abstract expressionist Richard Diebenkorn and French impressionists Pierre Bonnard and Claude Monet, my work is a snapshot of the changing scenes and stories unfolding around me.
