[crickets chirping] SUSAN: All my life, when I wasn't riding the horses and it was too cold or whatever the deal was, I was drawing them.

And then my dad started challenging me.

He'd say, well-- he'd pick one of the 50 horses out or whatever horse, and he'd say, can you draw that one?

And then I would do this over and over again, and he would go through and pick out what was wrong and tell me to fix it.

[folk music] [crickets chirping] The beauty and the majestic qualities of a horse are almost impossible to capture in photos or video.

The skill of an artist to create a work of art that encapsulates the spirit of the animal is truly one of a kind and a labor of love.

On this episode of "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," we'll meet Susan Sommer, a renowned artist that works in many mediums.

And her skill at capturing horses and other subjects really draws you in, and you'll find a deep appreciation for the work that goes into her art.

Stay with us.

JIM (VOICEOVER): Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

Welcome to "OzarksWatch."

Today, I have a very special guest, and I've been trying my best to figure out how to get all of your work into a 25-minute show.

So it's going to be a challenge, but we'll just start from that.

Tell me a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, how you got into all this business.

OK, well, I was born in Arno, Missouri, population three, on a dairy farm.

From there, we went to-- we ended up in Billings, Missouri, and that's where I grew up on a horse farm.

We had horses, cattle, all kinds of animals, and that's where I grew up and-- --developed your love of horses.

Just developed love for them, yeah.

You were telling me your dad had, like, up to 50 horses at one time.

It was like-- Oh, yeah.

It was our business.

Our main business was horses, and I started showing horses when I was six years old.

I started training horses when I was 13.

I started breaking and training for my dad.

All of his babies would be two-year-olds, and then-- so I was his trainer a lot of the time.

And then I actually started my own little business where I put my tack inside my car and drove to places so I could break other people's horses.

That was my first entrepreneurial-- First venture and-- SUSAN: Yeah.

So when did you kind of get into the art mode and start realizing that you really had this artistic ability?

It's pretty rare and very unusual.

Oh, thank you.

All my life, I just-- when I wasn't riding the horses and it was too cold or whatever the deal was, I was drawing them.

And then my dad started challenging me.

He'd say-- well, he picked one of the 50 horses out or whatever horse, and he'd say, can you draw that one?

And then I would do this over and over again, and he would go through and pick out what was wrong and tell me to fix it and all this stuff.

And then finally, one day-- and I'm left-handed, mainly, and one day, he couldn't find anything wrong with it.

And I was probably about 10 or 11.

And he said, OK, now you can-- now you need to do that with your right hand.

Whoa.

Yeah, so I started doing it with my right hand, and now I'm ambidextrous.

I paint, sculpt, do everything with both hands, draw, whatever it is.

And I don't even realize I'm switching hands, but my dad-- I got to where I could do those horses absolutely perfect with my right hand.

I was like-- the horses are beautiful and the muscle and everything else, but do you have a mental picture of what the horse looks like as you're drawing or how does that-- I have mental pictures, and my father-- he got me these charts, muscle charts and bone charts of horses.

JIM: Yeah, I've seen those.

SUSAN: And they would be in my room all the time, and I'd always be studying them.

Now, the main reason he got them was because in a horse show, if there was a tie, the judge could come and ask you anything, and it was always real technical, about the bone or the muscle or something like-- and so I had all that stuff.

I knew it all.

But then, as I'm drawing and everything, I'm seeing how the muscles tie in and where the shadows fall.

And I've seeing how the structure of the horse is.

It developed me as a sculptor, as everything.

I think that was a big deal of everything I do now.

So did your father see you as a trainer or as an artist or all the above or-- If he was here right now, he would introduce me to you as an out-of-work horse trainer because he never thought I'd ever stop training horses, and he said it forever, till the day he died.

But I did get kind of back into it later, and I got horses again.

So for a period there, I'd left home and went to college.

I was traveling, doing internships and all that stuff, so.

Yeah, you were telling me you were-- one time you were a nanny in New York and you ended up-- SUSAN: Oh, yeah, well-- --doing lots of different things.

Yeah, I had these internships in college.

I went to school on a scholarship for creative writing and journalism, and I've never been an art student but always was doing my art.

So anyway, I got an internship with Litton Industries, and Litton Industries-- I was on the job, training for CAD, and I became a CAD engineer and designed circuitry for the Gulf War at Solid State Circuitry.

