Stories
Shell Gallery Spring Art Show: Jane Creech
The exhibit for the Shell Gallery Spring Art Show is from local artist and long-time BSUMC member Jane Yarborough Creech.
Jane’s exhibit is titled “My Life As An Artist” and showcases work from 1954-present. The retrospective exhibit begins with Jane’s formal study of art, which began in 1954 at Converse College under August Cook. She began with paintings and won the top award for her work her senior year. After Converse, Jane was accepted into the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the oldest art school in the United States. She is only one of four women who have attended this school from South Carolina.
After finishing at the Pennsylvania Academy, Jane was hired by the Medical College of South Carolina to do anatomy illustrations for a research project. While there she met her husband, and moved back to Greenville to plan her wedding. This began the start of her “Family In Home” series. During this period of her life, Jane was heavily involved with the Greenville History Museum and began studying photography. She was very interested in interior design and enjoyed playing with aesthetics in the home and in her work.
In 1982, Jane was asked by Converse College to do a private photography series on artists. Jane chose to do the series on Southern women writers because they were her artistic inspirations. She photographed Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, Blanche Boyd, Josephine Humphries, Joyce Carol Oates, along with others. She became very close with Eudora Welty and was invited to her home. Eudora was instrumental in getting Jane’s work published. Joyce Carol Oates also published Jane’s work.
From 2006- 2015, Jane began a photography series on the Barrier Islands of South Carolina. She enjoyed spending time at Fripp Island.
Beginning in 2016, she started a new series based in the Upstate, mainly focusing on the lake and land around Furman. She was drawn to the black swans, and studied a family of them which is depicted in her work from this time.
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic and spending time at home, Jane began a series called “Art in the Home”. Reflective of the time period of 2020-2022, Jane began taking pictures of random household items in artistic ways. This still-life series features wine glasses, tomatoes, grocery bags and even a paper towel holder.
Jane’s retrospective exhibit showcases her lifetime collection works in timeline form, but she also hopes to convey her journey as a woman in the arts. She wants to depict the changes women face in their lives, whether it is getting married, having children, furthering education, living through a pandemic, inspirations are consistently changing and evolving. The exhibit will run from March through June.
There will be an opening event on Sunday, March 27 from 2:00 – 4:00 PM, and all are invited to come to the Gallery and learn more from Jane herself on her work.
