2025 Featured Artist – Jeanne O’Neal
An Artist’s Love Letter to the Lowcountry
By Kimberly Duncan
In the historic seaport town of Georgetown, where the scent of sea air mingles with the rhythm of the tides, a singular honor is bestowed each year upon one artist: the creation of the official poster for the beloved Georgetown Wooden Boat Show. For 2025’s 36th annual event, the distinction belongs to Jeanne O’Neal – a painter whose work is imbued with warmth, movement, and the unmistakable spirit of SC’s Lowcountry.
Jeanne O’Neal is an artist whose creative spirit is deeply rooted in the Lowcountry she loves calling home. Nearly giddy with her love of painting, Jeanne is friendly, animated, and utterly in love with making art. That she has been chosen to create the official poster for the 36th Annual Georgetown Wooden Boat Show—scheduled for October 18–19, 2025—is a milestone and affirmation of a burgeoning professional journey.
Born to a Naval Commander, Jeanne grew up a “Navy brat,” moving seven times before college – locations as varied as San Diego, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. – before eventually returning to ancestral SC roots. Those early years gave her perspective – of landscapes, cultures, friendships, and faith – no school room or art class could have provided.
A Life in Motion
From a young age, Jeanne’s imagination found its outlet in art. She remembers drawing impossibly tiny animals and people – each less than an inch tall – then cutting them out to create miniature worlds. Over the years, she explored sketching, pastels, watercolor, pen and ink, and even pottery. Art was always a thread, but for many years, it wove in and out of a life that also included teaching elementary school students in Virginia and SC.
Six years ago, that thread assumed a bold new color when Jeanne began painting with oils. The medium’s richness and flexibility—“you can fix it if you need to,” she laughs – captured her heart. “It quickly became an obsession,” she admits. Her daughters, now teenagers, learned that when Mom was deep in her creative flow, they might hear, “Kids, make your own dinner!” followed quickly by, “Just kidding!”
The Artist as Teacher, the Teacher as Artist
Teaching has been a constant in Jeanne’s life. In addition to years in elementary education, she led art classes for children and adults in Greenville and Pawleys, including spirited group sessions at local studios and boutiques. For her, sharing art is as joyful as creating it. “Learning art should be fun,” she insists, “and it’s a passion for me.” Not surprisingly she has sought out – and relished – workshops with respected artists such as Betsy Jones McDonald, Kyle Stuckey, and Michelle Heid – ever the student, eager to refine her skills.
Her subject matter reflects her abiding love for the Lowcountry: the twisted limbs of live oaks stretched over sandy dunes, sunsets spilling fire over marshes, clouds mirrored in still waters.
Recently, she’s been studying how to paint clouds and light reflections with even greater nuance, finding infinite variation in the skies over Winyah Bay.
A Historic Vessel, a Living Legacy
The 2025 Wooden Boat Show poster features a local icon: the shrimp boat Captain Andrew. Built in 1968 by brothers James Richard, Leon, and Hubert Jordan on Georgetown’s Lee Street, the vessel was named for their father, Andrew Watson Jordan. Crafted from yellow pine, cypress, and oak, with heart pine ribs, the boat is 75 feet long with a 22-foot beam – a waterfront workhorse.
In its long life, Captain Andrew has earned a special place in Georgetown’s collective heart. In 2016, its crew saved two fishermen whose boat had capsized near North Santee Bay. One of the rescued men later named his newborn son Andrew in gratitude. Still docked in Georgetown, the Captain Andrew remains a working reminder of the region’s deep maritime roots, a proud symbol of craftsmanship, courage, and community.
For Jeanne, incorporating the Captain Andrew into her artwork is both an honor and a responsibility Weathered and proud, “it’s more than a boat,” she says. “It’s a symbol of resilience, hard work, and community.” The wooden hull, nets draped in careful folds is at once elegant and tougher than nails. In the painting, the late afternoon sun sets Front Street aglow, golden light bouncing off the Sampit River. Along the far shore, marsh grass catches swaths of orange and rose, while a scattering of clouds – painted with the careful attention Jeanne has been honing – are brushstrokes of light.
The image will be reproduced on posters and T-shirts for sale at the South Carolina Maritime Museum, with the original auctioned at the Wooden Boat Show’s opening-night Goat Island Yacht Club Regatta. Proceeds will benefit the museum’s programs, ensuring that the region’s maritime history continues to be preserved and celebrated.
Roots in the Lowcountry
Jeanne and her husband Bo, both Clemson graduates, lived for many years in Greenville before settling in Georgetown with their two daughters. The family has embraced the coastal lifestyle wholeheartedly – boating, oyster roasts, shark tooth hunting, and beach days with toes in the sand. These are not just leisure activities for Jeanne; they are sources of inspiration that feed the colors, textures, and moods of her work.
Her art can be found locally at Gray Man Gallery in Pawleys, Georgetown Art Gallery in Georgetown and Perspective Gallery in Mount Pleasant, as well as Pawleys Island General Store, and a few other local boutiques and restaurants. Smaller works are often snapped up by visitors eager to take a piece of the Lowcountry home. Larger oils – sunlit marshes, boats at dock, serene cloudscapes – have found homes in private collections near and far.
Looking Ahead
While Jeanne’s professional art career is relatively young, her trajectory is steep and sure. Commissions are increasing, workshop opportunities beckon, and the Wooden Boat Show poster will bring her work to tens of thousands of eyes. And yet, for all the recognition, she remains grounded. “I just want to keep painting,” she says simply. “There’s so much beauty here, and I feel lucky every day to live where I do and to share that through my art … I want people to feel my inner joy on the canvas. I hope my collectors feel the love I pour into every creation for years to come.”
An Artist to Watch
The Georgetown Wooden Boat Show is an award-winning celebration of craftsmanship, history, and the enduring bond between a coastal community and its waters. In choosing Jeanne O’Neal as its 2025 poster artist, the selection committee has honored not only her talent but also her ability to capture the heart of the Lowcountry.
Whether you see her work hanging in a gallery, adorning a shop wall, or gracing the official poster that will soon be cherished by collectors, one thing is certain: Jeanne paints with the same openness and vitality that she brings to every conversation. Her canvases are love letters—to the marsh, to the harbor, to the history she is helping to preserve, and to the community that has embraced her in
return.
Jeanne offers in-person and online workshops and spearheads artist retreats to Italy! Learn more at www.jeanneoneal.faso.com or find Jeanne on Facebook!
Jeanne O’Neal’s original oil painting will be auctioned at the 2025 Goat Island Yacht Club Regatta scheduled for 6:30-10 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 17. Posters and T-shirts featuring the painting will be for sale at the Georgetown Wooden Boat Show on Oct. 18-19 and at the SC Maritime Museum, 729 Front Street, Georgetown, SC.