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"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
—Robert A. Heinlein
—Robert A. Heinlein
Student and Client Testimonials
Synopsis
Suzanne McDermott is an artist, musician, writer and coach helping people realize their creative ideas through expressive forms.
Now focused on her creative coaching practice, freelance writing, editing and illustration, Suzanne followed a successful international career as a performing songwriter with over two decades teaching drawing and watercolor as a creative path to self-realization. Sharing the inner game of her own creative process, Suzanne offered live and online courses in drawing, watercolor, song form, and art and music history. She also created transformational life coaching programs for individuals and small groups.
Introduced to watercolor at the age of five, most of Suzanne's watercolor work has been privately commissioned and featured in solo and group shows in Los Angeles, Sarasota, FL, Charleston and Edisto Island, SC, Petersburg and Culpeper, VA, Nashville, TN, Asheville, Cary and Raleigh, NC. Her paintings are in private collections throughout the US and Europe. She taught her signature drawing and watercolor workshops and courses throughout New England, California, Florida, North and South Carolina and Tennessee.
Between 1993 and 2005, Suzanne recorded five critically acclaimed albums of songs and toured extensively throughout the US and Europe. Her best known songs include The Roswell Incident and The 3 Dreams of J. Robert Oppenheimer. During those years, she created performance programs on song for state and local library systems throughout New England, Illinois, Florida, South Carolina, and Virginia including Out Under the Sky about the origins and history of the Christmas carol.
Community service work includes creating and spearheading The Spirit of the Gulf Challenge, artists' response to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, founding and directing the national community drawing initiative, Drawing America, producing Big Draws in Nashville, TN, and other cities (including Asheville, NC, Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Merion, PA, and Monterey, CA) and acting as juror in the Drawing and Printmaking categories for the Scholastic Art Competition.
Additional creative work includes design partnership in a museum exhibit firm, writing and producing an original play with music at the Asolo Repertory Theater, and a watercolor history of residential architecture in Sarasota, Florida for the city’s centennial, plus contributions to various world and experimental music projects.
Business and organizational experience includes staff and administrative support at MIT for the Office of the President under Charles M. Vest, for three chairs of the MIT faculty, for the MIT Media Lab Music & Physics Group, and roles as Investment Research Librarian for David H. Murdock's private holding company, as secretary to Sarah Vaughan, and as a US delegate for President Carter to the People's Republic of the Congo. Earlier experience includes production support for McCabe's Guitar Shop concerts and La Musica di Asolo Festivals. Her work life started as a teenager for music publisher Theodore Presser Company under Arnold Broido.
Studies include fine art, design, and art history at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Santa Monica College, Ringling School of Art & Design, and a BA in Humanities (Drama, Art and Music) from New College of Florida.
Suzanne grew up within walking distance of The Barnes Foundation, where she was influenced at an early age by Dr. Barnes and his collection. Throughout her teens, she was educated in the itinerant folk tradition, singer songwriter form and acoustic guitar styles while perched on a narrow radiator against the back wall of The Main Point.
Raised by devout Irish Catholics and educated at private convent schools in a region forged by Quakers, her spiritual approach to the creative process is also influenced by decades of daily yoga practice, Alan Watts, direct study with Ram Dass and Pema Chodron, over a decade of Kundalini Yoga training and Shambhala Training completed at Karma Cholling in 1994.
Photograph by Itaro Okada
Now focused on her creative coaching practice, freelance writing, editing and illustration, Suzanne followed a successful international career as a performing songwriter with over two decades teaching drawing and watercolor as a creative path to self-realization. Sharing the inner game of her own creative process, Suzanne offered live and online courses in drawing, watercolor, song form, and art and music history. She also created transformational life coaching programs for individuals and small groups.
Introduced to watercolor at the age of five, most of Suzanne's watercolor work has been privately commissioned and featured in solo and group shows in Los Angeles, Sarasota, FL, Charleston and Edisto Island, SC, Petersburg and Culpeper, VA, Nashville, TN, Asheville, Cary and Raleigh, NC. Her paintings are in private collections throughout the US and Europe. She taught her signature drawing and watercolor workshops and courses throughout New England, California, Florida, North and South Carolina and Tennessee.
Between 1993 and 2005, Suzanne recorded five critically acclaimed albums of songs and toured extensively throughout the US and Europe. Her best known songs include The Roswell Incident and The 3 Dreams of J. Robert Oppenheimer. During those years, she created performance programs on song for state and local library systems throughout New England, Illinois, Florida, South Carolina, and Virginia including Out Under the Sky about the origins and history of the Christmas carol.
Community service work includes creating and spearheading The Spirit of the Gulf Challenge, artists' response to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, founding and directing the national community drawing initiative, Drawing America, producing Big Draws in Nashville, TN, and other cities (including Asheville, NC, Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Merion, PA, and Monterey, CA) and acting as juror in the Drawing and Printmaking categories for the Scholastic Art Competition.
Additional creative work includes design partnership in a museum exhibit firm, writing and producing an original play with music at the Asolo Repertory Theater, and a watercolor history of residential architecture in Sarasota, Florida for the city’s centennial, plus contributions to various world and experimental music projects.
Business and organizational experience includes staff and administrative support at MIT for the Office of the President under Charles M. Vest, for three chairs of the MIT faculty, for the MIT Media Lab Music & Physics Group, and roles as Investment Research Librarian for David H. Murdock's private holding company, as secretary to Sarah Vaughan, and as a US delegate for President Carter to the People's Republic of the Congo. Earlier experience includes production support for McCabe's Guitar Shop concerts and La Musica di Asolo Festivals. Her work life started as a teenager for music publisher Theodore Presser Company under Arnold Broido.
Studies include fine art, design, and art history at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Santa Monica College, Ringling School of Art & Design, and a BA in Humanities (Drama, Art and Music) from New College of Florida.
Suzanne grew up within walking distance of The Barnes Foundation, where she was influenced at an early age by Dr. Barnes and his collection. Throughout her teens, she was educated in the itinerant folk tradition, singer songwriter form and acoustic guitar styles while perched on a narrow radiator against the back wall of The Main Point.
Raised by devout Irish Catholics and educated at private convent schools in a region forged by Quakers, her spiritual approach to the creative process is also influenced by decades of daily yoga practice, Alan Watts, direct study with Ram Dass and Pema Chodron, over a decade of Kundalini Yoga training and Shambhala Training completed at Karma Cholling in 1994.
Photograph by Itaro Okada