Bio | daniellefontaine-art

About the Artist

Danielle Fontaine

Born in the village of St-Adelphe and grew up in Boucherville, a suburb of Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Moved fourteen times; four countries, six states.

Lives & works in Greenville, South Carolina.

My fascination with art began as a child, with the architecture of the Montreal World’s Fair. The fantastic forms, colors and stories of Expo ’67 inspired me to study architecture and later, creative writing. When I discovered encaustic in our wonderful arts community of Greenville, South Carolina, a new storytelling adventure began.

Greenville has been my home since 1999 and I joined the new Greenville Center for Creative Arts in 2015 as one of its inaugural studio artists.

Aside from my studio practice, I have long been active in various aspects of Greenville’s art scene. I initiated the pilot program for The Warehouse Theatre’s This Wooden O educational outreach and mentored the first Greenville County High Schools Art Exhibit during the inaugural year of Artisphere. I am the co-founder and curator of the SeasonArt Series, a happy marriage of visual arts and literature at The Warehouse Theatre. With my husband Bill McLendon I founded the Brandon Fellowship at the Greenville Center for Creative Arts. I served eight years on the Urban Panel of the City of Greenville’s Design Review Board.

My encaustic art can be found in various corporate and private collections in the United States and Canada.

CV

Education

2023 - Leo Twiggs Scholar

- Riley Fellow

- Diversity Leaders Initiative Class 34, Riley Institute, Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina

2013 - MFA Creative Writing, Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina

1983 - M.A. Economics and Politics, Oxford University, England

1981 - B. Architecture, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

- Louis Robertson Prize in History of Architectural Theory

- Wilfred Truman Shaver Travelling Scholarship

- Rhodes Scholarship

Publications

2021 - Still Time on Pye Pond

Clemson University Press

A pictorial memoir with the story behind the art.

Introduction by Dr. Catherine Paul, Professor Emerita of English at Clemson University, and critical text by Dr. James Mann. Dr. Mann served for a decade as curator of the Las Vegas Art Museum.

Soundbites and Videos

April 2021 - Hub City Writers Project, Spartanburg, SC

Book Talk with Dwight Rose

August 2021 - Metropolitan Arts Council, Greenville, SC

Still Time on Pye Pond Artist Talk

August 2021 - Above the Noise podcast with Grantley Martelly, Episode 23

My Daughter Married a Black Man

Grants

2020 - Metropolitan Arts Council, Greenville, SC

The purpose of this grant is to distribute copies of my pictorial memoir Still Time on Pye Pond (Clemson University Press, 2021) to libraries, schools, colleges, museums, and foundations associated with the author (myself) and/or the protagonists of the Pye Pond story. The grant made possible the distribution of the book to thirty-eight libraries and institutions in four countries. (USA, Canada, United Kingdom, and South Africa.)

2018 - Metropolitan Arts Council, Greenville, SC

The purpose of this grant is the creation and publication of a pictorial memoir based on nine years of documentary photography, four years of studio work in encaustic, and a solo exhibition of the resulting body of work at

The Venue, West Main Artists Co-op, in Spartanburg, SC, in March 2019.

The exhibit and publication will be titled Still Time on Pye Pond.

2018 - Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Montreal, QC, Canada

An international grant for emerging artists who work in a representational style.

2018 - Metropolitan Arts Council, Greenville, SC

This grant allowed me to attend the 12th International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown, MA, in June 2018.

Honors and Awards

2023 - Merit award at the Anderson Arts Center 48th Annual Juried Show, Anderson, SC

2021 - Second place award at the Anderson Arts Center 46th Annual Juried Show, Anderson, SC.

2018 - Greenville Hospital System/Clemson University and Metropolitan Arts Council, Greenville, SC

Purchase Award

2017 - Shortlisted for public art at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport.