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Susan Midelton is the Art Guild’s Featured Artist for October. She will be honored at the Fun and Wine Reception on Friday, October 1st from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m., at the Art Center located at 451 Lakeview Drive in Fairfield Glade. Attendees are encouraged to wear masks and practice social-distancing. Wine will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

Susan was born in a suburb of Philadelphia, PA, but grew up outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. Her family returned to the east coast where she attended high school and took two commercial art classes which comprised of the only formal art training she experienced. She met her husband while a senior in high school, she later graduated from West Chester Univ. of PA with a degree in secondary education. Her growing family, including children and an assortment of pets, moved from Pennsylvania to Denver, Colorado, and later to Dayton, Ohio where she completed another degree, and began her school library and high school teaching career. Although Susan did not take art courses, she developed a close relationship with the art teacher at the school where she taught, and Susan continues to seek her honest critiques of her work after all these years. Following their children graduating from college, Susan and her husband and their pets moved to a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, where Susan received a degree in school administration and technology. After 35 years in public education, Susan retired in 2012 and her husband retired in 2013 from engineering. In 2014 they decided to take a swing through the south and explore different retirement communities. After visiting Georgia, North and South Carolina, they arrived in Fairfield Glade and bought a home on Lake St. George. Upon moving here, with one cat, Susan quickly joined the Art Guild while her husband joined various bridge clubs.

Susan’s first art class at the Art Guild was a printing class. She loved it! Then she took an oil painting class followed by watercolors and acrylic painting. After almost a year of various art classes, she discovered the medium that was meant for her - pastels. Some regard pastel painting as drawing with chalk, but Susan points out it is so much more than that, “Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those used in other arts media, such as oil paints. The best thing about working in pastels is that the artist does not need to use a paint brush; application of all color takes place with the artist’s fingertips.”

Hours: Mon-Sat 9 AM - 4 PM. Art Guild at Fairfield Glade at the Plateau Creative Arts Center, 451 Lakeview Drive, Fairfield Glade, TN 38558. Information: 931-707-7249, www.artguildfairfieldglade.net