Born Sylvia Carol Reid in 1931, grew up in the small town of Oconomowoc, in southern Wisconsin, passed away peacefully with her family at her side on October 1, 2022.

Sylvia's childhood, with her brother Walker McMillan Reid, was filled with creativity. Her mother, Carol Mcmillan Reid was an accomplished author who recognized Sylvia's artistic talent from an early age.

Sylvia's father, Stuart Walker Reid, was born at his ancestral dairy farm in Ashippun, Wisconsin in 1891. He and his five siblings were graduates of the University of Wisconsin.

At 16, Sylvia graduated early from High School in order to study at the Art Students League of New York. There she studied with renowned artists Yasuo Kuniyoshi and George Grosz.

In 1948, Sylvia enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, where she was in the inaugural class of the Integrated Liberal Studies Program while simultaneously engaging in studies at the University's prestigious Art Department.  Her time as a Badger was filled with linguistic exploration as a few visiting Norwegian exchange students taught choice catch phrases that she never forgot…

During her second year at UW Sylvia applied to Yale's School of Fine Art and was awarded a full scholarship. The following two school years, at Yale she studied with Josef Albers, historian Vincent Scully, among others

The experience that Sylvia had at Yale, totally changed how she approached painting. Albers, she said, gave her a greater freedom in how she used and interpreted color. Color became its own language and she began to use color more imaginatively.  She said, "I was making informed decisions about how color can express mood, depict space, and draw the eye in." Sylvia graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Yale in 1955.

The following summer, Sylvia and her friend Peggy boarded the ocean liner "Castel Felice" in Montreal, Canada for a trans-Atlantic voyage, arriving at the port of Southampton, England.  Peggy and Sylvia spent three weeks traveling in Scotland, England and Wales. The highlight was their pilgrimage to Laugharne, Wales and the house where Dylan Thomas, the poet, had lived. Years later, Sylvia named her daughter Caitlin, after Dylan's wife, Caitlin (Macnamara) Thomas.

After Britain, Sylvia traveled with three friends in a little Deux Chevaux thru France, Switzerland, and over the Alps, along the French Riviera, and into Italy.

Sylvia had many memorable stories from this trip to Europe in 1956, including being feted to lunch and a meeting with Enzo Ferrari by the Modena Police as they investigated, mid-century style, the theft of her friend Peggy's purse. She filled sketch books with pen and ink drawings that later inspired many of her best paintings, combining her love of landscape with gorgeous color!

In 1959, Sylvia married Boston Architect John Clancy. John was also from Wisconsin, but the two met in Boston. Sylvia was teaching art at an independent day school in Cambridge, Massachusetts called the Shady Hill School. John's architectural partner Marvin Goody had been a Yale University Architecture student and friend of Sylvia's.

Living first in Cambridge and shortly thereafter in a beautiful double Victorian in nearby Brookline, Massachusetts, she and John raised two children: Peter, born in 1963, and Caitlin born in 1969. A great sadness and loss occurred when Peter died at age eleven from cancer.

In the forty-five years of marriage, before John's death from cancer in 2004, John and Sylvia made a life together that bridged their creative talents and love for each other. Together they restored and redesigned two houses, including the house in Brookline that they purchased in 1967.

Surviving family members include - Sylvia's daughter Caitlin with her husband Prasant Desai, step sons Deven Desai and Dhylan Desai.