Artist

Bonita Frawley, born in Toledo, Ohio, took painting lessons at the Toledo Museum of Art as a teenager. After taking high school art classes she attended college and  received her education degree from the University of Toledo in 1963. She began teaching 5th graders in Ohio for 7 years, then Pennsylvania and then settled in Delaware to teach in several local schools as a Reading Specialist. Teaching 5th and 6th graders allowed her to incorporate art in her classroom teaching such activities as making papier mache sculptures, painting in water colors,  making puppets and designing reading game boards.

Then she and her husband, Daniel Frawley former mayor of Willmington, Delaware, won  the first Urban Homestead in the city with the requirement to renovate it and live in it for several years at 10th and Monroe Streets. This exciting challenge meant Bonita was designing rooms, closets, and cabinets for the carpenter to do all the renovation work. The entire Homestead project was so successful that ten other townhouses on the block were renovated and became the Trinity Vicinity Neighborhood. The Frawleys lived there for 8 years until children came along.

Life changed again as the Frawleys raised 3 children and Dan passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack in 1994. As a new widow Bonita taught at Wilmington College in the evenings along with her teaching assignment in the Christina School District at Bancroft School. She began to renew her interest in painting by taking classes at the Delaware Museum of Art studying under Al Stasesky, a protoge of Ed Loper who used a palette of 8 colors with an emphasis on the " search for color and light." Later she was attracted to the brightness of transparent paints by taking a workshop with Dreama Tolle Perry and to the freedon of using the palette knife with a week long workshop with Lisa DeSeta. Now I paint regularly with the Fine Arts group at the historic Darley House in Claymont, Delaware, with artist Rick Phillips. I paint on gesso board and on stretched canvas of various sizes. The group meets weekly painting indoor still life and outdoor scenes in the area.

Bonita has exhibited at Hagley, Hardcastles, the Darley House , Bellefone in Claymont and at the Howard Pyle Studio in Wilmington where she is a member. At the Pyle Studio she has the opportunity to attend their workshops featuring all types of artistic skills.

Now Bonita has moved to a newly built home in Arden. She requested a studio room be added to the floor plan! Although she has sold painting the room is stilled filled up with 25 years of work. Glancing arounf the studio we can see that her paintings try to capture reflection, light and color. She makes no attempt to make her work like a photograh but rather to give a painterly quality to her subjects from landscapes to still life. Her colors are chosen for brightness to be uplifting,  serene and optimistic. She enjoys collaborating with other artists. Altogether painting brings such a reward and it has to be fun!