Mary Susan Cate, MFA

I was an  Army brat. I grew up around the world and in transit.  My parents were cultural junkies. So there was Kabuki theater in Japan; in Germany every fantastic Mad Ludwig castle and Bavarian Church were visited and well endured… In Paris, Winged Victory and huge David’s haunted in the labyrinth Louvre. In Spain the gaudy and intricately painted wooden Sanctos enthralled. In England the sentinels of Stonehenge threatened, the Tate Museum in London inspired and the ancient giant oaks just had to be climbed.

Most of this culturally rich childhood was lived in foreign countries. Though my first vague Art Museum memory is of my six year old self tagging along with Dad to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had just shipped into New York City  from a three year posting in Panama. But really the foreign country to me has been America, So, I set out to learn its visual language. I studied painting and drawing at Corcoran School of the Art, in Washington, D.C.; printmaking and pottery at University of Mary Washington, in Virginia.  Then attended Maryland Institute College of Art. There I studied classical sculpture and color printmaking while working towards my MFA in Painting from their  Hoffberger Graduate School My thesis won me the Walters Traveling Fellowship to Italy...

Mary Susan Cate, MFA

I was an  Army brat. I grew up around the world and in transit.  My parents were cultural junkies. So there was Kabuki theater in Japan; in Germany every fantastic Mad Ludwig castle and Bavarian Church were visited and well endured… In Paris, Winged Victory and huge David’s haunted in the labyrinth Louvre. In Spain the gaudy and intricately painted wooden Sanctos enthralled. In England the sentinels of Stonehenge threatened, the Tate Museum in London inspired and the ancient giant oaks just had to be climbed.

Most of this culturally rich childhood was lived in foreign countries. Though my first vague Art Museum memory is of my six year old self tagging along with Dad to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had just shipped into New York City  from a three year posting in Panama. But really the foreign country to me has been America, So, I set out to learn its visual language. I studied painting and drawing at Corcoran School of the Art, in Washington, D.C.; printmaking and pottery at University of Mary Washington, in Virginia.  Then attended Maryland Institute College of Art. There I studied classical sculpture and color printmaking while working towards my MFA in Painting from their  Hoffberger Graduate School My thesis won me the Walters Traveling Fellowship to Italy...

Deep breath … all this under my belt.. and back from Italy, time to figure out what the life’s work should be. The Why and What For of BEing an artist.  Because, that seemingly ideal childhood had been marred by an abusive family life. But that too is the fodder of art.   Early I turned to books to try to understand the “Being” thing. And thus a love of storytelling grew. And somewhere in Grad School, I had met and learned to trust the Muse. Well, the trust thing was years slow…LOL. But the task was set: work the imagery in a narrative. Use the language of whimsy.. and pop culture. Just as fairy tales speak through fantastical creatures of deeper and sometime darker truths, I would use the language of whimsy to let the viewer laugh, through the tears. Eventually the work and the Muse lead me to the Southwest. Here in the Sonoran desert of Tucson, Arizona, I have maintained my Reality Check Studio… in the company of the Muse.