Patrick Connelly was raised in northern New Jersey, graduated from Bucknell and Northeastern Universities, and lived in the Boston area for 34 years before moving to South Carolina in 2010. He has been happily married to Lora Connelly for 46 years and is the proud father of two sons, and grandfather of five grandchildren. In 2018 Connelly retired from his 41-year career as a professional civil engineer and chief operating officer of an engineering consulting firm.
Although he consistently enjoyed perusing art galleries and talking with artists, Patrick began painting only upon his retirement after being encouraged to paint by a talented artist. Connelly never looked back and continues to enjoy the thrill of learning the challenging process of observation, mixing paints to create colors, and applying paint to canvas to try to express the beauty of God’s creation.
After joining the Seabrook Island Artist Guild in 2018 he was elected to serve as President of the Guild in 2020. He enjoys painting in both oils and acrylics, and is grateful to collaborate with so many talented artists.
During the pandemic, Patrick often painted online with his granddaughter Ailyn. His goals during these Zoom sessions were to enjoy interacting with his 7-year-old granddaughter and help her learn to paint. He affectionately signed these quick, small paintings as “Papoo”, his granddad name and has included a number of the paintings from those precious online sessions as part of his Artist of the Month exhibit at the Lake House.
There will be reception for Patrick on Thursday, February 2 from 4:30 – 6:00 pm at The Lake House. We hope you will come out, talk with Patrick and enjoy viewing his works of art.
-Submitted by Bonnie Younginer, Seabrook Island Artist Guild
(Image credit: Patrick Connelly)