Stepping into Michelle Berg Radford’s home studio—she also works out of one at Taylors Mill—reveals an abundance of projects and supplies.
While there are vintage textiles cross-stitched with sayings, mixed media pieces depicting domesticity, and quilts made with old clothing, much of the space is filled with her richly detailed oil paintings.
“I’m super happy anytime I can paint a landscape,” the Greenville native says of her vibrant scenes painted on canvas and vintage doilies. Whether a grass-filled valley, a tree-lined path, or a flower-filled garden, each portrays a place she’s visited locally or on travels.
“But I also have a story to tell about painting them,” Radford says, referencing how she rebounded from a time when she doubted she would ever produce art again.
She’d given birth to her now 16-year-old daughter, followed by twin sons less than two years later, and the ensuing physical and mental exhaustion took a toll on her creativity. “I attempted one last diptych after my daughter was born, and it was too much,” she says. “I felt like I didn’t know how to paint.”
Instead, she made baby clothes, decorated her children’s rooms, and undertook other domestic pursuits before returning to artmaking. Her first creations—10-by-10-inch mixed-media pieces incorporating fabric scraps, pins and other fasteners, and butterflies as a symbol of motherhood—spoke to the emotions and time constraints she felt.
“I started slow, and it’s funny because I was making art about not making art. But I really thought it was over, that I’d never paint a great landscape again,” she says, adding that her childhood yearning to be an artist intensified the struggle of her postpartum pause.
“That was the first time I ever realized I might not be able to make art as much as I wanted,” she says. “It was a whole crisis of ‘Who am I? Am I still me if I don’t make art?’ I had to think that through, and it was so important to me that I’ll never let it not be part of my story.”
As her children grew and she continued teaching, she returned to painting landscapes, a genre of art that first captivated her in adolescence when she saw exhibitions of Winslow Homer paintings and Hudson River School landscapes.
“I think those formed me obviously more than I realized,” she says, adding that she started to think “about landscapes as a language” while earning her Master of Fine Arts degree at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).
Radford now finds inspiration in her love of color and in the challenge of capturing movement and detail in unique compositions crafted from memory, live sketches, and her own photographs.
“I’m not interested in painting things I already know how to paint, and I don’t mind a little bit of struggle,” she says. “I don’t want to be an artist if I can’t keep learning and being surprised.”
Her latest paintings address the relevancy of landscapes as she’s increasingly seen people question whether art is AI-generated. “I’m coming into my studios and painting these with real paint and paintbrushes. And I’m painting them with my own human hands and heart and soul, with everything I’ve got,” she says.
And while “they look like pretty landscapes,” she adds, each painting speaks to her concern about the loss of water and other threats to the natural world.
“Every single one of these paintings is a real place that I’ve visited, and all of them are being actively preserved on purpose,” she says, adding that choosing to paint a particular place comes down to its light, color, and movement.
“That’s kind of what I’m after,” she says, adding that her spirituality plays a vital role in her process.
“It’s really linked to prayer and worship,” she says. “Nature ties into that for me because it’s our divine job to steward this creation. It’s our calling as humans.”
Outdoor Observations
Radford wakes before her family each morning and spends quiet moments on her home’s back deck, observing the wooded yard’s birds and squirrels.
“We have so many, even though we’re in the middle of subdivision after subdivision. And I’ve painted my trees a lot,” she says, adding that she also intentionally takes tree-filled routes when driving around Greenville and hikes local mountain trails when time allows.
While these everyday experiences are creatively fulfilling, Radford says her favorite landscapes are in northern Scotland, an often-visited spot during student trips she and her husband, Paul, lead each summer.
“It’s when I feel the most connected. I like that it’s rugged,” she says, adding that being there this summer brought clarity about her upcoming exhibitions.
“I spent the whole time praying about what these shows are supposed to be, and it was quiet enough to listen. I really think it’s because I was around air, earth, and water,” she says.
Radford’s latest solo exhibition, “Grounded,” runs from Sept. 4 to 26 at Spoonbill Gallery (www.spoonbillgallery.com), 1292 Pendleton St. To learn more about Radford, visit michellebergradford.com or follow @michelle.radford.
