Sue McMullen

I did my Fine Arts degree at Loughborough Art College, where I was helped to find my gift for portrait painting. With this gift, I was accepted for post-graduate Fine Art training at the Royal Academy of Arts.  I discovered new ways and subjects to paint. There I focused on trees and gardens, buildings, and streets.

15 years later when I lived in Newcastle, and Northumberland for 7 years, came the insight gleaned from the Franciscans and others, that there is a connectedness in life. We are interdependent. We are not alone. That life is not about the I, but the person is about life. It is called “Kenosis”. This solitary person became part of the Community, with the understanding that none of us are alone. I began to repaint people. People began to inhabit my streets. They came out of their houses, sat down to rest, chatted, shopped together, and then I found I could paint portraits again.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space, we have the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” —Viktor Frankl. Frankl’s wisdom about humanity comes out of his experience as an inmate at Auschwitz. ” When we are no longer able to change a situation . . . we are challenged to change ourselves.”