Reality proved to be a bit less fantastic, but every bit as interesting, on recent visits to the private worlds of three local artists.

Swash Studies

In his Briarcliff Acres "Beach Ranch", Thomas Davis, artist and co-owner of Collector's Café, surrounds himself with things he finds beautiful. Energetic and filled with enthusiasm, Davis has only lived in his home for a year, but he has made it his own.

Davis never intended to be an artist. He graduated from Clemson University with a degree in business, and studied graphic design in Atlanta. "It wasn't where I wanted to go," he says. "I started painting about 10 years ago, first for my friends and family, then for myself."

His home contains a few antiques and pieces with personal significance, but most rooms are simply and even sparsely furnished. The long living/dining area, which Davis calls the gallery, boasts a honey oak floor and recessed spot lighting. He had the lights installed to show the art in the room – mostly his own oil paintings, including studies of the Waccamaw River and a swash near his home, and canvases from his European travels.

Works by other artists grace the walls and halls. Davis has prints from the old masters, and pieces by local artists Robert Saddlemeyer, Patsy Howell, and Nancy Davis (who happens to be his mother). "Eventually I want to have a huge collection of eclectic styles," he says. He finds inspiration everywhere – in the work of Post-Impressionists he admires, in the drape of a garment in the window of a Paris boutique, in the marshes where he runs every day.

A sunroom off the gallery contains a large window which looks down into Davis' studio. The spacious area, open on three sides and filled with natural light, provided motivation for the purchase of the house.

In time, Davis will renovate his Beach Ranch. "I'm going to add a master suite. I plan to put ceramic tile in the shower in my studio, and I want to turn the basement into a wine cellar.

The home provides Davis with something he's always wanted – space to look at his own paintings. "I've never kept any for myself; I sell them quickly. Now I have this great house and I can hang my work and keep it for a little while."

Recycled Treasures

You might never guess it to look at her, but Gwen Coley has a passion for fishing and a talent for rescuing old furniture.

The first thing one sees upon entering her home is an ancient green canoe, cut in half and standing on one end, with shelves to house a collection of fishing ephemera. The display includes delicate glass floats, signs from old schooners, and Coley's beloved fishing lures.

"I've collected them forever," says the Surfside Beach artist. "I've got some of my daddy's, made of wood." Coley and her husband Tim are avid fishers. "Every chance we get, we go to McClellanville for spot tail bass!"

Signs of the couple's hobby can be found throughout the cozy house, particularly in their living room. Furnishings include a round table painted with a ship's compass by Coley, a pie safe once owned by her grandmother, and a small end table built by her husband, painted with a cheerful school of primitive fish in gold, green and black.

A bathroom is painted with a trompe l'śil porthole, stone bricks, and an oar. Another bathroom, in a jungle motif, contains a sink tiled by Coley in a dragonfly design.

The second bedroom is something of a tribute to Coley's grandmother, affectionately called Mammy. Exquisitely framed collections of lace, buttons, and fasteners hang on the walls, and a stack of Mammy's handmade quilts are ready to warm chilled guests.

In her busy little studio, located above her husband's immaculate shop, the artist frames paintings, prints, and photos, and creates pillows, floor cloths, and collages. The Coleys built the structure after purchasing the home eight years ago. They also created a patio behind the house. It is as charmingly, resourcefully decorated as the rest of their home.

Coley points at a rustic white table under a thriving geranium plant. "I got that when I saw it on the back of a truck in a man's yard with lots of other junk," she laughs. "Almost everything I have is from an antique store, a tag sale, or found by the side of the road!"

Cedar and Symbolism

The scent of aromatic cedar is a constant presence in the home of North Myrtle Beach artist Mike Todd. "I like the color. It mimics my thesis painting. It's rich and red, and I love its smell," Todd says.

Todd's enormous thesis work,The Specialization of Man, dominates the painting studio of the artist's North Myrtle Beach home. The work's subject is a huge skull, every crack and crevice filled with symbolic objects and figures from mythology. The studio's cedar walls, ceiling and floor provide a perfect setting for the 14' x 9' polyptych.

Hurricane Hugo left a wealth of raw building materials for anybody with the resources to salvage and transport them. Todd jumped at the opportunity. "I kept finding stuff that would have been thrown away anyway," he recalls. "Old doors, windows, and an immense amount of treated lumber. And people kept calling, telling me I could have their uprooted cedar trees."

Some three dozen paintings hang on the studio's walls, including Narcissus: 20th Century Madonna, the work that prompted the city of Myrtle Beach to close his 1982 one-man show. In one corner, Todd built a loft; he sleeps there occasionally when he is working. A comfortable sofa and several overstuffed chairs, covered in velvet, are grouped around a coffee table made of a cedar slab. Alabaster sculptures with cedar bases are scattered around the periphery of the room.

The relative serenity of the studio is surrounded with the creative chaos of a home in which Todd and his wife Susan are raising their three young sons. Artistic touches are everywhere. Todd's bedroom floor, for example, is rendered in an unusual pattern consisting of cedar he milled himself, with alternating planks of light birch.

Todd bought the home 20 years ago, when it was little more than a cottage with a sizable piece of land. "The first thing I did was build a porch and glass it in. Then I just kept adding on." An eclectic symbolist, Todd finds inspiration in variegated places. His books include volumes on parrots, Maxfield Parrish, and existentialism. "I try to integrate information from as many schools as possible. I draw from a lot of sources to make sense of my reality."

It almost seems as if he's talking about the evolution of his comfortable home.