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Red, Whyte, & Blue

Photography Alice Keeney; Portrait photographs by Alice Keeney; Mary Whyte; courtesy of Patriot Art Foundation & Sarah MartinPhotos 15Issue May 2024
Mary Whyte uses her still life of work boots, Veterans Day (watercolor on paper, 13 x 14 inches, 2022), for an exercise in the Patriot Art Foundation’s Watercolor Boot Camp.Watercolorist Mary Whyte in her downtown studioMorning light fills Whyte’s Meeting Street studio.Her book Alfreda’s World (Wyrick & Co., 2003) celebrates Alfreda LaBoard and other Gullah quilters from John’s Island.For “We the People,” Whyte created an ambitious portrait of America via 50 watercolors, one from every state, depicting veterans from all walks of life, including Sondra, a truck driver in Toledo, Ohio, in Long Haul (watercolor on paper, 35.75 x 28.5 inches, 2015).An army of volunteers help staff events, including (left to right) Cathy Sippell, Susan Marlowe, Mary Regner, Whyte, Mille Haehl, Phyllis Sheffer, Martha Waggoner, and General Charles Baldwin on the Yorktown on Veterans Day 2023.Patriot Art Foundation classes are as much about offering sense of community and connection as they are exploring the healing power of art. Veterans from across the region joined the in-person Veterans Day event last November.Red, Whyte, & BlueVeteran student Blair Bickel painted this watercolor, Covered Bridge, at last year’s event; proceeds from the sale of this and the following work were donated to the foundation.Honoring the Flag, by Blair BickelMost of Whyte’s exhibitions have included a tandem book of paintings. Her forthcoming book on creativity will be published by USC Press in 2025.Jodi, a Coast Guard veteran from Deer Island, Maine, and model for Vigil (watercolor on paper, 29 x 41 inches, 2017) attended the “We the People” show at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, Ohio, in spring 2021.Examples of works completed through the Watercolor Boot Camp, a free, six-week, online course to help veterans “express themselves when words can’t and to provide a way to navigate a sometimes difficult world with creativity, purpose, and joy”Red, Whyte, & BlueVietnam vet Chauncey Clark, a Sullivan’s Island resident and chairman of the USS Yorktown Foundation, modeled for Whyte’s Veterans Day 2023 watercolor demonstration.

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Red, Whyte & Blue: Renowned watercolorist Mary Whyte renders her subjects in ethereal, telling brushstrokes
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