Susan Carlson

Susan grew up in Wheaton, Maryland, just north of Washington, DC. She feels it was a great place to grow up since school field trips usually went to the national museums. She also feels lucky to have wonderfully supportive parents who were able toindulge her and her sister, Heidi's, creative desires. Susan attended the Maryland Institute, College of Art, in Baltimore, Maryland, and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration in 1983. After a couple years of freelance graphic design work in DC, and various part-time jobs, she traveled to Maine on a summer vacation with a high-school friend. There she met a "really cute guy" who was working on his dad's fishing wharf for the summer. Susan and Tom Allen are now married. In the years that have followed that first introduction (Thanks, Kathy!), Susan and Tom have stayed in New England. They lived seven years in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, making many friends in the rich artistic community. In 1994 they moved to Berwick, Maine, where three years later their son, Sam, was born. Now they live just up the road from that wharf where they first met in South Harpswell. Two big ol' pups, Daisy and Hassan, complete their family. Susan has received numerous awards for her quilts, including a New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts Artist Opportunity Grant in 1994. Her 7 1/2 minutes of fame came in 1993 when New Hampshire Public Television did a short program on her and her artwork. She figures she still has the other 7 1/2 minutes to burn.