In 2003 I moved to Cape Cod and bought a Bed and Breakfast in order to escape the advertis- ing business in New York. I wanted to explore my right brain after years of favoring the left. I had been yearning to paint throughout my 35 year career as a television producer, but never found the time. As a a self-taught artist I discovered the palette knife that year and found that I could apply paint on a canvas quickly, thickly, and spontaneously. I loved the textures I could produce with the knife and I loved no brushes to wash. I began painting the coastal landscapes and cottages around me. I pushed the contrast of the Cape light, played with composition, scale, placement and negative/positive spaces. Hopper was my hero. I wanted to create a strong sense of place, a familiar but somewhat abstracted place— that calm place where we all want to be, and that we long for in these unsettling times — and then to capture it when the light is just right. In 2014 I left Cape Cod and relocated to coastal Connecticut in order to be closer to my son in New York, and because I missed the energy and diversity of the city. My work shifted to cityscapes and coastal architecture. Now I’m painting full time and loving it. I have a beautiful new studio at Metro Art Studios in Bridgeport, I have a network of wonderful artist friends, I’m an exhibiting member of several art organizations, Silvermine, Ridgefield Guild, Westport Artists Collective, and I’m teaching paint- ing with the palette knife at the Rowayton Art Center. I feel like I’ve finally liberated that artist who was inside me all along. For more info or to contact, please visit www.susanfehlinger.com