The "Suk with Flair" Story

Suk Shuglie at work in her gallery.  She told me she paints
almost every day except Sunday and sometimes Mondays.

It was an ordinary day.  Talking with Suk about her life in Seoul, South Korea while looking over the multitude of flowers and sheep hanging on the wall.  I'm standing in Suk Shuglie's art gallery talking with this interesting, knowledgeable, petite, energetic and creative artist.  A few weeks ago I was working at Grebinger Gallery framing a beautiful painting titled "Love in Tuscany" which carried the signature of Suk Shuglie in the bottom right of the painting.  

A recent painting by Suk Shuglie titled "Love in Tuscany"
which I was framing for a customer at Grebinger Gallery.

As I was attaching the canvas into the frame I had just assembled, I said to myself, "I have to make a visit to Suk's Gallery to see what she may have that I might want to buy."  While talking with her, I picked up one of her beach paintings that she had painted a few years ago. Told her I would have to bring in my wife to take a look at it.  

A print that I may add to my collection of beach art.

Suk's background is an interesting one.  One of eight children, she was born in Seoul, South Korea, but grew up on a farm in Yesan, a town about 100 miles to the south of Seoul.  She studied art throughout her younger years, but when she met her husband, Wes, an American whom she met in South Korea when he was sent there because of his employment, her chances for advanced art education were greatly enhanced.  She returned to the United States with her husband and then obtained a degree from Pennsylvania School of Art and Design in Lancaster, attended Millersville University and was invited to several summer workshops at Pennington College in Vermont.  

Suk has many paintings which feature sheep as seen here.

Her prolific talent allowed her to win a position in the Master Painting program at the Academia Di Belle Art where she had the chance to spent a month in Florence, Italy.  She shared with me her photo album from her studies in Florence which brought back many memories from my trip to Italy about 10 years ago.  At first, when coming to the States, she painted to relieve her homesickness, but friends and artists in the States helped her to adjust.   Since that time she has won numerous awards and has had her work published in many magazines as well as displayed in many galleries throughout the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.  

A view of Suk Shuglie's Gallery in Lancaster, PA

She opened her gallery in 1997 at 1320 Manheim Pike in Lancaster to better show her work to the public and her husband became the full-time framer of her work.  She recently lost her husband and has relied on her church to help with the grief she has experienced.  Suk describes her paintings as a form of impressionistic expression, since they suggest particular, intimate details as well as universal features.  She paints in both arylics and oils. My visit with Suk showed me the talent that this artist possesses and her gallery gave me an idea of the body of work that she has done over her lifetime.  As someone else has written, She gives lasting life to moments of exalted experience, each one having its own strength and subtlety and beauty, each on her strokes a line of life.  Now true!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of nan ordinary guy.