Susan Ellis
Susan started oil painting after a serious fall from her horse. This prompted her to retire early from a career of teaching blind and visually impaired children. After months of recovery, Susan’s daughter invited her to a painting class and she was hooked!
Susan continued her art education from instructors in three different states before moving back to her home state, Michigan.
Susan’s landscape paintings are inspired by Michigan scenery, vacations to national parks, beautiful skies and farmlands. She enjoys observing nature, looking for interesting compositions, the right light, pleasing colors, and compelling subjects. She also loves still life painting.
The hunt for antiques, the shapes and colors of beautiful flowers, and brightly colored fruit provide favorite subjects for these still lifes.
Joy Belanger
The first report I ever wrote, way back in 4th grade, was about what I wanted to be when I grew up, an artist. I had no idea what that even really meant back then but it was an intuitive desire that never left me. I graduated from Sonoma State in California with a BFA emphasis of ceramic sculpture in 1999.
Finding space to work and starting a family in 2008 made it hard for me to continue with ceramics for many years even though it was my passion. I kept making things, whether it be collage, sewing or simply crafting with my children. In 2021 I finally had a space perfect for my ceramic studio and have been creating in my new space since then.
In the back of my mind, I am often thinking about where we wear the scars of our experiences in life, both good and bad. Beauty lives in the building and layering of who we are, have been and will become. My interest in figurative work and creating these layers of texture and color has bled over into creating functional pieces as well as sculptural work. The intuitive calling of the 7 year old girl who dreamt of being an artist still lives in the intuitive steps I take in my creative process.
