Suzanne Hamilton – Mixed Media Artist

Suzanne is a talented, creative artist, who exemplifies how to move gracefully and fearlessly from one stage of life to another.

Suzanne spent almost 40 years in an Information Technology career, ranging from computer engineering, systems analysis, project management, database design and architecture. She was a very analytical and process oriented person; laying things out, looking ahead, and visualizing possibilities.

Over the last 10 years Suzanne has been on an artistic journey. Having become dissatisfied with predominantly using the logical left brain, she craved creativity and a freer way to express herself. The result provides purpose for the new chapter in her life – Retirement!

At first Suzanne went into interior design and started a small home staging business. Later she explored jewelry making and other art forms before finding her true calling. She explains; “I’ve dabbled in other art forms along the way but really fell in love when I stumbled into making wall art.”

Suzanne’s current passion is Mixed Media and Collage. She exclaims; “I get excited about creating and mixing complex patterns with color.  I love the hand feel and texture of the paper.  I love the grungy-ness that makes it feel organic and messy and not shiny and not so perfect.  I love seeing all of the layers come together, reusing materials, and knowing that nothing is wasted.”

Suzanne begins by creating massive amounts of what she calls “interesting papers” with acrylic paints, inks, paint markers, spray paints, stamps, stencils and masks. She uses a gel plate and brayer quite often in this process.  A gel plate is 1/2 inch thick rectangular molded pad made of primarily gelatin which is used in some forms of printmaking and a brayer is a hand held roller used to roll on paint. “You would laugh if you saw my studio which is lovingly filled with so many piles of these interesting papers. You might even find my painty hands and very content face peeking out from these mountainous piles of paper,” she says.

Suzanne describes her creative process; “Once I’m ready to create a piece, I search through my stacks of papers to find the ones that call out to me and want to play nice together. Placing them next to and on top of each other allows me to choose a color palette and often an idea, subject matter, or focal point emerges. After the initial design idea, the paper gets ripped or cut and glued down.  This is when I move the virgin piece to the center of our living area (the kitchen) where I walk past it several times, squint at it, flip it around and sleep on it, as it tells me what it needs next.  This process happens in a few more iterations including the final mark making stage until it feels complete and hopefully not overworked.”

Thank you for taking an interest in my art.