About the Artist

Beverly Marshall

I was around 9 years old and my older brother and I had always been rivals growing up. We competed in just about everything. We are close in age, just 2 years apart. Growing up, we always tried to outdo each other. He was older, and usually better at things, than I was. One day, we were drawing and he was rubbing in how much better he was. Needless to say, that set a spark in me, started a drive. From that moment on, I decided that one day I would be better at drawing than he was. Within a few months, that day happened, and I found a new passion. I loved to draw with just a simple no. 2 pencil and a sheet of paper.

 

My Grandmother took notice right away. She kept an endless supply of pencils and paper around for me. Whenever I went to her house, she would encourage me. That was the beginning of my artistic studies, my grandmother’s kitchen table and a pencil. She was the first one to frame and hang a drawing I had done for her. I was around 11 years old.

 

I grew up tossed around between New York, Tennessee, and Florida. I consider Tennessee my home. My family moved from Cookeville TN, to Boca Raton, FL when I was 13. I started my first year of high school there, and Mrs. Osborne was my art teacher. She was amazing. She saw the talent that lay within me, and had a way of bringing it to the forefront. She used to tell me to 'Draw what you see, not what you think you see.' I still hear those words in my head when I draw, even now.

 

I have never taken my talent too seriously, until now. I dabbled a little with it, here and there, as the years passed by. My kids came along, all 4 of them, and there was no longer any time to do what I loved. Life got in the way. So, after years of raising kids and helping in our family business, things finally slowed down. My kids were nearly grown, and there was time to draw again. At the end of March of 2012, I once again picked up a pencil, for the first time in over 10 years, and began to draw. I had forgotten how much I loved it. I had forgotten the passion that can drive me to capture, with my pencil, what I see. With lots of encouragement from some great friends and family, I decided to take a whole new path. I decided to take my talent a bit more seriously. I decided to follow my dream to become an artist, and share my art with others. Here I am, making that dream come true.

 

Over the past year and a half, I have been accepted into several galleries, had one of my drawing used in an advertisement to help a local food bank raise money for their cause, won 3ed place in both of the fine arts festival I have entered so far, and have had my art work included in two exhibits. The first one was a solo art exhibit at the SFSC Upper Lobby Gallery at the South Florida State College in which 11 pieces of my art work were displayed from Sept to Dec. 2013. My second formal exhibit came about from an international completion and my artwork was one of 38 pieces chosen from over 6000 worldwide entries. It starts at the end of March 2014 and is an outdoor exhibit for “Embracing Our Differences” in the Sarasota-Bradenton area here in Florida. I look forward to the path in which my artwork will take me.