Phyllis Biddle Painting of Laundry Day in the Gut

"I'm Phyllis Biddle and I came to St. Croix eleven years ago to teach art at The Good Hope School. I attended Albertus Magnus College and Yale University Art School in New Haven, Connecticut before getting my MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

Prior to coming to the island, I was Program Director at The Richmond Children's Museum in Virginia. I'd also taught painting and printmaking at Hopkins Day Prospect Hill School in New Haven, Connecticut, and at St. Catherine's/St. Christopher's Schools in Richmond. It was in 2000 that I got a call from The Good Hope School on St. Croix asking me to come and teach painting and printmaking to their middle and upper school students.

I now teach a rigorous course for beginning art students, encouraging them to discover their own innate abilities to draw and to mix color, as well as an Advancement Placement course. It is my mission to introduce students to a variety of art media and various art- making techniques. Combining graphic art with more traditional ways of designing compositions is the most exciting part of my teaching. I want to help students realize that they have a whole treasure chest of experiences that they can draw upon for subject matter in their art making - often teenagers need help in accessing these memories! I love that the Good Hope School Administrators are hugely supportive and promoters of the visual and performing arts.

My own paintings are, for the most part, done in oils and watercolors. Oil paints are my favorite medium. I find oils most appropriate for my subject matter... landscapes, seascapes, people and children on the beach, and workers from days gone by in the cane fields. I love the activity of painting and have a great sense of fulfillment when I've spent a day in a "semi-trance" oil painting. I love to teach students all the angles of making art and set them free to do just that. I want to put a sign in my studio classroom that says "AMAZEME!" I want my students to find some sort of affinity for some kind of material - I want them to play, to love something.

Here are a few places I've exhibited - Marion Art Center, Marion, MA, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Peck School in Morristown, NJ, The Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond, VA, 1708 Gallery in Richmond, the Munson Gallery in New Haven, CT, The Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA, Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA, and Virginia Commonwealth University. My paintings are in many corporate and private collections such as Craigie's Inc., Richmond, The Robert F. Kennedy Family Collection, Pierson College at Yale University, The Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond, VA, and The Peck School, NJ.

In the USVI, I've exhibited at The Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, The Good Hope School Fine Art Exhibit, The Campen Gallery, The Art Show at Canegata, Danica Gallery, Polly's at the Pier (all on St. Croix), and Polly's Gifft Hill School on St. John. pbiddle@ghsvi.org