Hello and welcome!
I am Susie of SZQ Studios. Have you ever heard that phrase: “Life happens when you make other plans”? I began my journey in painting in 2014. While I had dabbled somewhat in art throughout my life, I had spent my energies elsewhere. My greatest passion was music and songwriting. Although I was never a great musician; (my brain simply did not compute printed music well), I learned how to form chords and the artistic soul with in me flourished, traveling in music ministry and recording music in a home recording studio.
As can happen to any of us; life abruptly changed for me. Severe illness left me disabled and house-bound for years. During this time I completely lost my voice. As a singer songwriter, it felt like life was over.
In this time, I wondered if I could paint something for a wall in my house. I began exploring with paints and discovered that painting helped distract me from pain and began to fill my days with hope and purpose. My brother-in-law dropped in one day and asked, “Have you ever thought of doing this for real?”
It had never occurred to me. My heart was still living in that place that was now closed to me. Almost as a fluke, I listed a painting on a local ad and when it sold, I began to wonder if this closed door that I had viewed with so much loss and grief, was perhaps actually a guiding wall that if I had the courage to follow it, would direct me to a new place where life could breathe through me once more.
Just as it was with music, I am not trained (as I am sure the real artists out there can discern) and mixing paint and understanding colors remains as beyond me as reading sheet music- yet somehow many of these paintings seem to paint themselves. I can’t tell you how they arrived to be what they are, and it is unlikely that I would be able to paint the image again. There are occasions when a painting begins to “paint” me… at those times I try to stay out of the way. The painting then becomes a message from God to me about something He is trying to teach me.
I credit God Himself with delivering me from death time and again. As I live today, I have become a marvel to all who know my story. Not only am I alive; I am thriving. What began as a coping method in a time of great loss, became the means that led me to the wonderful place I am today.
When I opened my studio/gallery here in Soldotna, Alaska, in December of 2018, I painted this mural with the poem I wrote in it; a testimony to God’s goodness and the hope that can be found in Him.
