In the Cape Romain Refuge with a nice spot tail.
About the name…
In 2020 I had an exhibit in my hometown, McClellanville. The artworks consisted of linocuts and paintings, with subjects based on the coast of South Carolina, and especially the part of the Lowcountry where I live.
As a title for the show, I decided on Woods and Creek, because that’s what the work was about. Here, the Francis Marion National Forest is simply “the woods,” and the Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge is “the creek.” McClellanville sits between.
My family has been here for generations. I was born here and my wife and I raised our daughter here. It’s a special place to live.
In the Lowcountry, black-water cypress swamps drain into slow moving rivers that spread out into vast, tidal salt marshes. Everything is wet, and of course low, and the two environments, fresh and salt, encourage a way of life that is based, generally speaking, on two seasons.*
Cold weather is the time for woods. The snakes and ticks and yellow flies are gone. It’s the time to hunt and hike, to camp and explore. Hot weather is for the creek. The salt marsh is alive with shrimp and flickering menhaden. It’s the time for boating, swimming and sitting on coolers in the sand.
I’m calling my studio “Woods and Creek” because the artworks are meant to celebrate this place.
* Fall can be a bonus-season exclusively for fishing.
About the artist…
As mentioned above, I’m from McClellanville, a small fishing village on the coast of South Carolina. Growing up here in the 1970’s was like being on an island. Really, it was an island of sorts.
I left the coast long enough to earn a BS in Graphic Communications and an MFA in Painting, both from Clemson University.
I taught studio art there as and adjunct and at UNC Charlotte, where my wife was studying architecture.
We moved back to McClellanville, to have and raise our beautiful daughter, Marina.
Along the way, I’ve tried to stay active as an artist. Two of my paintings are in the State of South Carolina Art Collection, and I have had gallery representation in Atalanta, Columbia, and Charleston. Currently, I show my work in the Rice Museum in Georgetown, SC, and teach at Charleston Southern University, where I’ve been for over twenty years.
I did, at one point, get sidetracked designing, patenting and trying to make a business around a boat called a Biyak. The BIYAK is its own story. When it was behind me, I began to focus mostly on printmaking.
I’m trying to make artwork that is accessible and that celebrates the region that has meant so much to me over the years.
—- Aaron Baldwin—-