I have been a wielder of words since I was first able to put words together into sentences. When I discovered that those sounds could be written, I began a lifelong passion. Capturing visual images had to wait until I met my husband, Steve. It was he who taught me how to look, see, analyze, and use tools to capture my perceptions as visual communications. Because of his patience and generosity I have the wizard-like power to share what I see and tell what I feel.
I come from Chicago and have, I think, a Midwestern practicality to life. I value conciseness, hard work, honesty, and noble actions. My formal training has been to develop left-brain thinking in math, science and engineering. Those, too, have an artistry in their precision. A believer in lifelong learning, I am a student at our community college studying GIS (geographic information systems). This area seems to be a beautiful merger of left- and right-brain thinking.
My family of eight made me early an observer, and manipulator, of human behavior. I learned how to share, and hurt, and compromise from my childhood environment. I also learned how to be alone in a crowd. It took me a long time to learn that the squeaky wheel after a while can be ignored but that silence is guaranteed, if one is patient, to get attention.
Now I live in Albuquerque with Steve, my mentor/soul mate, and Siku, our nearly human American Eskimo. The two of them keep me balanced for the most part. We also share our household with Milo, a three-legged iguana who is my constant lesson in perseverance; Milo, a bearded dragon who adapts without malice; Tortuga, a Saharan spur-thighed tortoise who will presumably outlive me by decades; and the Sugar Gliders, Chuck and Isaac, who reminded me nightly how diverse and incredible nature is.
I still thrill to the deep humid lushness of a glade in the Michigan woods but I have come to appreciate and love the stark minimalism of the high desert. It has been my privilege to travel the world; to see its wonders; to meet its peoples. A network of honest, true friends who love me for who I am has been my blessing and encouragement to evolve. These are the things that are behind the canvas, the words, the images of my work. I do not generally paint “happy” works because those moments I capture and share through other rituals. It is the harder truths or questions that aren’t always easy to sort or voice that I attempt. Issues where there is pain or indecision or betrayal…but always I believe some element of hope.
Anything else of note about me can be discovered in my work, Susan Sharon Sarah Sehi-Smith