Susan Cawthon mixes it up with paint, photography, fabric and a green theme

Susan Cawthon and one of her mixed media pieces at the Blue Moon Gallery. Photo by Susan Raines.

 If you spend your early years dabbling in photography and playing in your father’s darkroom by developing your own prints and learning to see the world through the eyes of an artist, you might find that these influences never really fade even as many years go by as you tend to being a mother and pursuing a standard career to help keep the home life rolling along. Susan Cawthon majored in the arts in college and spent years being creative with fabrics and design by putting together store displays, creating costumes  for theater at community colleges and assisting her sister in fashions for Star Search spokesmodels. Although the task of raising two boys made it difficult to focus on art in a traditional manner, Susan never stopped being creative since the day she picked up a camera and learned to see things in unique ways and with great attention to details and combinations of color and texture.

Sea collage by Susan Cawthon. Photo by Susan Cawthon.

 Cawthon’s father was a filmmaker who followed the professional car races throughout the world in order to film the action, cut, prepare and present movies of those races for the audiences at home before the instant video age took over. Her grandfather was a painter and also designed and built storefront displays and while Susan never really got to know him before he passed away, she followed in his footsteps only to later discover that they had so much in common. Years of working in a chiropractic office as a receptionist, medical record processor, and chiropractor’s assistant didn’t stop Cawthon from expressing her inborn creativity. Although her painting passion was delayed until the children were grown and more room was available to lay out the work in progress, it was a natural extension of her artistic mindset to begin using watercolors, acrylics, and other mediums to allow the ever-present artist inside to really bloom. Before long, she began showing her work in the medical office and even extended that act to bringing a multitude of artists from the pool of customers and employees to show, share and even sell their work in the large office. 

"Air - we can't breath without it" by Susan Cawthon.