New Member Spotlight – Sue Fierston 

Lives in: Silver Spring, Maryland

Website:  Suefierston.com

Social Media: Instagram @suefierston

Media and subjects: Painting, printmaking (including gyotaku and hand-printed botanical clothing and bags) 

Why you joined MAA: MAA’s newsletter is full of energy and looked so inviting! I also see many opportunities to show work in a variety of media. The energy of MAA is what called to me. 

Something fun about you: I grew up on Kwajalein, a tropical island in the South Pacific. 

Artist Biography:  I teach gyotaku, the Japanese art of printing fish, at the Smithsonian in their studio arts program where I also teach modern botanical printmaking. It is exciting to choose the fish I will print as a demo for the class, and I’m always looking for a large fish with big scales (think carp or rockfish). 

I paint in both acrylic and watercolor, and I’m a regular urban sketcher, always carrying my sketchbook. I’d love to start an urban sketchers group here in the DC suburbs. I’ve exhibited here in our area at the NIH and Lombardi Cancer Center as well as out in Yosemite National Park, where, if we get past the pandemic, I will be an artist in residence in 2021. 

My first book, Into the Woods: Families Making Art in Nature was published in May. It collects many activities I’ve done as a teaching artist and encourages people to find solace and fun in the natural world.