CV
Susan was born and raised in rural southeastern South Dakota.
She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Spanish at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas, and worked as a youth case manager and administrative assistant in two different behavioral health care facilities. After realizing that she ought to be working more closely with people and creating art, she decided to pursue a Master of Science in art therapy with a concentration in counseling at Mount Mary University, Milwaukee, WI.
Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to work with individuals and groups from a wide variety of cultures, ages, and backgrounds. This includes youth experiencing serious emotional disturbances in an outpatient behavioral health care facility, high-risk youth in a therapeutic community arts center, as well as adult patients and their family members in a medical center. She also conducted her own art-based research on the therapeutic potential of hope while working with patients undergoing treatment for cancer (see Hope Research tab).
In her artistic and art therapy practice, she believes that every individual possesses unique perceptions and skills, which allows art making to take many forms. Susan believes people create through words, images, sound, movement, simple human interactions, and whatever the imagination manifests. She takes special interest in how people create awareness and understanding of their physical and mental selves through art making, and vice versa.
She is primarily a mixed media/acrylic artist, incorporating both traditional and nontraditional materials onto canvas, paper, or surface, but has experience in photography, sculpture, installation, and other forms of 2-D and 3-D art. Susan is always experimenting with new materials and artistic processes.
Susan is currently working as an registered art therapist (ATR) at Avera Behavioral Health and a visual artist in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Spanish at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas, and worked as a youth case manager and administrative assistant in two different behavioral health care facilities. After realizing that she ought to be working more closely with people and creating art, she decided to pursue a Master of Science in art therapy with a concentration in counseling at Mount Mary University, Milwaukee, WI.
Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to work with individuals and groups from a wide variety of cultures, ages, and backgrounds. This includes youth experiencing serious emotional disturbances in an outpatient behavioral health care facility, high-risk youth in a therapeutic community arts center, as well as adult patients and their family members in a medical center. She also conducted her own art-based research on the therapeutic potential of hope while working with patients undergoing treatment for cancer (see Hope Research tab).
In her artistic and art therapy practice, she believes that every individual possesses unique perceptions and skills, which allows art making to take many forms. Susan believes people create through words, images, sound, movement, simple human interactions, and whatever the imagination manifests. She takes special interest in how people create awareness and understanding of their physical and mental selves through art making, and vice versa.
She is primarily a mixed media/acrylic artist, incorporating both traditional and nontraditional materials onto canvas, paper, or surface, but has experience in photography, sculpture, installation, and other forms of 2-D and 3-D art. Susan is always experimenting with new materials and artistic processes.
Susan is currently working as an registered art therapist (ATR) at Avera Behavioral Health and a visual artist in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Dynamic Backdrop, Regier Friesen Gallery, Hesston College – Hesston, KS – Oct 2017
Here in the past, Amaranth Bakery – Milwaukee, WI – Apr 2017
Silos, Bloom: Center for Art and Integrated Therapies – Milwaukee, WI – Jan 2015
The Kitchen Counter Series Continued – Pages Books & Coffee – Newton, KS – Apr 2010
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Ripple Effect: Arts Night 2018 – Juried Art Exhibition – Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center – Sioux Falls, SD – Jan, 2018
The Local Artist Zine 2017 – Coffea – Sioux Falls, SD – Dec 2017
$100 Art Show– Exposure Gallery – Sioux Falls, SD – Dec 2017
REPRESENT – Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center – Sioux Falls, SD – Apr 2017
Unearth: Graduate Art Therapy Exhibition, Mount Mary University – Milwaukee, WI – Apr 2015
Senior Art Exhibition– Bethel College – North Newton, KS – May 2009
PUBLICATIONS
The Local Artist – Juried Art Publication – Sioux Falls, SD – 2017
Art Therapy Today – Featured Member – online publication of the American Art Therapy Association – Apr 2017
The Courier – Freeman, SD – Jan 2017
