By Brenda Erdahl
The beauty of a sunset, the peaceful solitude of a quiet pond and the intricacies of a blooming flower have been known to capture the imagination of Susan Wright and inspire her to put paintbrush to paper. Watercolor is her medium because it moves like a flowing stream, reflects light like a breeze caressed lake and essentially brings life to her artwork.
For the next two months, fifteen of Wright’s idyllic watercolor scenes will grace the walls of the Maple Lake Library bringing nature indoors for time. From June 3 to July 26th, readers will be tempted to lounge near a rocky vista with a good book or curl up under a starry sky lit up by the northern lights.
Wright is the second exhibitor in the library’s year-long effort to display the work of local artists. She has called Buffalo home for the last 44 years but is originally from Duluth and the North Shore continues to be an inspiration for her artwork.
“Nature inspires me to make art with creative emotion,” she said. “Plants, birds, a quiet pond, the movement of waves and clouds, are examples of what fuels my inspiration to paint. I have found that watercolor, its fluid nature and boundless color potential, works best for me to express my feelings and my experiences with nature.”
Wright is a self-taught artist. She has a degree in biology and has taken graduate courses in forestry and landscape architecture which she put to use in her 24-year career as a landscape designer for Dundee Nursery. In 2004 she retired, but designing outdoor spaces for private residents had taught her a thing or two about drawing and understanding how people relate to the outdoors, she said.