“Oh Papa! The Stars in South Carolina are like diamonds!”

“I’m Lisa Rigsby Peterson, the artist’s daughter. This painting, “Oh Papa! The Stars in South Carolina are like diamonds!” is titled after something I exclaimed to my father after we moved from the city lights of Connecticut and the East Coast to the small coastal town of Beaufort, South Carolina.  We moved to Beaufort so that our father could work as the National Endowment for the Arts first Artist-in-Residence in the state. We lived on Azalea Drive, my brother David and I went to Mossy Oaks Elementary School, and our family spent time exploring the marshes, riding on shrimp boats, and dropping crab nets over the bridge next to our father’s downtown Beaufort studio. I love that Oh Papa includes shiny silver dots that cascade off the painting