es s ential arts
A Farmer at Heart,
a Printmaker at Hand by Elissa Koppel
“The Return of Big Tiny”. 13 by 20-foot acrylic on canvas. Hanging on our barn door with our chickens standing underneath before we took it to town for A One Chick Show at Central Library in Madison. Photograph by S.V. Medaris
“I think we are slowly losing our tie to the land, as the percentage of people who live in the country is much smaller than times past.” Hearing S.V. (Sue) Medaris, you wouldn’t expect her to be a printmaker. She’s so enamored with her muses that you almost miss the way she chooses to honor them. As we talk, Sue spends almost all her time discussing farm life and her animals, or models, as she calls them. She is a person devoutly dedicated to the world she has found with art as both the vessel and vector that has led her here. Sue was in Southern California before moving to Madison when her father earned a professorship in geology at the university. Art filled fundamental needs for Sue as she grew up. She says, “Sports and art are what got me through 32 | m a d i s o n e s s e n t i a l s
high school. I was also very competitive, so when I found [art] wherein I easily experienced success, I ran with it.” After high school, she returned to Southern California to work and then attend University of California–Santa Barbara. “I had some adventures on archaeological digs and focused on ceramic sculpture for my BA in art. After that, I had further adventures living in Central America for a couple years.” When her son was born, Sue came back to the States and settled in Madison. “I realized what a great place it was for kids to grow up in and get an education as opposed to subsistence farming, which is what we left when I decided to return to the States.” These days, Sue works for the University of Wisconsin–Madison Medical School
as a graphic designer and illustrator. Unlike most professionals who frequent metropolitan Madison during the day, Sue returns home to an animal farm outside of Mount Horeb. Her time then is stretched between caring for the animals, printmaking, and planning her next shows. Despite inhabiting a head space busier than most, Sue’s focus is sharp. She has that crisp type of drive, direct speaking pattern, and long-term ambition you’d encounter in professionals far more corporate than she is. While she has been an artist almost her entire life through, a crucial paradigm shift occurred in the middle of her adulthood that reinvigorated her career as an artist and crystallized her direction and mindset.