September 18 - October 28, 2006
Beaufort Art Association Gallery
1001 Bay St., Beaufort SC, 29902

The Beaufort Art Association, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, operates a unique and spacious gallery in an historic mansion on Bay Street at the corner of Charles. The gallery is in the ante-bellum George Elliott House which is the only historic mansion that is open to the public all year around.

The BAA Gallery exhibits the work of about one hundred local and regional artists at any given time and spotlights one artist during each six-week exhibit. The September-October featured artist is Ellen Long, a virtual dynamo in the Beaufort art world. The establishment of a gallery for local artists was Ellen’s dream, an achievement that in 2004 earned her a Beaufort Chamber Civitas Award. The first BAA gallery was a dreary empty bank on Port Republic Street. Ellen designed moveable display walls, gallery lighting, organized a painting brigade and transformed the abandoned rooms into a proper gallery. She then served two and a half years as gallery chair. A year ago, when the BAA decided to move, it was Ellen who headed the search committee and oversaw the transformation of Elliott house into the new gallery. She started the first BAA satellite gallery at Low Country Medical in Port Royal. Today, there are eight satellite galleries, including the county government buildings, where BAA artists hang their work.

Before moving to Beaufort ten years ago, Ellen was a prominent interior designer in Atlanta. As president of the Georgia chapters of two professional design organizations, she helped draft the legislation that defines the legal qualifications for interior designers in the state of Georgia.. Her interest in architecture, interior and exterior, is evident locally in special projects she has painted for Pinckney Retreat and the Beaufort Inn.

Most of Ellen’s art is focused on her intimate association with the shore, from Maine to the Chesapeake to her beloved Fripp Island, where she lives with her husband, Leon, and where she wakes up every day to the music of beach and ocean. “I try to plan every painting with the view of sharing my excitement about the coast – the wading birds, the shore turtles, the crabs the deer – and the incredible light and the sheer magic of the shore and marsh,” she says. Capture the magic she does, winning prizes in local and regional art shows. Her painting of a sunset-bathed Beaufort River was selected for the poster celebrating last year’s fiftieth annual Water Festival.

In recent years, Ellen’s watercolors have grown larger and bolder. She has intensified her colors and now brings the viewer up close to her subjects in such a way they cannot help but share that excitement she talked about. To bring the viewer even closer, she has developed a way of displaying and protecting watercolor paintings without the need of glass or plexi in the frames. This eliminates the problems that traditionally framed watercolors have with glare and reflections in Beaufort’s bright atmosphere.

Ellen does custom framing through her business, Ellen Long Designs, on Fripp Island. She is frequently asked to do commissions of subjects ranging from homes to specific landscape views, to pets. Her work is displayed at The Art Market at Fordham Market on Bay Street as well as the BAA Gallery and satellites.

Art is not new to Elliott House. Early in the Civil War when news that Yankee warships were headed toward Beaufort, all but two of the white residents took off in what is now referred to as “the great skedaddle.”. Elliott House became a hospital, and some of the young patients left graffiti on the walls where it can be seen today.

During the month of November, the BAA Gallery will host the National Bank of South Carolina’s Annual Oil Painters' Open Invitational Traveling Exhibition of Award Winners Show. Two BAA members, Sandra Bagette and Gloria Dalvini have work in this exhibit.

The BAA Gallery, 1001 Bay Street, is open from 10am to 5pm Monday through Saturday, and later during special events including the October 28 Art Walk. For additional information, please telephone Ellen Long, (843)838-3205 or the BAA Gallery, (843)379-2222.