The Cuyahoga River Series
Artist’s statement.

I have been painting for over 30 years. My work has been included in numerous shows and received awards from jurors including Joy Thomas, Margaret Martin, Alex Powers, Joan Ashley Rothermel, Louise Cadillac Barklay Sheaks Wilbur Chadwick and Don Getz. My work is in many private and corporate collections.

I have lived and painted in Virginia for thirty-five years. I began by taking classes in watercolor with Suzanne Stevens and Anne Lott and eventually taught classes at the Contemporary Art Center (now MOCA) , workshops with various art groups and a half semester with at Virginia Wesleyan College as a guest artist. I participated for years in various outdoor art shows and am a current member in the Chesapeake Bay Watercolorists. My work can be seen at the Artists’ Gallery in Virginia Beach where I will be the featured artist in September, at the Towne Bank Pavillion I, with the Artists’ Gallery, and at Western Reserve Hospital in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

I started my series of the Cuyahoga River in northeast Ohio, two years ago with the intention of learning to use oil paints and focusing on a single theme. While I have painted in series before, this one is a much larger project and one that might be open ended because of the great diversity in the landscape around the river and the river itself, which looks in places as a small creek and in others like a small lake. Changes of seasons and times of day have given me more variations and a way to give a greater sense of place in these paintings. Ray Hershberger, a good friend and mentor, was an inspiration with sense of place in his beautiful show of Swamps and Wetlands.

I chose this river as a subject because of everything I’ve just mentioned and because I was born and grew up five miles from it’s southern most point. I crossed this river many times a week while living there but didn’t really appreciate it’s history and beauty until I began focusing on it as a series. In north Akron the river changes course and turns north to Cleveland and lake Erie which made possible the building of the Erie Canal. I found that as the series progressed learning about the history and geology of the area became as important as the paintings. One benefit of painting is that we are better able to know a thing. ”The more you see the more you understand.” Accessibility was another reason for choosing the Cuyahoga. With the Erie canal tow path and many local parks along the river it’s possible to walk and kayak the majority of the river. So if you ever get to northeast Ohio and are looking for a good way spend an afternoon…

GO TAKE A HIKE.

SUSAN CHECK