About the Artist
Susan Sholle-Martin is a creative healing artist, occupational therapist, and southwest Florida realtor who works with people in life transitions. She is also a wife and mother of two children. Throughout life, Susan has been inspired by challenges she has seen herself and others overcome. She has worked for over 25 years in healing and advocacy for persons recovering from illnesses and disabilities. She has also used the arts as part of her own healing from breast and kidney cancer.
Susan studied art at Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA and earned her Bachelor's degree in Fine Art. One of her first experiences using art as a part of a healing process occurred in college when her grandmother Ella, also an artist, died of dementia at a great distance from her. Through a series of paintings, she expressed her grief and love for her grandmother. It was her way of healing from seeing a disease that seemed to take away her grandmother's personality and life. Susan's father Roger, died of Parkinson's and dementia in July of 2007. Inspired by her father, a gentle loving man, she is in the process of creating a series of paintings in his memory.
Inspired from her meeting with Joni Eareckson Tada, an artist living with quadriplegia from a spinal cord injury, she returned to graduate school to earn her Master's of Occupational Therapy from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. There she was awarded a Graduate College Student Research Grant and completed research using art with people recovering from strokes.
Susan has used the arts to assist people in the healing process while working in various healthcare settings in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida including: the University of Michigan Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Hospital, Trailblazer's Clubhouse, D.T. Watson Rehabilitation Hospital for Children, The Beaver Medical Center, Washington Hospital, and Naples Homewood Residence for Assisted Living. She obtained grant funding to establish the Trailblazers' Art Resurrection Studio, a community-based therapeutic arts program in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her university teaching experience has included 3 years as an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as, Florida Gulf Coast University, teaching students how to be effective, creative and caring health professionals.
As a professional artist, Susan has had numerous watercolor paintings accepted in juried shows across the country including the Michigan Watercolor Society Annual Exhibit, Pittsburgh People's Art Show, the Women's Room IV Exhibit in Durango, Colorado, the Ft. Myers Alliance for the Arts Hooked Exhibit, and the Cape Coral Annual Aquarium Exhibit.
In 2001, Susan founded the Academy of Creative Healing Arts in Ft. Myers, Florida. Through the Academy she teaches people to use their creativity to promote healthy, meaningful and balanced lives. She believes we all have some form of creativity through which we can fulfill our purpose and express our true self. Most recently, she has produced a series of Creative Healing Cards created from her experience of healing from cancer. She has also used a healing tool called Creative Journaling, a method that combines the use of words and images made through meditation and guided visualization.
Currently, Susan is working as a life coach for the Florida Self Directed Care Program which promotes wellness and quality of life in the community for those recovering from a mental illness. Her interests include watercolor painting, playing piano, writing poetry, creative journaling, inspirational reading, tennis, yoga, meditation walks in nature, and world travel with her family.