t doesn’t just shine—it settles in, stretches out, makes itself at home. By late morning, the heat hums through the air, rising off the marsh in a shimmer you can almost hear. It slows everything down. Including me.

This time of year in the Lowcountry, I find myself drawn to opposites. The sun bakes the earth, but shade lingers like a gift—cool and still beneath live oaks draped in Spanish moss. Bright bursts of light meet violet shadows. Golden grasses lean into blue-green water. I try to paint that contrast—the heat and the hush. The tension and the calm.

That idea came into full view during a recent three-day workshop I attended with Charleston artist Patrick Reid O’Brien. His focus on color and value gave me a fresh lens on how light behaves in the Southern landscape—how warm and cool tones dance together, and how shadow can hold just as much presence as the light.

I started Gone to Seed during that workshop. The rusted truck, long retired, sits in a pocket of sunlight beneath a canopy of moss. The foreground is warm, almost humming, while the background cools into shadow and quiet. It’s a moment suspended—part nostalgia, part observation. And it’s one of those rare paintings that seemed to know what it wanted to be before I did.

In the studio now, I keep reaching for those contrasts. I’ve noticed it in my color choices—ochres and umbers tempered by soft blue-greens. I’ve noticed it in my pace—slower, more intentional, letting the light tell the story.

It reminds me of other Southern contrasts too. The clink of ice in a glass of sweet tea. The stillness of a porch swing on a hot afternoon. The weight of humidity paired with the softness of distant thunder. The Lowcountry teaches you to sit with both: beauty and discomfort, light and shadow.

I think that’s what I love most about this place: it asks you to notice. Not just what’s there, but how it feels. And that’s what I’m trying to do, one brushstroke at a time.