Welcome to ARTfuel with Susan Melrath and Terri Froelich!
”We help practicing artists push the boundaries of their art.”
What does that mean for you? We’ll help you experience the surprise and satisfaction of navigating risks to make art that is strong, vulnerable, and a reflection of who you truly are.
“We tell it direct, but love you deep.”
Through destination retreats (Hello, Australia and Portugal!) and online offerings (coming soon), we’ll help you excavate your unique vision…distill your knowledge to make powerful art and fuel up for this wild ride as an artist. Whether you’re an emerging artist or established professional, our offerings are meant to help you thrive in your artistic journey.
Susan Melrath has been a painter for her entire adult life - working as a published illustrator for many years, and a studio artist for the last fifteen. She discovered her love of teaching through coaching in the Art2Life Creative Visionary Program. As head coach, she helped thousands of artists find their way to making strong, authentic work. Her greatest love is helping painters understand how to organize the elements in their paintings to make them as strong and compelling as can be. Susan’s work can be seen at Art & Light Gallery in Greenville, SC and Museo Gallery in Langley, WA.
Terri Froelich is an abstract painter and photographer living and working in Sausalito, California. Terri started painting in 2002 and has been a photography addict since receiving her first SLR camera as a teenager. Her daily sourcing of inspiration through photography helps guide her art practice. Her in-person workshop experience includes teaching with Art2Life, Image Flow, and classes in her studio. With a passion for travel and experiences, her favorite type of teaching is destination retreats where she can connect in person, one on one, in beautiful, inspiring places while helping artists strengthen their work and personal style. She is currently represented by Julie Nester Gallery (Park City, UT), Slate Contemporary (Oakland, CA), Kenney Contemporary (Newport Beach, CA), Gallery North (Carmel, CA), and Sloan Miyasato (San Francisco, CA).
Guest Instructors
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Kerry Schroeder
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Gordon Studer
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David Hornung
Are You a Practicing Artist?
In our culture, it’s common to want to see an outcome, a payoff for our work. But the idea of a “practice” isn’t like that.
As Steven Pressfield writes, “a practice exists for its own sake. A practice is like you and I climbing trees when we were kids. It was play. It was fun. We expected nothing “in return.” If we fell out of that oak or maple and broke our arm, we might have cried because of the pain, but we didn’t complain, did we? We didn’t feel “cheated.” The thought never even occurred to us. Can we do that now? Can we enter the studio to dance as well as we possibly can, aiming for the stars … and let that be the reward, with no hopes or expectations beyond that?”
Of course we want our work to be good and to be recognized one day. But if this comes, it comes after having established a practice. We must have the discipline to show up in the studio on a regular basis and push ourselves out of our comfort zones. We must be willing to learn and grow and ask hard questions. We must be willing to develop and follow a line of inquiry…and we must do all of this without an attachment to the outcome. This is what practicing artists do.
