My godmother Nelda Holloway calls me her Gypsy child

At 21, I boarded a plane with my buddies Carlyle Wolfe Lee and Shana McCall Grugan and a group of college students to study art for a semester in Cortona, Italy. I had only taken a few watercolor classes as a high schooler and just one watercolor class at LSU, but I somehow decided it would be a good idea to spend $75 on an Italian handmade leather-bound journal of locally made watercolor paper (I’m a romantic). The next six weeks bore the agony of buyer’s remorse as the gorgeous journal sat unused.

Luckily my professor noticed this pickle-of-my-own-making and assigned me the semester’s final project of filling up the journal. He gave me little instruction other than it had to be filled up with watercolor sketches from our Tuscan surroundings.

This didn’t start so well: sitting in a pile of wet leaves while rain drizzled, I attempted a painting of a castle ruin. It was so bad that I ripped it out of the book and started over. The re-do was ok, thankfully, and I kept working. The more pages I filled, the more pages I wanted to fill. I made an A on the project and went on to fill up many other journals from many other places. Through this process I came to discover the meditative process of absorbing a sense of place through painting it.

In 2004, Carlyle Wolfe Lee and I were sitting on the beach in Destin, FL. Both of us taking breaks from finishing up our MFAs. I made colossal abstract oil paintings at the time. She made gorgeous pieces based on the natural world and still does today. It was good to be out of our smelly studios and on the beach that day. I was journaling (with watercolor) and a stranger approached and asked me to paint her kids. I politely explained that I wasn’t going to paint her kids and she politely kept insisting so I finally politely gave in.

Thanks to Rick Wolfe, Carlyle’s dad and self-appointed business manager of this accidental portrait gig, I think I left the beach with around $500 that week. I moved to New York that Fall to work in floral design. For the next two years I traveled back and forth to the South and made hundreds of watercolor portraits.

Bewildered that people wanted these loose, faceless portraits, I decided to explore where this might lead. In the Summer of 2006, I moved out of my Manhattan apartment, purchased an old-fashioned road atlas and a small silver station wagon named Frida and embarked, gypsy style, to paint children from Charleston to Dallas and all points in between. It was extremely fun, full of hustle and adventure and well worth the risk.

I planned for my gypsy adventure to end in September of 2006. I was going to move to Brooklyn and go back to floral work but thanks to all of you and thousands of paintings you’ve asked me to create, it’s now 20 years and the adventure is still going.

It would never have happened without the help of so many of you who encouraged me, housed me, booked appointments and spread the word. I’m sincerely grateful that for the past 20 years I’ve been able to help you celebrate the parts of your life that matter most!

-Susan

How We’re Celebrating!

As a thank-you, we’ll be celebrating our 20th anniversary with a 20% sale on commissions. Each Friday, we’ll introduce a new category (think family, home, weddings, pets, grandparents, etc.) with a limited number of commission slots. But don’t worry, no photo needed to claim your slot. Just keep an eye out for upcoming emails and instagram posts!