A Message from Tom Gadsden

My mother literally could not stop creating art. See saw artistic expression in almost everything, In high school during the Great Depression, as artist for the senior annual she decorated every page with celery (celery growers in Sanford, FL paid for printing the annual). When she was a freshman at Stetson University she had to use the lining of her coat as her canvas.

She was driven to paint and to allow her creativity to flourish and throughout their 65 years marriage my father encouraged and supported her.

She painted three murals on the walls of our home when I was a child a scene with trellises and flowering vines across a back of cabinets, a tropical scene with a cockatiel in our living room, and a beach scene with palm trees to accompany us along our stairway. She painted Raggedy Ann and Andy on one wall of her grandchildren’s bedroom, then a generation later painted wild animals (above and below ground) for one wall of her great grandchildren’s bedroom.

She knitted sweaters and throws, she made a large rag run, she painted pictures on rocks and changed sticks into fanciful snakes. She made soft sculpture dolls, painted on men’s ties, made works of pressed copper, sculpted plaster of Paris.

She created joy.

Plus, Doris was an accomplished athlete (swimmer, diver, and softball pitcher), popular beautician, dance instructor and choreographer with her own school, an artist painting new antique glass lamps to match broken originals. She designed and painted neon signs in the late 1940s. Then as an avid family genealogist she carefully researched and wrote a book about Gen. James Gadsden. All this along with raising her son and many, many of his friends and several informally adopted waifs. Oh, and for 8 years she and my father owned and operated a very successful chicken farm. 

This retrospective is intended to keep the memory of Doris Caroline Battern Gadsden (aka Mrs. Thomas Gadsden) alive and to share some of the many facets of her art, her spirit, and her joy of living in hopes of inspiring others who also long to create.