A life in bold strokes

A passion for painting has brought Kelly Reaves of Largo early praise and a strong sense of knowing where she is going in life.

	[Times photo: Jim Damaske]

LARGO - An orange glowing with dangerous radioactivity breaks through a thick lavender sky.

This creamy canopy looms over sun seekers sprawled on the sand, like the treetops over the staid citizens lounging on the shore in Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

A small painting done in the same style as this beach scene shows cows meandering under a yellow sky flecked with cobalt.

These bucolic scenes are from the mind of Kelly Reaves, an 18-year-old artist who graduated this year from St. Petersburg Catholic High School and is now enrolled in sophomore classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to continue her work.

Reaves already has amassed enough accolades to make any artist envious. Her pieces The Breakdancer and Tom, for which she received both regional and national Gold Keys through the Scholastic Art Competition, were displayed in an exhibit this summer at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Her short yet prolific professional career has generated a large body of work that is still cohesive in its themes. She has garnered many awards over the past few years, including "best of show" at the Pinellas County 2002 Artistic Discovery Show, the Dunedin Art Center Member Show and the All Children's Hospital Outdoor Art Show.

The last two shows consisted almost entirely of adults, some whose careers span decades.

It is evident Reaves already has developed a signature style. Her quick, expressive strokes form images of some of her favorite subjects, including her friends.

"I'm also big into traffic," Reaves said. "That was my big thing about a year ago."

Reaves works from photographs she takes with the camera she carries just about everywhere. Usually a few shots must be taken before she finds the right photograph from which she can work.

Carolann Mancuso, Reaves' private painting teacher, pulls out a massive still life of an assortment of brightly colored glass bottles, and notes that they took more than 30 pictures before Reaves found the right look she wanted.

Mancuso gazes at the painting. Later on, leaning back in her chair she says, beaming, "I'm so proud of her."

It is clear this woman has a fierce maternal love for every one of her students. She takes them under her wing and gets them places. She shows them the secret passageways marked "members only" in the art world. She not only teaches, but becomes an advocate for her students. She is convincing in her words and generous in her praise.

Mancuso has been with Reaves for nearly four years. Reaves spent three years in the Pinellas County Center for the Arts program at Gibbs High and one year at St. Petersburg Catholic. Mancuso has been there for shows at museums all over Pinellas County and the awards that came with them. She helped Reaves gain sponsorship from Classic Artist Oils in California, which provides her oil paint for the next six to eight years.

The college question was answered quickly for Reaves. She was enrolled in a three-week summer program after her high school freshman year at the Putney School of the Arts in Vermont. She then spent two weeks the following summer at the Art Institute of Chicago, studying figure painting, and received an award on a life study piece.

Chicago was her first choice school before the trip, and her visit sealed the deal.

"I had a really good time there and it was a really good experience," she said.

After spending four weeks last summer at the Maryland Institute College of Art, it is obvious Reaves is more than prepared for the next four years in Chicago. After garnering the highest score on her Advanced Placement Portfolio exam two years in a row, she will be able to forgo some of the art classes normally required for college freshmen.

After graduation from college, she plans to pursue a master's degree in fine arts and go on to become a college professor. Then she will be able to teach and still paint professionally.

She paints three hours a day, six to seven days a week during the school year and five days a week during the summer. In her art philosophy statement that she includes in her resume, she notes, "My paintings are my way of communicating my sense of existence to the rest of the world. I see painting as my life force. I feel that my place on Earth is not only to create art, but to expand on it as long as I live."

- Catherine McCarthy, 18, attends Rollins College in Winter Park. She was a member of the 2002-03 X-Team.

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