Marilyn Foley

Marilyn Lyon Foley is living proof that it is never too late to take up a second career. At age 50, after spending her earlier years as a math and science teacher, she redirected herself to her first love: making art.

Last year the Savannah artist received a significant honor in her field. One of her watercolor paintings was accepted into the National Watercolor Society's 78th annual exhibition. Hers was one of 66 accepted from 1,500 submissions. The painting then made it into an even more elite group when it became one of 30 to go on a national tour of galleries.

Foley majored in chemistry until her junior year, when one day she looked outside of her laboratory window and realized she would rather be outside on the lawn painting. She switched her major to art history. After graduating, she married an Episcopal clergyman and spent the next 25 years in the Northeast and the South, where she took jobs in a number of private schools teaching math and science. But when her children were out of school and there was no more tuition to pay, she decided that it was time to recapture her lost love.

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The Paintings of Marilyn Foley - By Amelia Arenas, PhD

"Why do I call Foley's work "paintings" instead of watercolors? Because the term "watercolor" brings to mind the European definition of it which involves the fleeting moment, the casual view which is normally associated with sketching. Nothing of that is in Foley's work. Rather I think there is something that reminds me of Homer and Eakins, Wyeth and Hopper. Although Foley has a gentleness of touch, it never compromises the geometric rigor that underlies the structure of the paintings. ..."