Doing What They Really Love
Leaving behind corporate positions and mainstream day jobs, five artists embrace the creative life—and never look back
Artists are intriguing folks and the following five artists, who are all based full time or part time in Southwest Florida, are unusually so: Each one of them chose at some point in his or her past to make career-changing decisions. Beverly Fox of Cape Coral morphed from a quality and production developer to a jewelry artist, silversmith teacher and gallery owner. Her love of working with metal began in college. Although she always had a private studio and was part of a group studio in Portland, Maine, she went out on her own in 2002—after spending 20-plus years in the corporate world.
Fox is now a full-time art jeweler, silversmith teacher at Cape Coral Arts Studio, private teacher and part owner/president at Harbour View Gallery in Cape Coral. She’s also vice president of the Southwest Chapter of the Florida Society of Goldsmiths.
Through September, she’s the featured artist at Harbour View Gallery, presenting a new line of earrings and pendants. Her pieces range from $30 to $1,200; most sell for $150 to $250. “I work primarily in silver and choose stones that come from all over the world,” Fox explains, adding that the inspiration for her jewelry comes from the stones themselves.
Estero-based Christine Reichow segued from a clothing and textiles designer to a watercolor, cold wax/oil painting, and acrylic artist. Her love of the arts started at a young age—her mother was an artist. She studied clothing and textiles at Michigan State University, creating hand-dyed and handwoven pieces using natural textiles.
Reichow’s “wearable art” was later displayed in upscale boutiques from Detroit to New York, and she had a boutique in Howell, Michigan, from 1986 to 1996. Upon moving to Florida in 2000, she began creating realistic birds, botanicals and landscapes with watercolors; abstracts using cold wax/oil paint; and realistic and abstracts using acrylics.
Her pieces start at $25 for small giclées and range in the hundreds for a print on canvas. Reichow’s cold wax/oil paintings are at United Arts Council Gallery in Naples, Florida, through October. In April, she was one of 40 U.S. watercolorists exhibiting at the Fabriano In Acquarello 2019 International Exhibition in Italy. “Making art is who I am,” she notes.
Craig Petersen of Fort Myers Beach certainly made a big change—from being a vice president of a coffee roasting/packaging plant to becoming a watercolor and acrylic artist. For 20 years, he worked in the family business, The 5th Avenue Coffee Company of Cleveland. When he decided to be a full-time artist, he told his father: “I would rather turn 65 and regret what I had done than to get there and wish I had.”
Petersen, now 70, considers his life a success and refers to himself as a landscape/seascape artist who has also painted a variety of local musicians. His paintings range from 5-by-7 inches to 35-by-60 inches. Petersen has an ongoing display at Shark Bar & Grill on Fort Myers Beach. He’s taught watercolor
classes at several organizations and art leagues, and continues to have many commissions.
Award-winning Sanibel musician Danny Morgan taught art in the 1970s, after graduating from Eastern Kentucky University. Yet even earlier, he was a musician—playing guitar, writing songs and singing with such acts as the Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffet and Barry Manilow. His Danny Morgan Band continues to play at occasions and events throughout Southwest Florida.
And now he’s also returned to his art—painting acrylics of all sizes that are warm, vibrant and organic, with a lot of motion and spontaneity. They are reminiscent of his music in both style and topic. Morgan is pleased to have fully immersed himself into his creative life: “I am so grateful to have a professional life in music and art.” He’s currently represented by Denise Bibro Fine Art of New York City.
Diane Young, who winters in Fort Myers and summers in Toronto, studied fine arts at the University of Manitoba—then worked as an in-charge Air Canada flight attendant for 28 years. Retiring in 1999, she resumed her fine arts concentration, first in drawing and painting, and later in sculpting portraitures.
“It wasn't until I tried my hand at sculpting that I knew that I had found my true passion in life,” Young says. She has an “innate ability to execute portraiture in the uniqueness of the 3-D form, and experiences a deep satisfaction from being part of an integral part of a process that honors an individual’s life in such a time-enduring way.”
Young accepts commissions from public venues or individuals. She works from photos but “enjoys meeting her subjects in order to help transfer their essence into the sculpture.” Her pieces range from $2,500 to $6,500.