"I’m just beginning to come into my own art," remarks Suzann Partridge with a cheerful laugh. "And that has taken half a century.

Suzann’s post-secondary artistic training took place at Toronto’s famed Central Technical School under the tutelage of professional artists such as Virginia Luz, Bob Ross, and the legendary Doris McCarthy. "Having Doris McCarthy for a teacher opened my eyes as a young woman," recalls Suzann about one of Canada’s foremost landscape painters. "I realized that as a woman, there was nothing I couldn’t do."

While attending Central Technical School, Suzann met Jon whom she married in 1971. After graduating, Suzann worked as a freelance graphic artist, moved to Barrie, Hamilton then Muskoka, raised two children, transformed a derelict farm into an oasis of bountiful gardens, managed the business side of her husband’s pottery vocation, and actively volunteered within the community. Now with her children grown and following their own artistic paths, Suzann has a bit more time to focus on her own art.

In the mid 1990s, Suzann began making clay sculptures as gifts for family and friends. "I started working with clay because it was readily available and I knew a potter who would fire the work for me," says Suzann with characteristic humour as she refers to her potter husband, Jon.

The same quiet humour infuses Suzann’s sculptural work. Shimmering green frogs leap above colourful flowers, a brown pig spouts water from its mouth as it bounds through a wooden gate, a black cat with a Cheshire grin sits quietly amidst a bed of herbs. "It’s just my outlook on life," comments Suzann about the importance of giving her work a touch of merriment.

The stoneware sculptures are carefully built by hand from slabs of glistening moist clay. The process of manipulating the form, allowing the clay to stiffen, and then manipulating the form again occurs over and over until the sculpture meets Suzann’s critical eye. "The more you work with clay, the more you know what it can and cannot do," remarks Suzann who is also an accomplished artist devoted to drawing the human form.

In 1998, Suzann brought her love for gardening together with her interest in sculpture and organized The Artful Garden. "Gardening is my passion. I go to bed with gardening books," she comments. "And, I thought it would be fun to bring together people who made interesting, one-of-a-kind work for the garden in a show." The first exhibition held at the Chapel Gallery in the spring of 1998, met with resounding success. It is now followed by an annual summer show on the picturesque grounds of Suzann and Jon’s Bracebridge home and studio that is held from the third week in July until the second week in August. 

Suzann has started to create sculptures using other media such as bronze. A collaborative work with Hilary Clark Cole was shown at the 2000 Spring Members’ Show and won both the People’s Choice Award and the Doug Gatcke Award for Members’ Choice. "Sculpture is a learning process," remarks Suzann. "I really enjoy the process of discovery, of trying to figure things out. I learn from that and this always leads to something else."

Suzann Partridge
R.R. 1
Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada
P1L 1W8

All artwork on this page is copyrighted by Suzann Partridge. 
It may not be copied or reproduced by any means or used without the expressed approval of Suzann Partridge.
Article written by Elene J. Freer.

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