Master Showcase

Susan Lyon

We are Born of Love, oil, 30 x 24" (76 x 61 cm)

INSPIRATION

The model for my painting is named Ashlie; she has two young boys and was close to seven months pregnant when I painted her. I have been painting her in different works for about three years now. As a portrait artist, I have to fall in love with my model. Sometimes a person can be really interesting looking, but they have a hard time posing. She was excellent at holding still and we have worked together often because she brings an artistic energy to the painting sessions. In my mind, I had an idea of mother nature or an earth goddess figure. We played around with lighting and poses until she turned her head at just the right angle, and I knew this was the pose I had to do. ARTISTIC PATH

I became interested in art when I saw a PBS program on Georgia O’keeffe when I was 16. I took some Saturday classes while I was in high school then went to the American Academy after I graduated. I met my husband, Scott Burdick, who was already making a living as an artist when I was 19, and I have only done art since.

Thomas Caleb Goggans

The Buffalo Soldier, resin and wood, 22 x 11 x 12" (56 x 28 x 30 cm) INSPIRATION

This sculpture is of George Jordan (1847-1904), an African American “Buffalo Soldier” and National Medal of Honor recipient, who served in the American West, protecting forts, towns and mail lines. I greatly enjoyed sculpting Jordan’s expressive and powerful likeness. I was compelled by the contrast between the weight and power of his features and the strong sense of elevating, forward movement that I discovered in his gesture. The allusions that I feel exist in that contrast are inspiring and timeless, suggestive of passage and progression through time, space and adversity.

ARTISTIC PATH

My interest in art emerged when I was very young. I painted, drew, and sculpted all the time as child, even creating large murals featuring things like volcanoes, dinosaurs and village ransacking dragons. I decided I wanted to be an artist when I was 11 years old, and won my first art competition with a painting of a white-tail doe in the snow, when I was 12. Shortly after, I started studying and working with Gordon Wetmore, who became my mentor and very dear friend. I gained my formal training and degree from the Lyme Academy in New England, where I trained in painting, figure drawing, sculpture and printmaking.