We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Suzie Buchholz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Suzie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
The risk that changed my life forever was to leave the business world to take a year off and travel. Setting out on my own to travel for a year was challenging in the best ways. Traveling alone makes you much more vulnerable, but also more open to meet and enjoy the company of delightful strangers.
I landed in Aix-en-Provence, France, without a clear plan. I spent the next year just painting and soaking in the deep art history and spectacular environment that surrounded me. By the time I headed back to the US, I had committed to being a full time artist. And I was determined to fulfill my dream to go to art school.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My work is rooted in a mission to spread joy as resistance to hate and to what I cannot control in society.
I grew up in Kansas, the daughter of a minister whose quiet creativity shaped my understanding of art. He wrote sermons on color-coded index cards — tiny, penciled compositions that felt devotional and painterly. He welded railroad spikes into figures, gathered found objects, and made kites from grocery bags, their rag tails lifting into the sky. Color, faith and improvisation were inseparable.
That inheritance — making something luminous from the ordinary — anchors my painting practice.
For decades I have worked in abstraction, building layered surfaces that function less as images than as spaces of encounter. I align myself with a Bay Area lineage of artists who pushed beyond convention to locate something authentic and new. For me, painting is not merely aesthetic; it is existential. It is a way of insisting on possibility.
For more than 20 years my practice has also incorporated kitemaking. The kites are whimsical and ironic. They represent transcendence, hope and the concept of “rising above it all.”
In the past six months, my work has shifted dramatically following my recovery from breast cancer. Confronting mortality clarified my role as an artist. I cannot control the violence, fear, or instability around me. What I can do is build light — to create environments of radiance, resilience, and emotional amplitude.
My kites and paintings are acts of defiance and empowerment. Built through intuition and the physical labor of layering, sanding, scraping, and rebuilding, they insist that beauty is not decorative — it is necessary.
When so much feels beyond reach, I see my work as an obligation: to push through darkness and generate light that is palpable, embodied, and free.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Every day when I enter my studio the possibilities are wide open. I love the freedom that comes with experimentation and the free flow of thoughts and ideas. Being located on the bay, the atmosphere is ever-changing. There’s a calm to the rhythm of the day, but also the excitement that every day, every moment is different.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I’ve always been a maker. When I was 17 years old and headed to college, I wanted to go to art school. My parents insisted on something more “useful” which meant a liberal arts education. After college, and then a career in advertising and design, I still had the urge to fulfill my lifelong dream to go to art school.
The risk that changed my life forever was to leave the business world to take a year off to travel. I landed in Aix-en-Provence, France, without a clear plan. I spent the next year just painting and soaking in the deep art history and spectacular environment that surrounded me.
When I returned to the US, I was lucky enough to be accepted to San Francisco Art Institute, and that was a pivotal moment in my life. It was terrifying and thrilling to step away from my livelihood, and the comfort of the path I knew well to become a student again. But it was life changing and the best decision I ever made. I’ve been a full time professional artist for the past 20 years. I’m living my dream.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://suziebuchholz.com/
- Instagram: @suziebuchholz
Image Credits
Claudia Sauret Verdejo (studio shots of me)
Dana Davis (artwork)