ARTIST’S BACKGROUND
Kimberly Leighton Boulon has lived with her husband, Rafe, at Windswept Beach, Trunk Bay Estate, on beautiful St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands for 27 years. There they raised their two children, Devon and Revel, surrounded by lush vegetation and a warm tropical sea. They engaged in all the activities that the island has to offer: hiking the trails in the large National Park, boating, kayaking, windsurfing, snorkeling and more. All this was fodder and impressions that wouldn’t become part of the soul of Kimberly’s paintings until 1998 when she decided once and for all to finally allow herself the freedom to paint as she did as a child.
She grew up with four siblings in the Central Valley, California farming community of Modesto where being with all her animals and drawing were her favorite activities. Her fondest grammar school memories were of drawing and painting but “academics” eventually got the best of her time. However, a three month trip to Hawaii when she was 15 set the course for her future. She fell in love with the tropics and never wavered from her determination to live there.
So, following her graduation in wildlife management, marine, and geological sciences at Humbolt State University in California, she headed to Mexico and Central America with her cameras, kayaking rivers and patiently observing nature. From there she traveled to Africa along with the year and a half privilege of studying fish and other marine animal behavior on Aldabra Atoll in the Indian Ocean. Her scuba or snorkeling gear, underwater writing material and cameras were her near constant companions. Giant tortoises, numerous species of birds and other animals also offered keen observation and photo opportunities and she spent many happy hours in the dark room on Aldabra bringing to black and white life the beauty that surrounded her.
Her interest in the marine environment led her to Puerto Rico (cameras again in hand), graduate studies in coral reef ecology, and fortuitously, her husband, Rafe, then a graduate student in Marine Sciences.
Following Rafe’s graduation, they came “home” to Windswept in 1980, where Rafe’s family has owned property since their original purchase of Trunk Bay Estate in 1926. The V.I. National Park has most of it now, but the Boulons enjoy their home at Windswept Beach along side Trunk Bay Beach, and Rafe, as Chief of Resource Management for the Park, helps protect the environment where he grew up and he and Kimberly raised their two boys.
After many years on St. John organizing youth sports, sitting on other boards of non-profit organizations, and directing a home-based education for Revel and Devon, Kimberly is painting. But it took traveling to the artistic mecca of Italy in 1997 to give her the final push to do what, through all the years, she knew she was meant to do, and that was draw and paint. She also helped organize and became the Founding President of The Artists’ Association of St. John but recently turned her full attention to painting. She continues to travel, but now her drawing materials accompany her camera.
Although nature is her greatest teacher, she’s attended classes with David Millard on St. Thomas, two workshops with David Laffel and also with Sherrie McGraw and Greg Kreutz in Taos, New Mexico, Hong Nian Zhang and Lois Wooley at the Woodstock School of Arts, a portrait Convention in Chicago and a Pastel Convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She’s been exhibiting her art work for seven years at Bajo El Sol Gallery on St. John, including several shows, and six years at Gallery St. Thomas. She has won several first and second place awards and the People’s Choice Award for three years in a row at the final three Caribbean Colour Exhibitions. In 2007 she attended the White House reception honoring the artists who painted National Park ornaments for the official White House Christmas Tree. She painted the ornament for the Virgin Islands National Park.