And during that time, I got an internship for Disney World.

So I'm down at Disney World, and I become this actress, Maude Durango, crazy cowgirl that blows up banks and hijacks people and real guns, real fires, stuff you don't even see anymore.

And I really got into that, and I met this really close friend of mine.

She's like, my sister just had a baby in New York, and you really need to be in New York.

You need to take your painting and all that stuff to New York.

And so I went to New York.

I'd never even changed a diaper.

And she ended up having to stay home with me for three days to teach me everything.

But anyway, so her father owned a-- he was Jewish, and he owned a really high-end restaurant in West Hampton, which is where we lived.

And I got a second job.

Like, when they were at home at night, I could go to his restaurant and start working, and I started hanging my artwork in there because he commissioned me for the first piece.

And then it just-- but there were people like Steven Spielberg and Christie Brinkley that came through, and Christie Brinkley commissioned me to do a piece.

And then I'm just like, the art just keeps tugging at me, and so that's what I did there.

Were you mainly doing horses and stuff then, or was it just a variety of-- Everything.

I've always loved human form and animal form.

Horses have basically, I think, been my training because I think if you can perfect a horse, you can pretty much do anything.

They're so complicated.

Yeah, I always thought a horse was extremely complicated to paint or to draw or whatever.

Yeah, or to make.

Yeah.

Well, so while you were in-- you were telling me about-- you did some Christmas tree painting.

You did all kinds of-- you started doing murals and different kinds of things.

Yeah, let's see.

So from New York, I went to New Mexico and got into to skiing, and then from that I went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

And Jackson, were the Tetons are-- I wanted to be in the best skiing Mecca.

And everywhere I went I was always showing my drawings and paintings.

In fact, when I was at Disney, they offered me a job in animation, and I didn't take it because when I went in and saw everybody sitting in the little cubby holes, drawing the same thing over and over, I was like, uh-uh, I can't do that.

JIM: Yeah.

I don't want to do that.

I got to be free.

So I went to Jackson, Wyoming and met a New York Yankees pitcher, retired pitcher, and his wife.

They commissioned me to do-- of course I tell them about my drawings and paintings, and they commissioned me to do this portrait of his relative, Indian.

And when he received it, he didn't tell me, but he went and took it into Jackson, which is an art Mecca.

I mean, Jackson Hole has 33 galleries with a population of 3,000 because there are so many tourists that come through.

And so he took it to Buffalo Trail Gallery, and that was like the biggest gallery on the square.

And they ended up calling me and had me come in and ask me if I would come in and do live ski art in the bay window during the busiest time of the year.

And I was terrified because I'd never done anything in front of anybody, and that's where the whole live painting started.

I was sitting there, and I'd have crowds of people around me, watching me do these skiers.

And then they'd commission me to do one of them, and that's how it all started.

And pretty much from then, when I moved back here, I just never stopped doing my art.

It was like my main focus, doing the drawing.

On your live drawing, which is kind of an interesting thing-- I know you did some stuff with Sheryl Crow and some different things.

Talk about that kind of experience with having thousands of people watch you.

SUSAN: Yeah.

So, [chuckles] man, it's crazy how it all happened, but I-- sometime back in-- it was about 2004, 2005.

I opened a gallery downtown Springfield.

I'd already painted for Bass Pro once.

They're a very original museum.

Years earlier, I went in when they were just putting that little museum up in there, the top, and the curator started talking to me.

And I was like-- he said, well, we're going to need a painting over that door.

We're going to need like this aurora borealis and all this stuff.

And I said, well, I can do that.

I didn't know if I could do it or not.

[laughs] I was like-- But you did it.

But he hired me, and I went in there.

And it was fabulous, and it was great.

And then years later, when I had my gallery downtown, Bass Pro started their nationwide expansion, and they come to my gallery.

These people came to my gallery, and they said, hey, we would like to know if you would paint for us.

We're doing all these-- so I start traveling all over.

I mean, I was maybe home three days, and then I'd be at another store.

It was just that fast, just, you know, all over the country, painting huge murals of wildlife, turkeys, bears, fish, underwater scenes, everything.

And then I got this idea-- I would start my own habitat foundation.

So back then I had a habitat foundation, and I wanted to bring awareness to animals that-- different animals in specific parts of the country that might need awareness, and so what I did was I got this tour bus, got this tour bus, and it was all painted up with my art.

