Michael Goodwin

Michael Goodwin, artist, boatbuilder, historian, and photographer, was born in Norfolk, Virginia. Educated at Old Dominion College and graduate studies at the Maryland Institute of Art, interned at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Former curator with the Chrysler Museum and the Portsmouth Lightship Museum. Former director of the Virgnia Beach Lifesaving Museum. Instructor at several Tidewater Community College campus locations as well as Thomas Nelson Community College. Guest lecturer at several colleges, museums, and universities in Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia.

As they say in the Jimmy Buffet song, he is the "son of a son of a sailor" as well as of lighthouse keepers, boatbuilders, coopers, and millwrights. "I always liked making things with my hands and being around the water and the boats and ships. My great grandfather Spencer was a boatbuilder on Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands. My great grandfather Casey was a lighthouse keeper. My grandfather Babb was a woodworker, as were his father and grandfather. My grandfather Goodwin was a ship's captain, sail and steam, as were his brothers. They owned a fleet of skipjacks that plyed the waters of coastal North Carolina. Ships and boats, sailing and the sea are in my blood."