a b o u t
Favoring a bright, warm palette Susan Billings incorporates a range of mediums in her work - wood block prints and watercolors are painted onto Japanese rice papers to create an underlying image. Pastels, charcoal, papers, ink and gold leaf are then applied to develop depth, texture, and create transparent layers. The final images are ultimately simple, yet complex compositions.
For many years Susan lived and painted in an adobe home and studio perched on 35 acres of pinon forest overlooking Naturita Canyon in Norwood Colorado. The high mesas, open skies and rarely subtle light of this southwestern corner of the country provided an ongoing source of inspiration.
Windblown by nature, Susan and her husband currently live on the East Cape in southern Baja. From this base she is able to travel, paint, teach classes and workshops and continue journeying in search of new and inspired landscapes.
“Billings uses color to create a subtle yet definite spirit. Her paintings leave viewers with a sense of optimism about life. What you sense when you look at a Susan Billings painting is spontaneity and joy in response to light and form. Her work has little to do with art historians’ dusty theories of retrofitted ‘isms’. From bold charcoal and pastels to the delicate haiku of her watercolors, a Billings is clearly a ‘Billings’- an original with a freshness all its own. And since images always speak volumes about the artist who created them, we can readily assume that she is a person of unrestrained energy, living a very colorful life.”
- Susan Viebrock/ art critic, Telluride Daily Planet
studIo del sur
on a corner of the baja peninsula
where sand, rocks and cacti,
shells, bones and blooms,
whales, fish and tides,
snakes, raptors and songbirds,
blossoms, stars and milky galaxies
all collide
C V
EDUCATION
1975 BFA with honors Rhode Island School of Design
Major in blown glass, studying under Dale Chihuly
1975 Penland School of Crafts - winter session
1974 Pilchuck Glass School - summer session
1972 American Academy in Paris
1971 Banff School of Fine Arts - figure drawing summer session
of note
2014 Judge for Telluride Plein Air Festival, Telluride CO
2007 Featured artist Telluride Wine Festival
2006 Selected by Colorado Homes and Lifestyles Magazine (April issue) as one of ten most collectible Colorado Artists
2005 Private tutor to General Norman Shwarzkopf collaborating on his mixed media painting “Transitions: War and Peace” auctioned at the Telluride Ah Haa School annual art auction
2001 Selected artist “Women of the West”, Santa Fe, NM
2000 Featured artist SheiridanArts Foundation Willd West Fest, Telluride CO
1989-1994 Winner of 3 Print Magazine National Design Awards, and numerous additional graphic design awards
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Desert Light Gallery, East Cape, Baja 2015
Flora Farms Pop up Solo Exhibition, San Jose del Cabo, Baja 2013
Flora Farms Gallery Exhibition, San Jose del Cabo, Baja 2012
Daniel Tucker Gallery, Telluride CO “Filling the Empty Bowl” solo exhibition 2011
Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, Telluride CO 2009, 2007, 2006, 2000
McLaren Markowitz Galelry, Boulder CO 2002
Silver Bell Gallery, Telluride CO 2005, 2004
David Uhl Gallery, Denver CO 2001
Montrose Pavillion, Montrose CO 1999
Denver Botanical Gardens, Denver CO 1986
Boulder Center for Visual Arts, Boulder CO 1985
Boston Center for the Arts, Boston MA 1979
PROFESSIONAL
These days: Private Commissions and professional studio artist, Baja Mexico
2004 - present: Workshop instructor mixed media and creativity classes Ah Haa School for theArts, Telluride, CO
2000 - 2009 Studio artist, Norwood, CO
2000 - 2007 Artist Board member for Ah Haa School for theArts, Telluride, CO
1993-2000 Freelance graphic designer and illustrator/artist Telluride, CO.
1986-1992 Partner/Creative Director: Billings Quine Design Group Boulder, CO.
1977-1986 Glass Sculpture artist