ART
45
Taylor Loughlin’s work celebrates the
beauty of human interaction with water
BY WILLI MILLER
Loughlin’s oil on canvas Pool Step is a study in the interaction between water and skin.
For Taylor Loughlin, there’s no place like
home. When the St. Lucie County artist returned
to the area after earning her Bachelor
of Fine Arts degree from Flagler College, Port
St. Lucie is where she settled. She brought with her
the school’s Art and Design Award for Painting.
Growing up in a family of creative people made the
life of an artist the natural path for Loughlin to walk.
Her father David has created pencil art as long as she
can remember. His mother was an artist, working for
a greeting card company. “She lived in New Jersey
and … used to send me handmade greeting cards
in the mail.” On her mother’s side, the women were
great seamstresses and cooks and her brother, Jason,
is a musician in Brooklyn.
START AT LPA
Before heading up the coast to St. Augustine,
Loughlin completed the International Baccalaureate
program at Lincoln Park Academy in Fort Pierce.
Loughlin didn’t decide that art was her calling
until she reached high school, but as a youngster, “I
would make small doodles on anything I could get
my hands on,” the artist says. “I also loved making
small, hand-drawn books as a child,” a lead-in to her
high school studies at Lincoln Park, where one of
the yearlong projects was the making of an art book.
The premise was to choose a famous artist to study
through the year. “You would paint a portion of
the artist’s pieces on each page and then write your
thoughts and summary about that piece over top of >>