And I went down to Florida because I got invited to do a painting down in the Keys, went down there, did that.

And I started-- the state of Florida asked me to do some other work, and I was down there for quite a while.

I was painting up and down the coast, doing these wildlife murals of the banking Keys in the Keys, all the unique fishes, and just special things.

And that got into the AP.

There was a story-- several stories.

I got interviews quite a bit down there while I was doing that.

It was crazy.

And then one of the stories got it-- you know, went to New York, and somebody on the Olympic Committee saw it.

They ended up contacting my gallery back here, and that's when I became an official Olympic artist.

They asked me to do-- my first one was swimming.

So I was doing Olympic art, and then I got the attention of the Triple Crown, Churchill Downs, when they-- I had this little, bitty website, maybe two pages, nothing like it is now.

[chuckles] But it had a lot of horses.

And they'd heard about me, you know, painting live and everything because I'm painting in front of people these murals and all this stuff I'd done, so they asked me if I would come and paint Barbaro, and that was, I think, 2007.

Barbaro had just-- he died.

He was injured at the Preakness the year before and didn't make it, hurt his leg, and they wanted to soften that and make it like-- do a memorum-- memorandum, sorry, of-- JIM: Memoriam.

Yeah, memoriam of Barbaro.

So I went to the Kentucky Derby, and I couldn't-- I mean, when I was growing up, we were in tears watching the Kentucky Derby.

It was like the biggest deal.

And I could not believe I was at the Kentucky Derby for one.

This was the first time because I did it for 10 years, became the Triple Crown artist.

But the first time I just-- I remember they had me on the set of ESPN all morning.

The Queen was there, so there was high security.

And so I'm up here and she's 10 feet from me.

And she's in this area.

There's-- behind glass, and she's watching me with the president of Latvia.

And she came out to tell me that the Queen really loved watching me work, and it was like all these people came through, Willie Mays and just famous person after famous person.

That's where they came through.

And I'm painting, and they interviewed me live on national TV that morning.

And then I'm just-- they moved me down into the paddock right before the race.

That's customary.

So I'd always be right in the paddock when they parade them around right before the race and doing this painting.

And I just remember thinking that day, it doesn't get any better than this.

I could die tomorrow, and I'd be happy with what I've done in my life, right?

But it was like, basically, the beginning.

It really was.

It was like the beginning.

I mean, the next 10 years of Triple Crown-- I became the Triple Crown official artist, the Breeders' Cup.

Then I got the attention of the NFL.

I did a Legend series for them and painted Tom Brady and the other one, Super Bowl XLII, live down in Arizona.

JIM: It's Tom Brady then everybody else, yeah.

SUSAN: [laughs] And then-- let's see.

And then I got, you know, the PGA.

I was the first woman to be official artist of the PGA and did that for two years, and then-- that was back in '03 and '04, but still it's like, all the sports-- I basically was becoming known as a sports artist, even painted live at the Atlanta Braves.

Bobby Cox was retiring, and I painted him live out on the field.

And that was pretty crazy because that had been my grandfather's favorite baseball team, the Braves, and I just felt like that was-- but I was always like, I couldn't believe I was here.

JIM: Yeah.

And it just kept going and kept going and kept going, but yeah, Bass Pro-- that was like-- it was high-paced, a lot of work, yeah.

So you've done a lot of stuff with Bass Pro, with Prime, different groups.

SUSAN: Yeah.

What was that like for you to work in that kind of an environment?

Oh, high-paced, like I said.

Well, Bass Pro, painting all those stores at once-- that really-- I really learned a lot as far as, like, you know, ways to do things.

I'm ambidextrous, so that helps.

I mean, I would work all night long if I had to, so the Bass Pro.

And then I just recently did-- was so honored to do these awards for Johnny Morris.

I was commissioned by Jack Nicklaus again, but this time it was to make awards for Johnny Morris for his philanthropy, and it was just amazing to be able to come full circle like that, sculpture and a painting.

And then-- [sighs] Well, before I forget, I need to ask you about your days as a horse owner-trainer.

That was another part of your different, right?

The different-- SUSAN: oh, yeah.

You mean the racehorse?

Yeah.

OK, so here I am, a racehorse artist, and that's my thing, right?

