We recently connected with Su Cheatham and have shared our conversation below.

Su, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. The first dollar you earn is always exciting – it’s like the start of a new chapter and so we’d love to hear about the first time you sold or generated revenue from your creative work?

My first dollar earned as a creative was working for a major department store in California in their Visual Merchandising Department. Dressing mannequins, climbing ladders, designing large window displays, printing signs in the sign shop were all part of my daily job duties. It was fun, exciting, creative and I got paid to be a creative. I knew immediately the importance of being in a creative job environment was to me.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As a child and the eldest of 3, I loved being “The Teacher”. My siblings and I are extremely close and I’m sure they’d confirm that I was a bossy big sister! I would make us sit and draw the Flintstones from the t.v. in our very young childhood days. Our shared childhood life events always put us in positions of learning how to create homemade games and art was always involved. I understood intuitively that while I was creating, the minutes and hours somehow just disappeared magically, like a great book. My dad always encouraged more math classes than art classes in high school. However, college afforded me the opportunity to choose my own course direction. I thrived among other creatives and instructors who encouraged creativity and individualism. When it came time to pick a career path, it was simple, my love of Art and Teaching afforded me the opportunity to make a living doing the things I loved.

Teaching required a Credential in California. When I met with the program director to chart my path,I met with my first real world discouragement. This man who didn’t know me told me the Credential program coursework required full-time, daily classes. Having 3 young sons at the time, and a husband with a life threatening illness, this man told me to go home, raise my kids and return in a few years. I left campus that day more determined to succeed than ever in my life. I saw immediately my career path and never looked back. I am grateful for that Life Lesson and taught Art in the same school district for 30 years!

I am most proud of my family, 3 adult son’s and each of their wives, and 4 beautiful grand children. Then, I am proud to have had a career that now allows me as a retiree to create and sell art and continue teaching in my own Art Studio. Thanks to social media I continue to stay in touch with former students, now adults following their own creative life paths.

My connections to a local Southern California Art Gallery, Art Museum’s, Open Art Events, and Social media has given me a small and loyal following that I graciously accept and humbly share. I am not comfortable blowing my own horn about my artwork unless I am sharing my process or techniques. Among the many reasons for creating art, it can be personally telling and revealing about the creator. Artists are vulnerable to criticism and must at some point become a bit immune. I make art that I like, for me, with my own tastes in mind. So when someone buys my work and feels a connection to one of my pieces as I do, I am incredibly humbled and grateful to share that human bond. When you buy a piece of my artwork, you take home with you a piece of me,

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I believe I shared a story on my previous page that illustrates some personal resilience.

“Teaching requires a Credential in California. When I met with the program director to chart my path, I met with my first real world discouragement. This man who didn’t know me told me the Credential program coursework required full-time, daily classes. Having 3 young sons at the time, and a husband with a life threatening illness, this man told me to go home, raise my kids and return in a few years. I left campus that day more determined to succeed than ever in my life. I saw immediately my career path and never looked back. I am grateful for that Life Lesson and taught Art in the same school district for 30 years”

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

We are not currently in a thriving creative ecosystem. As a society, we’d have to all agree on the importance of this concept first to make this an important priority.

In a perfect Utopian society we would teach our children to be creative thinkers and doers from the time they are born. In this perfect creative ecosystem, babies, toddlers, young children would all be raised in a healthy learning and living environment. Guided by intelligent, creative, healthy living parents, community, and society.

Typically education in this country does not prioritize nor respect the visual and performing arts. Not like it does our school athletic sports programs. There is also a great disconnect between parents and classroom teachers on the value of the arts. across the curriculum. We (USA) also don’t value our classroom teachers like they are valued in other countries. Unfortunately today parents are often more concerned and consumed with being able to survive financially than improving our creative ecosystem.

Education in general must agree on the importance and continue to demonstrate the positive effects an overall creative ecosystem would have in creating an intelligent society with creative thinkers.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sucheathamartist/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuCheathamFineArt/
• Linkedin: https://linktr.ee/sucheathamartist
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Su+Cheatham+Artist
• Other: https://www.pvaa.net/su-cheatham printmaker5088@yahoo.com