Drawn by the abundance of flowers in South Carolina’s low country, Sandra established the Garden Studio Gallery in Port Royal in 1988 to pursue her love of painting and gardening. Sandra invites you to visit her garden studio and delight in the sun-drenched flowers, color patterns, and delicate fragrances that inspire and rejuvenate her.
Sandra constantly adds to the foundation of formal training and self-directed study that guides her passion for painting. Self-directed study abroad and throughout the United States has played an important role in Sandra’s artistic development. Art history and travels to Italy and France – where she enjoyed the privilege of painting in Monet’s gardens – and the stirring sights of Hong Kong, Bermuda, Hawaii, the western United States, and other locales, have helped her grow as an artist and fueled her desire to move in new directions. Her most recent studies have been in learning more abot the flowers and gardening through the "master gardeners"course. She also had the opportunity to join a group from the Lowcountry Institute at Spring Island in their nature studies. Both courses have opened new avenues to explore. . The next step is to express in paintings this new awareness.
Sandra has revived a passion for oil painting in recent years. She is also enthusiastically exploring the world of “pleine aire” painting, an interest that has grown out of her admiration and ongoing study of the French, American, and Russian Impressionists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Last summer
she joined others at the Idaho studio of Ovanes Beberian,a master colorist,of the School of Segei Bongart, a Russian impressionst who has taught many of the artists she admires. This is the beginning of a new study of 21st century impressionists.
An award-winning artist, Sandra has exhibited her work in over 100 juried shows around the United States. She is a juried member of the South Carolina Watercolor Society, Virginia Watercolor Society, and the Potomac Valley Watercolorists, as well as a founding board member of the Art Council of Beaufort. She is a member of the Guild of Beaufort Galleries and participates in sponsored events at Indigo Gallery. Her paintings have also been featured in the Arts in Embassies program in Belgium and Honduras. Sandra was chosen to create the first limited-edition poster for Main St. U.S.A. Beaufort, SC’s new festival, LIGHT UP THE NIGHT 2002. She was the featured artist in South Carolina Magazine in March 2003 and in 2005 she received the 1st Place Award at the 44th Beaufort Art Association"s Spring Exhibit. The oil painting, Carolina Parakeet and Orchids, was chosen to be included in a new book,The Carolina Parakeet (Americas"s Lost Parrot inArt and Memory) by Carole Boston Weatherford. Caution Seed and Feed Band, another oil was selected for the 24th Annual Nations Bank Oil Painting Exhibit that will travel through out the state in 2006.