About

Statement

Susan Griswold-Wolf, “An Art Teacher’s Visual Memoir”

 

In my September 2019 show, “An Art Teacher’s Visual Memoir” I presented paintings showing elementary and middle school students creating or presenting their artworks. The show was inspired by my experiences teaching in a program that required me to be the only art teacher for grades one to eight. 

 

The point of the show was the preciousness of children’s artwork and the students’ engagement in art. My intention was to honor, through this display, fleeting moments when teachers and parents experience the importance of children’s artwork.

 

The centerpiece of the show was a group of six portraits of individual students presenting their own finished artwork. The six portraits were united by the use of a different bright, solid colored background for each. The portraits were distinguished from one another by the differences in ethnicity, age and dress of the students and by the medium of the artwork displayed.

 

The largest piece in the show was of students working on a paper maché sculpture of a dragon. The attention to the work and easy cooperation among the students is the message. But the importance of the activity is emphasized by the deep red of the dragon, the metallic gold background, and the multicolored strings that connect the dragon to the ceiling.

Biography

Susan Griswold-Wolf, Painter

 

Born in 1950, Susan Griswold-Wolf grew up in Marion Iowa, a suburb of Cedar Rapids. 

 

Wolf studied at the Art Students League in New York City and earned a BFA and MA from Antioch College. She then sought other ways to earn a living, including technical writing and graphic design. But she found that teaching art provided more opportunities to just think about art.

 

In 2015 she retired, after completing her last and favorite teaching assignment: the 15 years she spent teaching first through eighth grade art at Possum School in Clark County, Ohio. Those years became the inspiration for a one-person show of paintings, “An Art Teacher’s Visual Memoir.”

 

Mrs. Wolf (her teacher name) lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio with her husband and dog, where she continues to create paintings, as well as publishing what she calls “a collection of amusing cat drawings” titled Some Cats.

 

Friends and local art lovers recognize her work by her strong and playful sense of color and her ability to capture the spirit of children in her art. In her work you can easily see the influence of her interest in traditional painting as well as children’s book illustration.

 

Another important influence on her work was a childhood awareness of Grant Wood’s work—with its particularly midwestern flavor. Because his works were emphasized locally, Susan developed a strong belief that quiet midwesterners could have something to say about humankind through art.

 

 

Other works can be seen at her web site, weenookstudio.com