We had the good fortune of connecting with Suzy Hunt Gardner and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Suzy Hunt Gardner, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I’ve always done art, my mom’s and artist and several people in my family are artists, it’s just natural for me. I have created jewelry since I was 10 years old. My cousin Tina and I made beaded earrings and sold them at her mom’s cafe in the little town I grew up in. The next year we made spoon rings. Neither one of us still have a ring or earrings, I think we sold them all! Greedy little capitalists! I took metalsmithing, ceramics and sculpture in college… but then I got busy with life. Got “real jobs” and life happens! When my kids were little I started making jewelry again – just as gifts for friends and family. And then a friend said she’d have a home party for me, kind of like Silpada or Tupperware, and things just rolled from there. I named my company Dream Follower. Why? Our lives get so busy and we hustle just to get through our daily chore list. I came to a time in my life when I realized that I still had dreams I wanted to follow and needed to prioritize them if they were ever to be. Hence, Dream Follower. Follow your Dreams, they know the way.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

Artists plan … Art laughs… That’s pretty much the story of my art! Lol! What am I excited about? I just had a piece purchased by the Pioneers Museum here in Colorado Springs, it will be in an exhibit of local woman artists sometime this summer and after that be in the permanent collection of the museum. Why am I starting this writing with that? Because the piece kind of says it all… The piece’s name is “Pulling Myself Together”, its a freestanding sculpture that started as a wall mask. Artists plan … Art laughs… I was just going to make a quick sculpture of a mask as a wall hanging out of porcelain clay. My vision (plan) was that the edges of the mask be somewhat rough, unfinished, like they mask had risen out of the clay body itself. Well. Got the face done and was working on the “rough” edges (you’d think that would be the easy part 😉 ; but, it was NOT the easy part. The pieces kept breaking off, falling off, just generally NOT doing what I wanted. Then I realized. The piece was just doing as I was feeling. Trying to keep it together at a stressful time in life. So many thoughts and needs flying through the air! I then envisioned the piece as spread out in maybe a frame… the parts being pulled back into the mask at the center, like a tractor beam. But the frame, all in one dimension didn’t speak to me, it wasn’t how I felt! I felt like everything was swirling around me from all directions, so I conceived of a way to design the sculpture as more of a 3-D object. The parts suspended on steel rods so the piece is 3-D. Pulling parts together. Pulling myself together. That’s how art works for me! I start with a vague idea … and then let the piece organically evolve. It suits my ADD/dyslexic ish self perfectly. Artists plan…. Art laughs…

How is my brand different? Because it’s me and the metal or paint or clay or rocks and a little luck, maybe some pixie dust, and a story I feel. One of the reasons I love teaching classes is that you give the exact same supplies to everyone; sometimes stones and paper I may have had in my studio (stash/big pile/hoard) for years, and a student will look at them and come up with an idea or design I would never in a thousand years put together for that piece. It’s amazing and revelatory and humbling! Make art that comes from your heart (poet!), and have fun. If you love your art you will find someone (hopefully many someones) who love it too. Be mule headed stubborn and keep at it! And say yes! I just heard a very successful artist (Patrick Shearn, Poetic Kinetics) speak last night about never regretting the things that he said “yes” to (except in cases of bodily harm and/or jail), but does have regrets about those things he said “no” too.

And, as always, my tagline is “Follow your Dreams, they know the way”.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love taking people downtown and to the OCC (Old Colorado City) and showing them what a vibrant and engaging and artistic city we have. Visiting Garden of the Gods gets kind of been there, done that when you live here, but I take a visitor there and see it through new eyes and realize how lucky we are to live a mile away from such a fantastic place. Hiking in Ute Valley Park! I drop over the hill and I’m in the mountains, city nowhere in sight! The Mining Museum and the Pioneers Museum! I come from a pioneer family of miners from the Western Slope of Colorado so those places are kind of a homecoming for me. (The other side of my mom’s family are Choctaw, Cherokee and Pueblo, so there is a whole other side of that heritage I get to see). Gold Camp Road, Cheyenne Canyon, 7 Falls, and one of my farther away favorites is Bishop’s Castle! Gotta love what one crazy artist can do!

We live in an amazing place, visitors just remind us that we are lucky enough to live where other people come to vacation.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Oh geez! So many people! My mom for always have art stuff around and always encouraging me. My high school art teacher, Mr. McFadden for teaching me so much and having so much confidence in me. So many artists here in Colorado Springs, we are lucky to have a very supportive art community. I have been lucky to have friends and family supporting me all the way! And, always, my biggest supporter and roadie, my husband, Rex Gardner. Without his emotional, physical and financial support of my crazy dreams I wouldn’t be here!

Website: dreamfollower.net

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dreamfollowerbysuzy/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DreamFollowerDesigns

Image Credits
The picture of me in the blue shirt and apron and the picture of “Pulling Myself Together” were taken by Wendy Iaconis, my friend and local photographer and potter.

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