Written by CAROLINE NICHOLSON  |  Paintings by DAVID BOYD JR.

The Boyd name has long been a part of the fabric of the Coweta County community.

The family story, as it is entwined with Newnan, begins with Herbert and Rosalyn McKoy who, at the end of World War II, bought the building that’s now home to Boyd Gallery, just off the square on East Washington Street. As their children grew up, the couple passed the building on to their daughter Rosalyn and her husband David Boyd Sr.

With the building in their care, the pair ran a printing business, the Print Shoppe, and David Sr. produced political cartoons that ran in The Newnan Times-Herald and about 200 other newspapers for almost half a century. The political cartoonist eventually gained national fame with his Redneck illustrations for Jeff Foxworthy’s “You Might Be a Redneck If...” books.

It was surrounded by this boundless passion for art that David Boyd Jr. grew up. At his father’s side at the Print Shoppe, the younger Boyd developed a deep appreciation for art and its creation, a seed that would continue to grow and bloom throughout his life. 

As a student at The Heritage School, David Jr. says he was always known as “the guy that could draw.” Despite having the undeniable feeling that he was meant to be an artist – “to create,” as he puts it – he struggled to find a niche within the art world. 

He dabbled in architecture for a short time before realizing it didn’t speak to him. Then he tried graphic design but didn’t feel a spark with that medium, either. Eventually, David Jr. recalls, he gravitated toward illustration, comforted by its familiarity, and yet that did not fit quite right either, certainly not the way it did for his father.

David Jr. graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in 1995 and continued on his journey to find the right medium. Not long after graduation from SCAD, he was offered a position as a high school art teacher at his alma mater, The Heritage School. What originally was set to be a short-term stint, filling in for an art teacher out on medical leave, turned into a fulfilling 19-year career.

In the middle of this career, after sharing the beauty of art and its techniques with hundreds of students, the teacher had what he describes as a moment of clarity: He needed to pursue art for himself.

Encouraged by longtime friend and fellow Heritage graduate Millie Gosch, he decided in 2006 to attend her one-day master class on plein-air painting, the art of painting on location.

“It was one day that changed my life forever,” recalls David Jr., noting that watching his friend start and finish a painting on location in half an hour was inspiring to him, especially since he was interested in being outdoors and painting what he saw when traveling.

Having found his niche, the artist jumped in with fervor and hasn’t looked back. Between painting on location during family vacations and painting from pictures he takes on those vacations, painting has become his “personal diary” and a travelogue of the places he’s been, he says.

A decade after his discovery of plein-air painting, his life would undergo another monumental change, one that would bring him full circle. The old Print Shoppe building had long since faded into a fond childhood memory for Boyd after his parents decided to close their business and rent out the space in 1995. In the following two decades, the building was passed between renters as the Boyds focused on other endeavors.

David Jr. continued exploring the world of plein-air painting while his sisters found their own unique art niches. His youngest sister, Bonne Boyd Bedingfield, creates intricate edible art in the form of cakes through her business, Beautifully Baked by Bonne. Their sister Rosalyn Moore Johnson designs fabrics and textiles for children’s clothes.

About seven years ago, the architect who was renting the old Print Shoppe building left, leaving a shell that beckoned to the Boyd family, especially David Jr. As the family considered the future of the building, he began toying with the idea of opening his own gallery in the basement.

Ultimately, it was his mother who encouraged him to utilize the upstairs of the building to showcase his talent to the very community that nurtured it.

“And the rest is history,” he says with a smile.

In 2017, David Jr. opened the gallery, ripe with family legacy and memories. While a haven for art within the community, the gallery/studio also serves to inspire its owner’s specific brand of creative genius. David Jr. says he’s always been most comfortable and inspired when working alone, and that solitude he needs is readily available within the gallery walls.

Like many others, he faced more than the usual share of solitude during Covid, a period of time during which he started sketching faces.

  “I used an app called Sktchy, now called Museum,” says the artist. “It’s kinda like Instagram used to be, chronological, but it has people posting selfies and pictures of themselves for artists to use as reference. When you post, you post the painting you did with the picture that inspired it. It’s a great community. Now that life has gotten busier again, I don’t do the faces as much as a practice but look forward to incorporating it into what I do regularly.”

At Boyd Gallery, David Jr. brings the beauty of art to his hometown and showcases an array of wildly talented local artists, one of the most recent being his old friend Millie Gosch.

“I can’t say enough about the great influence on art in the Newnan-Coweta area David has had,” says Gosch. “His energy to gather artists – whether in the field to paint, host an event or have a show at Boyd Gallery – has played a big part in my career. It’s a privilege to know David and to be represented by the Boyd Gallery.”

After a lifetime dedicated to his passion, David Boyd Jr. admits: “Art is my life. If I’m not looking at it, I’m reading about it, putting on shows or teaching it.”

With this level of dedication, it’s no surprise that David Boyd Jr. and his gallery won two first place spots in this year’s Newnan-Coweta Magazine Best of Coweta Readers’ Choice Awards. For his talent with a paintbrush, he was voted top Visual Artist. Thanks to his skill as a businessman and commitment to supporting other artists and their craft, his Boyd Gallery took first place as Best Art Gallery/Studio, an honor won each of the six years the contest has been held.

Casey and Melissa Smith, owners of Redneck Gourmet in downtown Newnan, speak highly of both David Jr. and Sr. and the impact each has had in the region.

“Like his father, David Jr. is a fixture in downtown Newnan,” says Casey. “David Sr., or Boyd as we called him, was one of the founding members of Redneck Gourmet. Not only did he design the first logo, but he was certainly our most loyal customer and our biggest fan.”

Many years ago, David Jr. took over as Redneck’s logo artist and helped the Smiths take the Redneck Gourmet brand to another level, according to Casey, who adds, “David Jr.’s amazing talent is on display at his gallery. It’s in the Boyd blood to be kind, hospitable and embrace downtown Newnan as home. On any given day, you’ll find him and his family walking the sidewalks, supporting the downtown merchants.”

When discussing the overflowing love and encouragement he receives from local supporters and readers who vote in Best of Coweta, David Jr. sums it up like this: “I inherited some big shoes to fill with my dad’s legacy, and it’s nice to know that the community thinks of you. It’s very fulfilling and satisfying.”

With his invaluable contributions to Coweta County, including his artistry, teaching and entrepreneurship, there is no question that David Boyd Jr. has expanded the Boyd legacy – and helped positively shape his community for years to come. NCM