South Bay Artist Follows Her Dream

By Christopher J. Lynch

At 58 years old, Susan Schilling defies the conventional wisdom about the second half of life.

The first piece of artwork Sue Schilling ever sold took nary a modicum of effort. In fact, it wasn’t even supposed to be for sale. A chance showing of a painting she was working on for a school assignment led to an on-the-spot sale and spawned a commercial career that has been going on for six years and counting. As breezy as that first sale was however, reaching that point in her life was a different story altogether.

The first thing you notice when talking to the artist is her can-do spirit, and an over-arching glass half-full attitude towards life. Born in Kokomo, Indiana, the affable artist moved to California at age seventeen when her mother wanted to find a warmer climate. They settled in West Torrance, where Sue has remained ever since. Always artistically inclined, she was inspired by her high school art teacher and decided early on that she wanted to be come an art instructor. She earned a BA in art at Cal State Long Beach as well as an art teaching credential. Before she could embark too far down this path however, she met, fell in love with, and married her husband, Bob, at age twenty-four.

Pregnancy soon followed matrimony, and it wasn’t long before her art took a back seat to the challenges of parenting when Sue quickly discovered that art and diaper changing did not mix. The demands increased manifold when her second child, a son, had a severe reaction to the childhood immunization DPT at age six months. He became legally blind as well as developmentally disabled. She set aside her brushes for what would be the first of many times. The year was 1982.

In typical fashion, she not only handled the increased workload a special needs child brings with them, but began taking on the school system as well when she felt her child’s requirements were not being met. She took a part time job working at the schools her child attended to monitor the situation, as well as launching a support group for parents of other special needs children. Through these exhaustive efforts, her son was not only able to continue to attend regular elementary and high schools; he became a cross country and track runner as well.

It was during her stint working at the school that Sue began to notice some of the other women that she worked with, and she became inspired by the zest for life they exhibited. She noted that they had not let middle age – or even senior age - slow them down. She decided at that point that when the time was right, and the demands put on her by parenting a special needs child had diminished sufficiently, she would pick up where she left off with her artwork.

In 1998, after a sixteen-year hiatus, she was finally able to pick up her brushes once again and get back into her art. She dabbled in different mediums before finally settling on watercolors as her passion. Life was good and she was just getting back into her groove until one morning when she woke up and found herself unable to move her hands or get out of bed. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and the doctors told her that she could lose the normal use of her hands and joints within a decade. She was just 48 years old.

Rather than throw in the towel and wallow in self-pity, she rallied once again and realized that time was of the essence. She enrolled in El Camino College’s art program and began an aggressive campaign to bring her up to speed and hone her watercolor skills. At about the same time, she also began an informal Polly’s on the Pier women’s group that still meets at ten AM every Tuesday for breakfast at the landmark eatery. Thankfully, the miracle drug Embrel hit the market during this time, and she was finally able to control the crippling disease and is now at ten years and counting.

It was during this time of her return to school that serendipity played a role and launched her prospering art business. Looking for a new subject for a school art project, she snapped a picture of the Polly’s restaurant after meeting with her Tuesday women’s group. A few weeks later, when she was about half way done with the watercolor, she brought it into the restaurant to see what they thought of it. One of the waitresses recognized Terry Turk, one of the owners of the restaurant in the picture and asked to show it to him. Turk was not only delighted to have been captured in the rendering, but was so impressed by Sue’s work that he asked if he could buy it when it was completed.

This was soon followed by the waitress’requests to purchase the watercolor, as well as numerous regular customers and nearly everyone in her breakfast club. In fact, in just a short period of time, Sue Schilling had garnered forty-two requests to buy her now trademark “Polly’s” watercolor – a print that has sold to date upwards of three hundred copies!

Not wanting to sell the original – nor do forty-two new watercolors – she investigated a process known as Gicl'ee printing whereupon archival ink is used on one hundred percent cotton paper. The product is a copy that is not only so high of quality that only an expert can see the difference between it and the original, but it will last up to two centuries without fading. Armed with this option, she approached her potential customers and asked if they would be willing to buy copies of her watercolor as long as they were numbered and signed. All agreed and Sue Schilling, professional artist was born.

Since that breakout massive sale in 2002, quite a bit has changed in the artist’s life. Her children are grown. Son Andrew is now twenty-five. And her daughter Jessica is thirty-two and the mother of Sue’s seventeen-month-old grandson, Gavin. She also has gone on to render many more scenes from around the South Bay: The Point Vincente lighthouse, dory boats on Hermosa Beach, as well as the Manhattan Beach Pier. She also still enjoys doing watercolors of flowers, and is backlogged with scenes she wants to render from a recent trip to Italy she took with her husband.

She has a Web-site: www.h2ocolorsbysue.com and is a fixture on most Sundays from 10AM to 2 PM displaying her artwork next to the Redondo sport-fishing pier where Polly’s - the erstwhile subject of her first commercial success - sits just a few yards away. Joanne Turk (wife of Polly’s owner Terry and president of the King Harbor Association) says of Sue and her art displays, "She brings lots of activity to the area which is a "win-win" situation for Polly's, the harbor area as well as the city. We want to bring the arts back to the area."

Asked about her life and her success, she credits her husband for being the support system that allows her to pursue her passion, but also an uncle, who Sue says, “Taught me that success and happiness just don’t happen, but that they are something you have to work at continually”.

Christopher Lynch is a free-lance writer living in the South Bay.
Please email him at cjly9090@yahoo.com