About Suzi and the Blue Winged Olive

Suzi has always been an artist...way before the art schools, and was put on a horse when she was two. Changes have come and gone in her life but horses and art have remained the constants.

She has worn many faces in her life, mom being the most important, professional vocalist, vagabond traveler, owner of a boutique in Berkeley and a horse ranch in Marin. She has raced her sailboats, had motorcycles, navigated road rallies and flown airplanes. She draws on all of her experiences in life to produce her art.
Central Oregon is her home now…..and she feels like it should have always been her home. Living on a small ranch she keeps her horses, chickens and a small bull on the property and her studio too. The bull is the start of my “cattle empire” she jokes, but she is serious about it. Suzi’s grandfather was a cattle rancher in Imperial Valley and she is following the act.

The Blue-Winged Olive name came from her son’s love of fly fishing and their fondness for the Metolius River nearby which is famous for the Mayfly hatches of the Blue-Winged Olive.

Her art has included posters for Monte Sheldon’s Vintage road rallies, three for Sister’s Rodeo and she continues to take on private commissions from those who know her art. Stores in the Pacific Northwest carry her pieces. She loves leatherwork, learning it from a former Hollywood harness and saddle maker and her work whether it be lamps or mirrors or furniture uses the materials always associated with the west be they carved, tooled or braided leather, silver conchos, trade blankets or wood. Her work is not kitsch and it’s not mass produced.

It is the essence of the west that makes it western.

Blue Winged Olive   |   P.O.Box 1562   |   Sisters, Or 97759   |   info@blue-wingedolive.com