Caroline Garrett Hardy

My first artistic breakthrough was a drawing of a fox at the age of four. My fox wore a vest, a feathered cap, and held a basket of eggs. I swore to my mom that the fox looked precisely the way I’d drawn him ( I was sure it was a “he”) when he ran across the front lawn. Art had captured this rare moment of excitement for me. From that point on, I knew art was my métier.

• I attended Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA for two years and transferred to Virginia Commonwealth University where I earned a BFA in painting and printmaking.

• I travelled to San Francisco where I received a scholarship to the Academy of Art University in the Illustration Department. My pursuit of drawing animals who wore vests, hats, and acted like humans flourished. I received an honorary mention from the department and a certificate in Illustration. Soon thereafter I travelled to London, England where I lived for eight years.

• I became a visiting lecturer at Camberwell College of Art and Craft where I taught courses in children’s book illustration, drawing, and 2-D design. I also studied book arts at Camberwell. My stint as visiting lecturer to Camberwell continued for 18 years. In 1992 I was fortunate enough to be elected to the Board of Lecturership for the London Institute of Art.

• I attended Cranbrook Academy of Art, receiving an MFA in printmaking, followed by receipt of a grant from Ohio State University to study book arts. I worked at OSU’s book laboratory, The Logan Elm Press, where I subsequently earned another Masters of Arts degree.

• I taught Illustration, 2-D design, and drawing on under-graduate and graduate levels at the Savannah College of Art and Design. In 1993 I left Savannah, Georgia to teach graduate level drawing, under-graduate illustration, and the History of American Illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. .

• I returned to the East Coast to co-create a Communication Arts program for Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina. In 2005 I accepted a position at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia where I taught Photoshop and 2-D design for five years.

I am a full-time artist now living in Williamsburg, Virginia. My photographer husband, Trotter Hardy, is a retired Professor of Law from the College of William and Mary. My work can be found in various collections, including the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina; The Vatican Museum in the Vatican City, Rome, Italy; The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn ,New York; and the Rare Book Collection of the Tompkins-McCaw Library at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.