Daniel Strickland was born and raised in Colleton County. He moved to the Charleston area as a private tour guide and had a stretch limo company.
As a child he had an interest in Martial Arts “My parents started me right here in Walterboro,
so, my home Dojo is here in Walterboro, I started in the second grade at the Rec Center and continued my training through high school. I went off to the College of Charleston and then I really didn’t train for probably 12 or 13 years.”
Strickland started training again in Mount Pleasant when his daughter was between six and seven years old. Six years later he started his own dojo in McClellanville and then downtown Charleston and it was there the family were able to train together.
Strickland also comes from a musical family but didn’t start playing music until High School, “I didn’t pick up the guitar until my first Junior/Senior weekend. There are a couple of guys playing guitar and singing Buffett and the girls were just hanging all over them. I was like, I’m going to learn right now. So, I went out and got my mom’s Epiphone, got a guitar lesson and I was playing and strumming my first song within a week or two. I had a band at The College of Charleston and now I sing, play guitar, and bass in my church.
The family moved to Georgetown and Strickland rented space in the Arts Council he but had not considered painting. The Arts Council was getting ready for a show featuring local artists that come in for the weekend. He explains, “They had stuff hanging on the walls, I was just like, wow, and then I saw the price tags. He said to himself, you know what, I’ll try anything once”.
Daniel added, “I was doing Charleston oriented stuff. I really got into the architecture and the old buildings. I started getting into some galleries and realizing what people want, Marsh scrapes, tidal creeks, these low country scenes, live oak trees. I started painting because that’s what was selling.” After landscapes he decided, “I’m going to do a bird and I realized if I was gonna draw a bird the focus is going to be a bird. It’s about the bird and the background is blurred. Because if you took a photograph, your focus is the bird and the background blurred.
While Georgetown, I needed a studio to I didn’t have a place to paint at the time. The Art’s Council allowed me to use the back room.
Strickland enjoys spending time with family, his wife Beth and two girls, “Sidney is 13, She’s the brain of the family. She’s in the seventh grade and in third year of Latin and can translate the language. For a couple of years, she’s been doing art and going to the Georgetown School of Arts and Sciences.” His daughter Sailor has her black belt and has trained with her dad for eight years.
Strickland is currently displaying his paintings at the gallery Art Harbor which is on Front Street in Georgetown. He is also displaying at Colleton Coffee at 252 E. Washington St. in Walterboro where he is offering a Black Friday Special with 10% off Daniel Strickland Original Art.
For more information visit Stricklandfineart.com
