Mud Drip


Manitou Mud Works - Art

Life is a highway - Prairie highway oil painting

"Life is a highway..."

I am a farmer, teacher, engineer, and visual artist. I like to paint people in their environment with a focus on farmers and farming. My paintings are mainly done with acrylic paint on canvas and watercolor, although I paint with oil I find the water based paint nicer to work with. Photography and clay are the other media I work in. My own photographs are usually used as preparation for my paintings. The clay I use is from my own quarter section located between Darlingford and Manitou, MB. I have made the clay into turned functional objects, mostly bowls and vases, on the potter's wheel. The clay is an earthenware that can be fired to cone 3 or about 1150 C.

My paintings have been selected for tour at the South Central Juried Art Show for 7 years, I have had a show with Pamela York-Hardy at the Tiger Hills Art Gallery in Holland, MB in Nov. 1989 and have had my own show in the Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon in Oct. 1991. Other juried member shows include Ace Art, Apr. 1992 and the Manitoba Society of Artists, May 1992. My work has been selected for the VASE Environmental Art Exhibition, 1993-95. Major commissions to date are 3 paintings for Eaton Place (Oct. 1992). The Government of Manitoba has 2 of my paintings in its collection.

Future plans include creating a number of paintings that depict Western Canadian farming as it is today. These paintings will depict "modern" farming and older farming practices that are still in use today. I am also portraying rural life in my paintings. This includes farming as well as the wild plants and animals of Manitoba. The pottery also depicts the wildlife of the area from which it comes in the form of small decorations painted onto the pottery and then fired with a clear glaze.


- Susan Crawford-Young, Artist's Statement

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