Spartanburg Day School

The talents of Natalie Daise are well known on the Spartanburg Day School campus. As a visiting artist, her impactful performance art and storytelling has impacted many students through the years, and now, as the artist behind the newest visual arts exhibit hanging in the Mildred Harrison Dent Fine Arts Center Gallery, her passion for storytelling is reaching a broader audience. 

Daise’s exhibit, “Rag Quilts and Collard Greens,” is now on display through Feb. 21. Her works, most often acrylic and cut and painted paper on Masonite or wood panels, are an exploration of heritage – both cultural and personal. Daise believes in the positive power of stories. Like her performance art, that power is demonstrated in Daise’s visual art pieces.  

“The inclusion of collard greens in my work is a way of connecting to my family of origin through the simplicity of images that evoke the meals provided by the work of our own hands,” Daise said. “It also opens the door to explore the ways community nurtures and supports us. There are many stories to be told there.”

Daise is known as “Ms. Natalie” on Nick Jr.’s award-winning television program, Gullah Gullah Island. She’s earned IMAGE Award nominations, a 1998 Daytime Emmy nomination, and silver and gold Parent’s Choice awards. She was awarded South Carolina’s highest honor, The Order of the Palmetto, the Merit Award of Art, ARTFields and received South Carolina’s Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award, given for lifetime achievement and excellence in folk art.