Southport Magazine

Bill Gray is our cover art competition winner. He is a retired pharmacist and enjoys painting as a hobby in his spare time. These two beautiful short-haired pointers were sitting in the chairs on the porch – just waiting on the next bird. He snapped the photo and decided to turn it into a painting. He loves to paint water scenes, landscapes and boats. He’s from Darlington South Carolina, but has beach front property here and spends as much time as he can enjoying the community and surrounding area. ENTRY: HENDRIX AND PAGE LOVE THE OCEAN…just a usual old couple enjoying the relaxation of the beach.. (These beautiful German Short-haired Pointers are owned by J Crawford). We just love this for the cover and we hope you smile every time you look at it.

Our cover this month comes from our art contest, in which we asked local artists to tell us what “community” means to them. When we think of community, many of us immediately think of living and working with our friends and neighbors, or coming together for a common purpose or cause. But in this little piece of paradise we call home, the word “community” includes a whole other layer. So many of our activities, and so much of our enjoyment of life itself, are focused on the water, wildlife, and the sheer beauty of our coastal environment.

We hope you’ll enjoy all these cover contest entries as much as we did. We had some tough decisions to make, but we finally settled on the cover image by Bill Gray because these dogs could be on any porch in any of our towns, and they could be any of us, really, such as a couple married 40 years, best friends, or a mother and daughter. And they’re just adorable. In our other entries, you’ll see laughter, spectacular colors, and moments captured on film or in paint. You’ll probably be reminded of why you chose to live or visit here. And most importantly, you’ll get a glimpse of how some talented artists have captured the very essence of our community. We chose a few of our favorites to showcase in the magazine, with a little about each one. We had so many great entries, we wish we could show them all. Great Job Everyone! Thank you.

Wherever you look you can find beauty, whether it’s a sweet painting of dogs enjoying a porch, a picture of a delighted child, or a heron taking flight from the marsh. Keep an eye out for moments such as these and capture them however you can, even if it’s just filing away a mental picture that you can save for a rainy day of reminiscing. Our next cover art contest will be for February’s Pet issue. Wouldn’t you love to see your very own Fido on the cover? It’s never too early to start planning, and we’ll look forward to seeing your entries for that. For more information about cover opportunities or competitions, please email: editor@southportmag.com