Local artist Susan Spar puts on a solo show at Sequim Museum & Arts

By Erin Hawkins

Olympic Peninsula News Group

SEQUIM — From detailed still-life to portraits to landscapes, Susan Spar’s artwork looks almost real enough to touch as it hangs on display at the Sequim Museum &Arts Center.

Spar is a full-time, classical realist living in Port Angeles where she also teaches art classes at her home studio.

Her current exhibit, “People, Places &Things of the Heart,” is featured at the MAC at 175 W. Cedar St. Admission is free.

A landscape demonstration is planned from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The demonstration piece will be for sale after its completion. A reception for the artist will follow from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Spar said her exhibit at the MAC shows a combination of her older, realistic artwork and her newer, more impressionist work.

“I’m a little bit of a metaphysical person,” Spar said. “I believe what we focus on, we can bring to reality.”

Born and raised in New York, Spar said that as a child, her family always was “dragging her off to a museum” such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Much of her early artwork and style is influenced by surrealist artist Salvador Dali. She hopes to “rejuvenate his kind of work” with fantasy and realism in her own pieces.

Spar received early training from the Fashion Institute of Technology before she moved in the 1980s to California, where she briefly studied at the Watts Atelier in Encinitas.

She moved to the Olympic Peninsula in 2004 and completed her classical training at Georgetown Atelier in Seattle, Washington, in 2012.

Some of Spar’s signature realism pieces exhibited at the MAC include “Jen Sleeping,” an oil painting of a reclining nude she feels represents much of her early work.

“She was the culmination of a lot of work I’ve done,” she said.

Spar’s other favorite early works include “Forgotten Chores,” an oil painting of a young student of hers sitting on the floor of a library reading a book. She said this painting reminds her of her youth.

“The story that’s told [in the painting] has attracted a lot of people,” she said. This piece may be one of Spar’s last traditional realism pieces as she moves into more impressionist expression.

Spar said her recent artwork is slowly starting to change and her subject matter is more eclectic, such as her mixed-media piece “Nesting Egrets” featuring oil on faux gold leaf.

She said like many artists, she wants to find a balance between capturing beauty but also representing truth.

“I paint a lot of pieces for myself,” she said, but she also enjoys painting work people want to hang on their walls.

In the future, Spar wants to paint more subject matter that she feels represents the area and might consider creating two separate collections — one that is personal and one that is private.

“There’s much to be seen here that has its own inner beauty,” she said.

Her exhibit at the MAC will remain on display until June 27. Hours at the museum are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.

For more information, call 360-683-8110.

Spar’s artwork also can be viewed at Gallery 9 in Port Townsend and is represented at John Hansen Gallery in Boonville, Calif., and online at susanmartinspar.blogspot.com or susanspar.com.

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Erin Hawkins is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at ehawkins@sequimgazette.com.