March 1, 2009 -- St. John artist Livy Hitchcock, like many of her peers, takes her inspiration from the island's natural beauty.
"I really love the water, the flowers, the sugarbirds," she says. "I love the light and dark shadows."
You'll find her a couple of days a week at Turtle Bay Beach as Caneel Bay Resort's artist in residence.
She paints in pastels, a switch she made years ago after working in watercolors.
"I started putting pastels on watercolors to make it better," she says. "I said 'forget the watercolors.'"
While St. John inspires her landscapes, people inspire her portraits, the genre she likes the most.
Hitchcock is nearing the end of a series on the students killed in the April 20, 1999, Columbine, Colo., high school shootings that left a dozen dead. With April 20 the10th anniversary of that tragedy, Hitchcock has two students left to paint.
"If it takes me even longer, it doesn't matter," she says.
The Columbine paintings are two portraits of the student -- one as a child and one how they looked around the time they died.
"I made a story for each one," Hitchcock says. "It ended up being a celebration of life."
She has sent the completed portraits on to the families.
Locally, Hitchcock has done portraits of the late David Geiger, murdered in 2005 at his home in Grunwald. She has also painted a portrait of St. John resident Brook Gallup, who died in a car accident in 1999.
She moved to St. John in 2004, and she and her husband, Tom, bought Bajo El Sol Gallery at Mongoose Junction shopping center in 2005. The gallery exhibits her works as well as others. Her works are also on display at Gallery St. Thomas.
Hitchcock, 61, says she started drawing when she was 5. Born in Puerto Rico where her father was an Episcopal missionary, she lived in various locations in California before her family settled in Vermont. She went on to study fashion illustration at Lasell College in Auburndale, Mass.
She and her husband also spent two years as Peace Corps volunteers in the Philippines.
When she's not working as an artist in residence, Hitchcock still spends a bit of time at Bajo El Sol. And, of course, she loves it when her family comes to visit.
Daughter Michelle Turner, her husband, Drew Turner, and their 2-year-old daughter, Lillian Grace, stayed a few weeks in early February. Her son, David Hitchcock, was due to arrive in late February.
"He's coming the day my daughter leaves," she says.
Call Hitchcock at 693-7070.
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