Meet Our Talented Panel of Judges
This year’s distinguished panel has been gathered from around the region and represents a wide array of principals, backgrounds, and experience.
Kaitee Floyd
Gallery owner
Kaitee Floyd, owner of Floyd Fine Arts is a native of Murrells Inlet, SC, wife to high school sweetheart, Hunter Floyd, and mother to 4-year-old daughter, Millee and 2 month old son, Ryder. Floyd graduated from Coastal Carolina University with an Interdisciplinary Degree with a focus in Arts Management. After 7 years as gallery director, she had the opportunity to purchase the gallery from the retired owner, Cheryl Newby.
Working side by side with Newby for several years she learned the business of dealing art. Over the course of her career, she learned to curate exhibitions, and develop meaningful relationships with artist’s, clients, and the community.
Floyd Fine Arts represents a number of nationally and regionally recognized painters and sculptors.
The gallery offers patrons fine art in a variety of styles and media. The gallery limits its artists and offerings to those who have achieved a high level of accomplishment reflected in their distinctive style. Paintings, sculpture, and ceramics are among the offerings.
Natalie Daise
Actor / Artist / Writer / Educator
For more than 30 years, Natalie Daise has developed and facilitated interactive learning experiences for educators, students, and audiences in schools, universities, conferences, and other venues. Her belief in the positive power of stories is demonstrated in her speaking as well as in the performing and visual arts.
A self taught, visionary artist, Natalie’s painting and functional art pieces arise from the tradition of storytelling.
She has been married to Ron Daise, her cheerleader, supporter, and committed partner in creativity and life since 1985. They have two children, Sara and Simeon, by birth, and one, Sabrina, by heart. She earned a BA degree from Vermont College in 1992 and a MA in Creativity Studies in 2014.
Best known as “Ms. Natalie” on Nick Jr.’s award-winning television program, Gullah Gullah Island, Natalie is committed to making presentations that entertain, educate, empower and inspire.
Russ Bratcher
Photographer & Artist
My love of photography and fine art began against the sleepy backdrop of the Lowcountry in my hometown of Georgetown, SC.
Under the tutelage of Bruce Chandler, I honed my watercolor skills from a young age. As an adult, I found great joy in traveling and painting a watercolor series that pays homage to the African American musicians of the South — a project close to my heart.
After high school, I served in the US Air Force in the United Kingdom, during which time, my passion for art continued and I collaborated with many British nationals, and Airmen on many projects to further train my artistic eye. I left the Air Force with an achievement medal for serving the community with art.
For nearly ten years, I found fulfillment in guiding art students along South Carolina’s coastline. My journey continues and I am now living in Jacksonville, FL, where I’ve established Russ Bratcher Photography.
I specialize in capturing portraits and creating luxe framed artwork for homes. If it is worth remembering, it is worth framing.
Beyond the lens I continue to paint, alongside a vibrant online community for Veterans through the Patriot Art Foundation. I support the Rice Museum in Georgetown in the areas of memberships, marketing, and art gallery curator.
Russ holds a BFA in web design & interactive media from the Art Institute of Charleston and an MFA in art education from Coast Carolina University.
Janice Hendra
Watermedia Painter
Embarking on a creative journey during my high school years in Detroit, I found the halls of the Detroit Institute of Arts captivating. Every Saturday, while attending select art classes at the DIA, I was able to surround myself with majestic Diego Rivera murals and European masterpieces. That experience ignited an enduring admiration for the artists who crafted them and a lifelong desire to be a painter myself.
Armed with a BA in Fine Arts (Ceramics) and Art History from Michigan State University, I initially delved into the world of studio pottery, shaping clay into artworks with a practical touch. Then fate had other plans, leading me on an unexpected detour into the realm of computers and programming. For the next three decades, my creativity found expression in designing IT solutions for state government, a journey as exhilarating as it was unexpected.
Now, having retired from the world of technology, I have embraced a full immersion into the visual arts, with the brush and canvas becoming my tools of choice for self-expression.
My paintings have appeared in exhibitions hosted by the Baltimore Watercolor Society, the Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Society of Washington DC, the Miniature Art Society of Florida, the Benfield Art Gallery, the Annapolis Watercolor Club, the West River Artists, the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County, the Maryland Federation of Art, the Mitchell Gallery – St John’s College, the MC3 Gallery, Gallery 564, and the Sotheby’s International Realty Gallery.
visit Janice Hendra’s website
Tanya Ackerman
Photographer
Award-winning photographer Tanya Ackerman captures images with her camera that portray the beauty of South Carolina and the passions of the people who live there. The stories and emotions Tanya shares through her photography have earned her scores of awards during her career. The South Carolina Press Association named her Photojournalist of the Year for all weekly newspapers four times since she moved to Pawleys Island, and most recently in 2020.
Her love of the outdoors and her photographic eye were nurtured by her mother, an avid nature photographer. From her father, a jazz musician, composer and music educator, Tanya inherited her exuberant approach to life that enables her to tap into the unique joys and sorrows of each subject.
Her ability to dig beneath the surface infuses her photographs with the power to inspire a smile, a tear or a call to action. She seeks out new ways to tell the stories of people and places.
Tanya received her degree in photojournalism from Kent State University and worked as a newspaper photographer for 25 years. She relocated to Pawleys Island to focus her lens on its coastal community and document this piece of the fabric of American Life. Tanya released her first book, Pawleys Island: Chasing the Light, to critical acclaim in 2016. Her second book in the Chasing the Light series, Pawleys Island: Seasons of Light, was released in 2020.
Bryan Rapp
sculptor / educator
Bryan Rapp is a contemporary figurative sculptor, educator, and the Director of the Wallace Master Sculptor Program at Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina. Rapp began his art career over twenty years ago as a computer animation student, followed by two years working with sculptor Alan Cottrill in his Ohio studio and foundry, Coopermill Bronzeworks. Since then, Rapp has obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Muskingum University, and a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from the University of Oklahoma where he was a student of renowned sculptor Paul Moore from 2013-2016.
From 2016 to 2019, Rapp was the Artist-in-Residence at Coastal Carolina University and taught students all clay to bronze processes (Lost Wax Casting) while fabricating a twelve-foot-tall bronze mascot for the university’s Division I football stadium.
In 2019, Rapp joined Brookgreen Gardens, the country’s first public sculpture garden founded in 1931 by sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and her husband, Archer. As Director of the Master Sculptor Program, Bryan teaches sculpting and coordinates other sculpture workshops taught by elite American representational sculptors and medalists.
Amiri Geuka Farris
MULTI-DISCIPLINE Artist
Amiri Geuka Farris is a renaissance man. A multidisciplinary artist, he has worked in almost every medium imaginable. His art is bold, expressive, and completely different – inspired by his own life experiences and the materials at hand. Featured in over 50 solo exhibitions and juried museum shows nationally and internationally, Amiri is a true trailblazer whose work explores topics such as diaspora, culture, memory, and perception.
Susan Rhew
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Award-winning graphic designer Susan Rhew earned a BFA in ceramics from East Carolina University and a MA in graphic design from the School of Art + Design at Western Carolina University. After teaching design in university and community college systems, freelancing, and art directing at a small company, Rhew formed her own graphic design firm in 2000. A life-long resident of Asheville, NC, she attracted a rich client base of museums, galleries, universities, artist collectives, and individual artists. Signature design projects have included dozens of museum and gallery exhibition graphics and catalogues, poetry and artist books, large scale architectural image wraps, way-finding signage, and identity packages. Rhew has traveled widely on six continents and takes great pleasure in photographing, appreciating, and experiencing the diverse art, design, architecture, people, and cultures of these destinations.