Living, as I do, in Sandfly, close to Savannah’s iconic Isle of Hope, I often visit homes where coastal-inspired artwork is incorporated, and frequently I will hear guests ask, “Is that a Bellamy?” The work of Bellamy Murphy is so revered and collected these days, that it’s simply described by the artist’s first name.
Murphy’s grandparents had a home on the river in Beaufort, SC and she is named for the Bellamy Curve on the Beaufort River. Her dad worked for paper mills, and as a child she lived in Hinesville back when “it was the coolest little town with a pharmacy where we could go after school and the old guy in the back would mix up nickel Cokes with a big, long spoon.”
Later, what she describes as her “crazy family of fishaholics” moved to Bluffton, S.C. in the ‘70s. Life in the Lowcountry was beautiful and inspiring, but also unstable and dysfunctional; The young teenager left home at 18, having self-sabotaged her chances for college (she had already registered for the Atlanta School of Art) by going to the beach on the day of her high school’s final exams.
Murphy lived on Hilton Head for a while and then started traveling to Florida, Colorado, New England, Vermont, waiting tables, making art, and eventually starting a family.
“I was always artistic. Always doing little art shows. Some of the first money I ever made was selling sketches of palms and birds,” she said.
Which seems ironic, as her canvases today are filled with the gorgeous, lush greens of palm leaves, and she says she’s “obsessed” with birds.
Quoting T. S. Eliot, “It reminds me of ‘We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’”
As she reminisces about lying on her grandfather’s dock and looking at the shadows cast by palm trees, she references James Hillman’s The Soul’s Code, “I think your soul is embedded with your passions and your childhood insights.”
“It’s been a long journey. I got a little bit of money when my mother died, and I bought woodworking equipment and started making stenciled door stops, which got me into gift shows. I made a living making band boxes, bird houses, and door stops for twenty years, selling them wholesale while I raised my kids and my niece.”
She struggled with her earlier academic choices and never painted, saying, “I didn’t have the confidence at all. I always considered myself untrained and uneducated. But the one thing that kept me going through those difficult years was telling myself that one day I was going to do my own artwork. I envisioned myself designing and painting big canvases.”
I meet Murphy in one of her Isle of Hope properties, the 1925 Compass Rose Cottage, now a vacation rental on Rose Avenue, to discuss her upcoming solo exhibition at Location Gallery. We are surrounded by an eclectic layering of antiques, rugs, unique furnishings, found objects, and of course, her paintings. I’ve known this stunning, beautiful woman for over twenty years, first meeting when she had a marvelous little storefront in Norwood Plaza right beside the sorely missed Piggly Wiggly grocery.
After moving back to the coast and landing on Isle of Hope, she opened the eponymous store Bellamy, “And that was my launch pad.”
The shop was filled with a plethora of curated collectibles that now fill her homes. And, for the first time, she showed paintings.
“I would put a painting in my window, and it would be gone.”
Almost immediately, she was asked by interior designer Lea Anne Wallace to create a piece for her client.
“It was like a green light,” Murphy recalls. “That was when the Universe said, ‘Trust yourself. Trust yourself that you can paint.’ I was intimidated by all the great artists around me; they had degrees, they had been to SCAD. Low self-esteem can fuel you. I’ve always worked super hard to compensate for not going to art school. I spend a lot of time studying and observing nature and am always in learning mode.”
She continues, “When I opened that store, I had no money and was struggling, but I KNEW I had found my niche with the painting.”
Murphy closed the shop after only a year, turned her den into a studio, and focused on creating her colorful coastal images for interior designers, including preservationist Jane Coslick, and for the many patrons she gradually developed. Long-time Savannahians will remember her wildly popular three-oyster shell paintings, the composition of which “came to me in a dream.”
She says, “I don’t mind encouraging people to paint, and I don’t mind people emulating me, but I hate when they’re too lazy to get their own schtick, make bad copies, and sell them for a fraction. There are people whose livelihood is copying my work, and people who paint oysters who I know have never picked up an oyster!”
Murphy has paid her dues and built up an incredible following. Today, she paints in her loose, effortless, fast style in a studio beside her stunningly renovated and decorated Isle of Hope home on a lush stretch of marsh on the Skidaway River. She regularly hosts pop-up art sales at one of her cottages. I find it hard to believe that the upcoming show at Location Gallery will be the artist’s first solo exhibition.
When we meet, she is in the final stages of a large-scale oil painting of a roseate spoonbill. The vibrant pink sings.
“I’m fortunate that my house is on the water, and I get to see the roseates come in and feed at low tide. I wanted him to look like he was standing in the marsh at Ossabaw.” (Gallery proceeds from her show benefit the Ossabaw Island Foundation.) “I want him to have an Audubon feel but didn’t want to copy Audubon. I get so upset when people copy my paintings, but I use Audubon for inspiration. A friend gave me his The Birds of America when I was nineteen, and I consider him to be my very first teacher. I wanted to paint every bird on every page.”
After her show, what does the future hold?
“The older I get, the more I know my strength is in design. I’m working with Emily McCarthy right now on fabric and clothing designs for Spring and Summer 2024. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Slowing down on painting commissions, other plans include a coffee table book “on coastal lifestyle and coastal tradition, incorporating my style.”
With one more cottage to renovate on Isle of Hope (next door to the beautifully restored White Heron Cottage she uses as a gallery for her art), this busy artist and entrepreneur is also thinking about renovating rustic vacation cabins in North Carolina, home to her daughter Anna.
“There are not enough hours in the day!”
“When I get my mind on something, I research the hell out of it. I know exactly what things will cost me per square foot. I just love design,” she says, “When I was kid I wanted to be an architect. My passion is creating places.”
Looking around the Compass Rose Cottage, she smiles, “But once I’m done, I move on. I’ve slept here one night, and I’ve never taken a bath here.”
Creating beautiful spaces, “is ABSOLUTELY my passion. I paint to afford to do that! When I paint, I paint with interiors and lifestyle in mind.”
However, unlike her architectural interior designer son Patrick, she has no interest in designing for others: “I’m too used to not having a boss!” she laughs.
Bellamy Murphy will exhibit oils and acrylics in her solo show “Viridescence” at Location Gallery, 251 Bull Street, with gallery proceeds benefiting the Ossabaw Island Foundation. The opening reception is Friday, June 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. and work hangs through July 7. Find out more at LocationGallery.net, ossabawisland.org, and at BellamyArt.com or on Instagram @bellamyart.
