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CAROL SANTELLA FENZL
“Painting is not a choice, it is a way of life…”
Carol Santella Fenzl
Born in Boston in 1962, and raised in a city called Revere, Carol began to paint at 8, and continued throughout her school years. Her mother was an artist of Russian decent, and her father was an Italian entrepreneur. She was the youngest of three children. At the age of fifteen, the loss of her father had a impact on her creativity and artwork, it became recognized nationally in the Annual National Scholastic Art Awards competition. She was awarded the shows highest honor, the Gold Key, for three consecutive years, along with six Blue Ribbon finalist awards, which led to a National School Art Exhibition, at the Union Carbide Exhibition Hall on Park Avenue in New York. In 1980 with the help of financial aid and a mom who worked three jobs, she attended Massachusetts College of Art and the Art Institute of Boston.
In 1983, a drunk driver ran a red light, and hit her with a semi truck, her injuries didn’t do well in the cold weather of New England. So when a friend asked her to come to Florida to recover/visit, she did, and stayed. She officially moved to Sarasota, Florida in the fall of 1984. She rented an art Studio at Florida Avenue Studios, in the downtown area of the city where a group of artists worked, and lived putting on large group shows.
She was hired as a staff artist for a large art dealer (Chrishawn Associates) in 1988, and worked there for the following ten years, painting 40 hours a week and creating new art for their Highpoint furniture market showroom. She became a founding member of the Manatee County Cultural Alliance task force, an attempt to rejuvenate the downtown area of Bradenton, Florida, by putting on large block parties and events. She worked as a volunteer with Easter Seals in Sarasota as an art therapist to brain injury survivors. She has worked with the group “Art by kids with cancer” where the children with cancer of South West Florida have public art shows to sell their work to help their families offset the financial burden of living and surviving with a young child who has cancer.
In September of 2002, she and her husband, musician Michael Fenzl purchased the art/framing equipment and supplies of their former employer and started Studio One Art Collections. Supplying fine art to the industry.
Her work was chosen in Sarasota’s Embracing Our Differences campaign for a billboard size display at the Bayfront in 2006. She has also donated her work to various non-profit organizations and churches over the years, a life sized wall sculpture of Saint Francis of Assisi, on public display at the monastery in Michigan, a panoramic mural for Early Promise, Live painting auctions for Hospice and Take back Lives, and paintings for the Ronald McDonald house in Naples, FL to name a few.
In 2016 she was invited to M.I.T. in Boston to meet with professors of the Engineering Department for creative input and advice on how to make the department more welcoming for students, teachers and parents.
She is currently involved with Samoset Neighborhood Association, and participates in Manatee county’s Master Gardener program.
In 2018 she and a friend started Fourty Acres Inc., a non-profit organization to help the less fortunate in her community. They received their first grant from the Martin Luther King Day of Service through the State College of Florida. This initiated Fourty Acres “Love Grows” project.
At the present time, Carol is involved solely in commissioned work through the design firms she works with throughout the United States. If you are interested in commissioning a custom painting please email your inquiry, and someone will respond with a design firm near you.
Her work is on public display in showrooms at Design West, LDL Interiors, International Design Source, Soicher-Marin, Bank of America Corporate, Polo Towers, Las Vegas, as well as other private collections throughout the world.