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Island Expressions: Jackie Cawley

Jackie Cawley surrounded by her art in her Mandahl Bay studio.In her spacious Mandahl Bay studio, bright with sunlight with a view spreading from Magens Bay to Jost Van Dyke, Jackie Cawley is doing what she loves best, something she has been doing for the last 70 or so years.

"Ever since I can remember, I’ve just had to draw," she says. "Anywhere, on anything. At home I used to draw in the frontispiece of books. I cannot remember not having a pencil in my hand.’

Those pencils have given way to clay and bronze sculpture, wood carving, oil painting, and her current medium, water colors and acrylics.
Pointing out a small crack in an oil painting, while conducting an informal tour of the studio, Cawley says, "Oil tends to craze, here."

The vibrant paintings, water colors and acrylics, cover walls of the studio, and the home above, Every wall in every room, hallway, even the bedroom, blooms with Cawley’s creativity.

Teacher, sculptor, painter, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother — Cawley says she is an old hand at juggling careers, kids and painting.
The move to St. Thomas, with Dick, her husband of 62 years, from Evanston, Ill., in 1992, was almost preordained, she says.

"We first came on a cruise in 1979, and we’d come back each year," she says. "When we first got off the ship, it was like we’d been here before. Deja vu, or whatever. This was going to be home." And that’s what it’s been since 1992.

Cawley said her art wasn’t a consideration in the move, though the island’s "natural beauty" captured her, and it has since become her vision. She has never seen a flower she didn’t like, so to speak.

She calls her paintings, "Islands by Cawley."

"I’m interested in things that grow, things that are part of the island," she says. "And I’ve learned one thing since I’ve been here, I’ve learned to paint water. It’s not easy."

Cawley lost no time in becoming part of the local art community. She has exhibited at the Tillett Gardens Arts Alive shows for many years, and her acrylics have taken honors at the Caribbean Color shows.

"I really miss those shows," Cawley laments. "The Arts Guild which ran them no longer exists."

While she is talking about her early career, Cawley points things out with a pencil, something of an artifact, itself. It’s inscribed "Cawley True Value Hardware, Evanston, Ill."

She smiles. "This is were it all started out.”

Cawley met Dick when she was still in high school. "He went to fight in the war, World War II that is," she says. "He came back to his family’s business, and we were together again. Very simple story."

And obviously a story fertile with success. They have six children, five girls, one boy, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

"One daughter, Kathy, has followed in my shoes," Cawley says. "She graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago, my alma mater."

Cawley points to one of her daughter’s works, a stunning watercolor of trees lined up closely in forest light, which clearly shows the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

"The children are doing something to help people," she says with satisfaction. "They are teachers, my son specializes in special education, one is a library director, and the others are teachers."

After the first child, there were gaps of one or two years, she says, "until finally we had the last one in kindergarten," she laughs.

Raising that burgeoning brood, Cawley taught herself some useful tricks.

"When we’d be in waiting room anywhere, I’d whip out the pencils and papers from my purse and set them to drawing. It worked every time."

Cawley graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor’s degree in speech.

"It’s called communication now," she says. She later studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, taught sculpture at the Americana Art Center in Northfield, Ill., and did freelance work in visual and graphic arts before she came to St. Thomas.

With a few departures into landscape, Cawley’s heart now seems completely taken by flowers.

She discusses a painting of a bright red hibiscus.

"You know," she says, "sometimes when you close your eyes, you see the red light in your eyelid, I wanted to get that feeling in a painting."

The arresting result reflects that light and that desire.A red hibiscus painted by Jackie Cawley.

Looking over the view from her hilltop aerie, Cawley says, "What people see in the paintings, I like to share. When someone else likes what you do, it gives everyone a happy feeling. That’s life."

From time to time, her original paintings hang at Hook, Line and Sinker in Frenchtown, Her prints are available at the Island Native Arts Gallery across from Vendors Plaza.

She can be contacted at 777-3069.

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