Susan Brabeau

When I think about what I’d like to know about a person, it would be what influenced them to be the person they are today. So here it goes, short sentences and thoughts. I am the person who is carrying on all the hopes and dreams of my entire family going back generations. My home is filled with their cherished possessions and now they are my cherished possessions. I am the great granddaughter of an incredible stone sculptor who brought his family to America from Germany. I share his passion to create and offer it up to others. I am the artist who carries on a love for the beauty in a humble face and desperately needs to put in on canvas. All three of my great uncles were portrait painters.
I graduated with a teaching degree in math and science from Michigan State University, did the beauty pageant circuit, sang my way through school singing with a big band in Detroit, sang for two presidents, sang the soundtrack for a movie that was nominated for an Academy Award, was an actress in New York, was the female lead in a musical called Shenandoah on Broadway. But here is the important part: I am a wife, a mother, and I’m devoted to the care and rescue of animals of all kinds, all of this on my wonderful old farm in North Carolina. I carried a newborn bunny in my shirt for four days to keep him warm after he lost his mom. Life is so precious. Very seldom will you find any of my work without animals in them. They are my best friends at home.
After 25 years of constant painting and exploring my craft, I am now only seeing a glimmer of what I can do as an artist. Hard times have made me search my heart for what is really important for me to put on canvas and how I want to do it. Life is good!