And then I bought this farm kind of in the middle of that, and I bought it to rescue a horse and then started rescuing everything.

But always, like, wished my dad could see all the things I was doing and everything, especially all the horse racing stuff and everything.

But I met lots of people, and I actually was an apprentice horse trainer after I got my own for a little bit.

But what happened was I got-- I was given a beautiful mare, a retired racehorse, by some really good friends that are major horse breeders in the thoroughbred industry.

And they gave her to me, and they said, you need to breed her.

And so I ended up taking her to Kentucky, bringing her to a pretty hot stallion, and then bringing her back here.

I foled the colt myself when he was born.

I raised him.

I trained him up until he was 18 months old.

I took him to Kentucky to the first trainer, and then I wanted to do was keep going out there.

Every two weeks or month I would run out to Kentucky and see what was going on and talk to all these people, the jockeys, the trainers, the grooms, everybody.

I just was really into it.

And I started like picking up stuff and thinking, oh, maybe I'll do a-- well, train racehorses.

Actually, that was brought up to me.

"You should be a racehorse trainer."

[chuckles] So then-- But in the meantime, the art was pulling you back a little bit, I guess.

You still wanted to do the art.

That's right?

Oh, I was still doing it, yeah.

Oh, OK. You were doing both.

I was still doing it.

OK.

I was doing the art the whole time.

And so he gets over there.

I start going-- I went to New York to see him.

I went to Florida.

I mean, he was traveling around, my horse, but he was based at Churchill Downs.

And it was really just starting to get, I mean, exciting.

And then I unfortunately lost him in his last race at Churchill Downs, but that kind of changed everything.

I just kind of, like, a step back and-- I mean, I do a lot of different horse disciplines, the dressage, jumping, Olympic horse events, all that stuff.

And I just kind of like-- it broke my heart.

So but yeah, it was like a-- I almost did it, Dad.

[chuckling] JIM: Almost.

But maybe soon, maybe someday.

But I just thought, you know, that's hard.

Well, we're going to run out of time, as I knew we would, but we got a few minutes left, and I wanted to talk about your art itself because one of the more well-known pieces in Springfield, at least, is the-- it used to be Campbell 16, but now it's the Alamo Drafthouse, I guess, the theater.

There's the paintings, the mural on the wall there with the horses.

Can you talk a little bit about the history of that?

Yeah.

I was approached by the Wehrenberg family, and we met on the property.

They wanted to change that face of that building that faces the road because it kind of looked like a prison, basically.

[chuckling] It was just a big, blank wall.

And that's when I came up with the idea to do the wild horses, because I'd been wanting to-- and he loved it because we're standing outside the building, and you can hear-- you know when you hear a movie outside of building and it just sounds like thunder?

[imitates thunder] It sounded like horse hooves.

And like, the whole time I was painting that mural-- it's longer than a football field and 30 foot tall.

The whole time I was painting that mural off of a boom, it was like-- the movies were playing, and it was almost like it was alive.

[chuckles] So yeah, that was quite an experience.

And then people made memorials out of some of the horses.

They asked if they could-- and we went through, and they got to name it and, you know, maybe make-- Interesting to me is it's been-- I think it's been there, what, 15 years, and it still looks like it's brand new.

It's amazing.

SUSAN: Yeah, it looks great, yeah, yeah.

JIM: There's got to be some secret to the paint because it's lasted for-- Yeah, I have a little-- --a long time.

I have some secrets.

Yeah, I know you-- Like, I have secret formulas and-- [chuckles] --a lot of secrets, but yeah, that was-- So is sculpture-- is that your-- Sculpture is-- --main love or is it a little bit of everything?

I think I'm always a sculptor.

Even when I'm painting I feel like I'm a sculptor.

I'm sculpting it.

So it's like I have that-- it just feels innate to me to sculpt, but particularly the project I'm working on now or finishing up here at my studio-- it encompasses everything.

So started out with sketches.

I went to-- you know, I welded and sculpt it, you know, with the welding, and then I-- my formula sculpture.

And now painting it and all that stuff-- so everything's in my sculptures, and they're really special to me.

They're one of a kind, and nobody else does it.

Yeah, because your sculpture is actually a true representation of the subject, horse.

SUSAN: Yeah.

I mean, all the details are right there and everything.

SUSAN: Yeah.

You have an interesting model, I guess, your-- Strawberry, your horse.

