Artist Bio

My name is Tina Brasington. I have a long history and progression in art. As a child, I would doodle and sketch quite a lot. One day my older sister, 11 years older, noticed a drawing I had done. To my surprise later that day, she showed up with a sketch pad, a box of colored pencils, and markers for me. I was thrilled and filled it up with cartoon characters within a few days. I still have that sketch pad full of art, but I lost my sister this year to Breast Cancer.

I continued my love of art and drawing throughout my grade school years, taking every art class at high school in 9th and 10th grade until they created an independent study for me my last 2 years. I only took one formal art class at 15 from a local art studio, but I learned to paint in oil there. Oil painting is still my passion as well as photography.

I went on to college at Georgia Southern to pursue a degree in Fine Art. However, I wasn't comfortable that painting, drawing, and all the new types of art was going to be enough for a career. I changed my degree pursuit to a Bachelor of Science in Technology, something unheard of particularly for women in 1979 as it was in the engineering department. My major was changed to Printing Management with an emphasis in Layout and Design. It was still art, but it was commercial art with more promising career options. Photography became more of a focus also.

After graduating from college in 1982 with that degree and a minor in journalism, I landed my first job as an Art Director for a small photography studio in my hometown, a tourist area of the Golden Isles of Georgia. The small company was branching into designing brochures for local hotel businesses and needed someone that could design them and provide the printer with the layout, including the photography shots for the brochures. That job lasted two years and led me into my next as a Graphic Consultant for Virginia Paper Company in Jacksonville, FL, visiting advertising departments, printers, and businesses throughout North Florida and South Georgia, including the one I had previously worked as Art Director.

From there, I married my college sweetheart, moved to Tennessee, and continued my career in various Art Director positions as well as a graphic design position for a printing company. Once I had children, I freelanced in the same field for about 10 more years, primarily creating brochures for Gatlinburg chalet businesses. After 17 years with Graphic Art as my career, I went back to graduate school at Carson Newman College for a Master of Arts in Teaching and became a 7th and 8th grade language arts teacher for another 17 years before retiring. In retirement, I returned to my oil painting and photography passions and have added watercolor and pyrography to my hobbies.

I've never considered myself a professional artist or photographer, but many would argue that point. I don't typically sell my art, but occasionally I do. I offer more of it to friends, family, and donations for good causes.

My connection to cancer grew this year. Not only did I lose my father to lung cancer in 2007 and my older sister to breast cancer recently, I became a breast cancer survivor in June this year. At the same time my older sister Shirley began to discover hers had likely metastasized to her liver, I was having a bilateral mastectomy. In my recovery and only a few days after I told her that I was cancer free and our cancers had not actually been genetic, she was relieved and thankful for me, but had also determined she didn't have any fight left in her. She passed only days later. I truly believe the same sister that would do anything for me throughout life and helped me start my lifelong Art pursuit, somehow, gave up her life so that I may live. That's my story. The piece, a pyrography hat, that I have created as a donation for the silent auction has my story woven within it. I hope to share my thoughts on the art and the symbolism with many that visit. My hope and wish is that someone, either a survivor, someone still in the battle, or someone that will gift the hat to someone with cancer will lovingly appreciate the art and my story to carry on cancer awareness.