Artist finds new home in Brookhaven

Special to Wesson News

                If you’re curious about those whimsical paintings that are, increasingly, adding interest to otherwise ordinary windows of stores, restaurants and other businesses, Lilly Harrison may be the culprit.

                An Atlanta native who grew up around Pensacola, Florida, Harrison came to the area with her now ex-husband in 2021 and decided to stay and make her life here after her marriage ended.  With her, she brought her art.

                Harrison was a year old when she came to Gulf Breeze with her parents – her dad, an entrepreneur and inventor with pickup truck tool boxes and knee braces for athletes among products to his credit, and her mom, who worked in children’s ministries and encouraged her daughter to express herself through painting Vacation Bible School and other church-related décor.

                “Growing up, I was mostly a beach kid,” she recalls.  “I was on the beach all the time.”  In the third grade, she started playing soccer, but quit the sport in the seventh grade after knee surgery.

                Harrison graduated from Gulf Breeze High School in 2019 and studied early childhood education briefly at Pensacola State College before marrying at age 18 a young man from Brookhaven she had met at a church camp three years earlier. 

                “Instead of staying on at college where I planned to change my studies to chemistry, I relocated to Brookhaven and started building a life in the area,” she says.

                Harrison’s work life has been the key to making new friends and becoming part of the community.

                She now lives with two dogs, a boyfriend and his eight-year old and 10-year old two sons at a mobile home in Bogue Chitto and is the office assistant at Brookhaven-based SOG, which grows, processes and packages medical marijuana and distributes it to dispensaries throughout Mississippi.  She also moonlights at the Ice Daiquiri Shop, continuing her involvement in the Brookhaven food service industry that started at Tortilla Soup and later working at Magnolia Blues.

                Painting, although a growing part of her work life as she meets people who want custom pieces or art for their businesses, remains a sideline that she aspires to make a career.

                “My dream is doing my art full time on site at a businesses that wants to create a more interesting décor and in my studio listening to music,” Harrison says.

                She describes her painting as “fluid and funky on the verge tacky.”  “I like collages,” she says.  “They’re abstract, a bit weird with a twist, reflecting a Florida influence.  I’m pleased when kids pass by my paintings on store windows and I hear them ooing and awing.”

What are your hobbies?

There’s my art, of course.  I missed beach where I first came to Brookhaven, but found Lake Lincoln State Park, where I can enjoy primitive camping, fishing and hiking.

Are you a reader?

I am into sci-fi and thriller audio book to which I listen when I am painting or driving.

How about music?

I am a listener, and enjoy live music – concerts and music festivals.  I am into Indie and rock ‘n metal music

Do you go to the theater or movies?

I follow The Office on television, enjoy comedies and suspense movies.

If you won a lot of money in the lottery, how would you spend it?

I would buy a small house on a lot of land.  I would have an art shed where I paint and drink coffee.

How would you change the world?

Assuring the human rights to food and water, shelter and clothing, and health care for all.