Susan Shie



As the mural she painted on on her garage door in fall 2008 attests, Susan Shie lives her art. Along with soon to be President Obama, Susan's painting of "her "Personal Landscape," includes portraits of herself and her husband James Acord (at left, holding a pie), her daughter Gretchen, guitarplaying husband MIke and granddaughter Eva, and both families' cats. Turtle Moon is the name of Shie and Acord's home studio and 2612 the number of their house.

Susan Shie and her granddaughter Eva helping to hold the CARE pie. Susan's self-portrait is behind her.

Susan Shie, who lives in northeastern Ohio, is an academically trained painter and lifelong sewer who has been making unique and often whimsical painted quilts since 1980. Her quilts are in the collections of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Museum of Arts & Design in New York City, and many important private collections, including the John M. Walsh III collection of contemporary quilts. Susan says that to her, art is next to godliness, and her work shows her passionate belief in the spiritual importance of creativity in everyday life. Her art is intensely personal, combining cartoon-like colored drawings of herself and her friends, family, and pets with pictures of everyday things like kitchen tools and appliances, pies, vegetables and flowers and references to peace, politics, and the environment. “I just spent a year and a half being the nanny to my granddaughter, Eva,” she explains. “Being with a very innocent soul so much of the time made me more aware of how important it is for our world to be a safe and whole place for her generation to grow up in.” She describes her art as “personal diary work,” and she fills in everything she paints with detailed spontaneous handwritten diary entries that record whatever she is thinking and feeling at the time. The diary writing, which Susan executes with an AirPen®, adds yet another layer of texture and meaning to her complex work.

Detail, Sisters or The True Story of Sisters on Diets, showing Susan's journal writing