It’s safe to say that Suzanne Wolfe grew up in a creative environment. Her mother, an affable if eccentric woman, was a starburst of creativity who never met a hobby about which she didn’t feel passionately. Her interest range was broad: sewing, ceramics, macrame, woodblock printing, torn-paper collage. And, of course, painting, always painting. “My father and I were relieved that she never fell in love with taxidermy or chain-saw sculpture,” Suzanne says, “but these were definitely within the range of possibility.”
Suzanne can’t remember a time when she herself didn’t paint. Making a mess was never a problem. Her mother loved messes. “That’s how you learn,” her mother would say. “Turn the paper over and start again.” That attitude has stayed with her, Wolfe admits. “That it’s-just-a-piece-of-paper attitude lends itself to creativity. One feels free to try anything. That’s the joy of watercolor.”
Wolfe, who currently lives in Mt. Pleasant, is a signature/juried member of ten paintings societies, including the Southern Watercolor Society, the South Carolina Watermedia Society, and the National Association of Women Artists, founded in 1889. She has studied with many of the leading watercolorists and pastelists in the U.S. and abroad. Among them: Mary Whyte, Charles Reid, William Hosner, and Margaret Evans.
In the past decade and a half, Wolfe’s work has been juried into over 50 national, regional, and state painting exhibitions. Her awards list is long.
The Other Career: Wolfe, who holds an M.A. in English, spent the majority of her professional life as an academic editor, having founded and served as editor-in-chief of a history and culture magazine for the state of Alabama. Her contributions to the humanities in Alabama have been generously recognized by numerous local, state, and national organizations, including the Alabama Humanities Foundation, an arm of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
