ABOUT THE ARTIST

An award-winning artist, Susan grew up all over the world--in Mexico, Cuba, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and all over the Southwestern USA, following her father, Russell, an international mining engineer and metallurgist, his wife, Betty, and their five children.  After a year of graduate work in Printmaking at the U. of Maryland, she married Naval Academy graduate, Hugh Kilmartin, and continued moving around the country. Their daughter Liz was born in California, and they finally settled in New England in 1981 in Hingham, MA.. She has been a juried member of the S. S. Art Center in Cohasset for over 30 years, and served on its board of directors then advisors for a decade. Though she and her husband are now located in S Yarmouth, MA. on Cape Cod, she continues to be the Calligrapher for the Hingham Historical Society, and has currently done calligraphy for the Eastham Historical Society. 15 years ago, Susan has taken up plein-air painting, enjoying the challenge of capturing fleeting changes in the surrounding scenery.

Susan's first artworks were pencil portrait sketches of fellow students when she was 9 years old at St. Cyprian's boarding school with her twin, Sarah, in Cape Town, South Africa in 1957. Her siblings, Sarah, Rusty, Rosemary, and Liz were favorite subjects of her sketching. In 1960, her Dad was President of Western Gold and Uranium Co., and the family lived in a mining camp at the Grand Canyon. There, she and her brother Rusty rode the ore bucket a mile down inside the Canyon, and she became fascinated with the play of light on the Canyon walls. This is when she determined to be a working artist when she grew up.  

In 1987, Susan volunteered to paint sets at her daughters school, Hingham High. That experience expanded Susan's career from primarily portraits, to murals. When her daughter went to Harvard, Susan was asked to do sets there for the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. Now,  Susan's work in murals can be found in Florida, California, Arizona, Maryland, New York and from Cape Cod to Boston in Massachusetts. A precocious schoolmate of Liz's, Brian Brooks, now an internationally famed choreographer in New York, helped on the high school sets, then inspired her to do some his sets for his early dance shows, probably the most challenging work Susan has ever encountered. Some of those scenes are in the portfolio here.

March, 1995, Susan brought to reality a mural of angels, clouds, and God's light in the Dacusville United Methodist Church, in Dacusville, South Carolina, commissioned by Beth Martin to honour her deceased husband, Dr. Mitz M. Martin. Susan's original Christmas cards, often featuring angels inspired Beth to ask Susan to consider doing the work. The local NBC affiliate set up in the church and televised the work, as hundreds of school children were brought in every day to watch the process, and be allowed to ask questions of Susan.

Susan enjoys being called in occasionally to help co-design stained glass works by master glass artist, Jane Cragin Walsh of Coastal Art Glass, Norwell. Jane's work is frequently showcased on the popular TV show, Houses With History. www.coastalartglass.net

1977 Sept. Redbook Magazine Joan Mondale included Susan among eight other painters in her article on WOMEN IN THE ARTS

PARTIAL LIST OF AWARDS :

Seven works chosen for the permanent 

        collection of the Univ. of Maryland

1st Place, Rockville Art Show, Maryland

1st Place, Signal Hill Art Festival, Calif.

1st Place, Schuylerville Art Festival, N.Y.

SOME OWNERS OF MY WORK

Fred Rogers of Mr.Rogers Neighborhood

George Romero, Director of Night of the

Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, etc.

Tom Block, author of Mayday, Orbit, etc.

Kenny Loggins, Singer

Bill Golden of the Oakridge Boys

Ritchie Havens, Folksinger

Norman Carroll, Concertmaster of the 

 Philadelphia Philharmonic

Stephen King, Author of Carrie, etc.

Joe Perry of Aerosmith

The Hon. Ms. Cohen, first female Chief 

 Justice of the Federal Tax Court

My painting of the S.S Eisenhower at sea, hangs in the ship's officer's wardroom

1964, Susan was chosen to create a 50-foot mural of culinary habits around the world, in the teacher's cafeteria, Coronado High, Scottsdale, Arizona

TRAINING   

1967 Portrait apprenticed to Theodora 

          Kane, Washington, D.C.

1968 3 month sketching tour of Europe

1969 B.A. Fine Arts U. of Maryland, minor

          in Geology

1970  year of postgrad work Printmaking,   

         U. of Maryland

1971 year of postgrad work, color resist

          printmaking, U. Cal., Long Beach

Oil, Pastel, Water Color, Pen & Ink, Pencil, Etchings, Stained Glass