Carmel Magazine

Carmel Magazine, Winter-Spring 2019

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S helley Cost is a born painter. Her father, James Peter Cost, is a highly talented artist who owned an eponymously named gallery in Carmel for more than 30 years. "I started young," Cost says. She was lucky enough to have a family that was supportive of her artistic ambitions. "My father always encouraged me. I sold my first painting—it was a floral— when I was just 11 years old. An artist has to have family sup- port, and I still have that from my husband, Curtis Chaffee." Born in Los Angeles, Cost moved to Carmel with her family in 1964 when her father opened the gallery. Surrounded by the natural beauty of the Monterey Peninsula from childhood, she was inspired to specialize in landscape painting, as did genera- tions of artists before her—including her father. "He did abstracts early in his career, then moved into seascapes," Cost says. "He was also known for his golf scenes, including a couple of Pebble Beach holes. Not many artists were painting them then." His work garnered attention and he was commissioned to produce a couple of covers for the Northern California Golf Association's "Blue Book," a guide to regional golf courses. Some of that work was in the now-shut- tered Images of Pebble Beach gallery in the Lodge at Pebble Beach. Cost followed in her father's footsteps and tried her hand at depicting golf scenes. "The Images management got wind that I painted and requested some of my work," she recalls. "I submitted a painting of the 18th hole at Pebble and it sold fairly quickly." That was the beginning of Shelley Cost's career as a renowned golf painter. Cost works both in the studio and in plein air (French for "open air," plein air is the act of painting outdoors). "The Pebble Beach gallery did well with golf scenes with people in them," she says. Does she play golf? "When I was a 138 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 1 9 "Epic 9th" "This view includes both Carmel and Pebble Beaches. I think it's one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world."

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