Chelsea Handley is the kind of person who includes her dog when she lists her family members and believes the number of sap buckets on the sugar maples and haunted tales in the town lore tell you almost everything you need to know about a place. She is a mother and an artist and a sports fan and an outdoors enthusiast — probably in that order. As a kid, she roamed the woods, snacking on wild blackberries, fishing from a canoe with her family, and of course building forts. When she wasn’t outside, she was painting or drawing her adventures and the animals she met. Or she was sketching blueprints of her dream home, creating the earliest iterations of Chelsea Handley’s art.
A neighbor and professional artist recognized and encouraged Handley’s aptitude for art. She offered Handley guidance, exposure to the local art scene, and a window into life when creating is your career. “I used to pet sit for her. And I would take that opportunity to walk around her art studio — still smelling like turpentine — in awe, sneaking a peek at what she was working on at that moment,” recalls Handley. “I told myself I was going to have a studio of my very own just like that one day.”
A golf scholarship brought Handley from New England to the Charlotte area for her college years. Love of the Queen City and her husband, who she met during her time at Pfeiffer University, where she minored in studio art, made her stay. Although she now works full-time as a Technical Director at ESPN, Handley still makes space in her life to paint. And echoes from her past are forever prevalent in her work. “The subject matter of my paintings always roots back to something I loved as a little girl. For example, animals, nature, design, and architecture,” says Handley. “Memories inspire me, and I translate it into a common and current theme.”
Chelsea Handley’s Creative World
Before beginning any new work, Handley diligently researches her subject. Her goal with all her subjects — whether it’s a person, animal, or landscape — is to capture its spirit. To do so, she must first understand it. “Let’s say it’s my painting of Picasso, the wild horse from Sand Wash Basin,” she said. “I read the accounts of wild equine photographers who have studied his habits for the past 30 years. I want to know his personality. How many harems did he have? How was he with their offspring? Was he as tenacious as the stories make him out to be? What was Sand Wash Basin like?”
Much of Chelsea Handley’s art is by commission, resulting in a truly diverse range of subjects. Handley stays nimble as she determines how best to represent them. For example, when completing a life size painting of Jimmy Page, Handley used actual pieces of wood to replicate Page’s guitar. She added mother-of-pearl inlays, ivory tuners, and strings to the piece to produce a captivating 3D work.
No matter what Handley is creating, her hope for the viewer is simple: “I want people to notice the beauty in everything around us,” she says.