Oh, yeah Strawberry.

Talk about here a little bit.

Yeah, she was a retired racehorse that I rescued, and she became beautiful.

She was in bad shape when I got her.

I got her healthy again.

She's my model.

I can bring her right into my studio, and that's what I use when I'm sculpting mainly and painting.

But she's my official model, Strawberry.

[chuckling] Do horses have-- I guess some horses are, obviously, taller, but on the muscle part, are they normally pretty much similar the way they're-- the legs-- Yeah, it's just like all of our skeletal-- everything's basically the same.

Everybody's-- you know, your basic foundation.

But then when you're painting a particular horse or person, you have to pull their unique characteristics into it.

So once you get that foundation and you know those muscles and bones inside, like my dad's posters used to-- [chuckles] --teach me, then I knew where the muscles tied in.

And some horse might have bigger muscles there, some smaller, some-- you know, you just never know.

Or their neck's thicker or they're longer or shorter.

It's just like people.

They're so different.

I think every horse is different, and I really enjoy it.

So when you do a horse, do you start off-- like the sculpture or anything that you do-- and there's all kinds of beautiful paintings around, but do you start off with something in mind for the horse or is it just, you know, basically, you go back to that basic "this is what the skeleton looks like, this is what the muscles look like, I'm going to construct a horse based off of that"?

Well, that's all in the background.

I have what I want to create, and then I can use that experience to get the formation correct.

And I'm always so big on correctness of horses and stuff.

So like on this painting even you've got some imagination going on with it, but it's still technically a correct drawing, right?

SUSAN: It's correct, yep.

They're correct in form.

That's really important to me.

Actually, my dad would be like, you got to change that.

[laughing] It's always got to be perfect, so.

JIM: Yes.

Yeah.

So it sounds like your dad was an art critic and a trainer as well.

He was an art critic, and my mom was an artist.

JIM: Oh, yeah?

SUSAN: But she never pursued it.

So they met on a-- my dad had a horse stable in Wisconsin, and that's where they met when my mom got a horse for, I guess, graduation or something.

That's where they met.

They got married.

Then they had six kids.

They were raising cattle and horses, and Mom never got to do her painting really anymore.

So she was, like, also just providing me with what I need, if I needed pencils and paper, which mostly is what I had back then was just pencil and paper.

JIM: Right.

But anything I would need-- and Dad was-- he just had an eye.

He really had an eye, and he was like-- he's very critical in a loving way, and if he would have been one of those parents that just take every picture that their kid paints or draws and put it on the refrigerator and say, oh, isn't that great-- I never got that.

It was always, no, you need to fix this, [chuckles] you need to fix that.

This is going to make it better, make it better, make it better.

And it was a blessing.

In a couple of minutes, kind of what's your favorite works that you've done?

You have-- SUSAN: I always say-- [sighs] It's like asking somebody about their favorite kid, I know, but-- I know, but I always, like-- and it's true.

I always say, it's the one I'm working on now, that horse that I showed you.

JIM: Yeah.

It's just a-- like I said, it's a combination of everything.

I love the physicality, and it's really hard work.

Not too many people would work that hard.

[chuckles] That's why I think, you know, I just out-work a lot.

I do.

So you still are very active, obviously, and still working on a lot of different projects.

Do you-- are you still traveling quite a bit?

I do travel painting.

I did a painting live in the UK last year.

I'm working with "Sports Illustrated" as their official artist.

So they're starting a whole bunch of resort areas, and that's going to be down the road.

There's always something-- I've got a couple more sculptures I'm doing for clients.

I've got-- I've written three children's books-- I actually used my degree a little bit-- three children's books that I need to illustrate.

And so I've got all kinds of stuff going on, and I love taking care of my little farm, so.

Well, I know you have a Facebook account and you have a website and all that good stuff, and so if people really were interested in seeing some of your many, many, many, many works, they can sure go out and look at that.

So I really appreciate your talking to me, and thank you very much for being with me today.

Thank you.

I've really enjoyed it.

[chuckles] Thank you.

We'll be right back.

[folk music] JIM (VOICEOVER): Ozarks Public television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

[crickets chirping] I'd like to Thank my guest Susan Sommer for showing us her amazing pieces of art, and I hope you get to see some of them for yourself sometime soon.

Join us again next time for "OzarksWatch Video Magazine."

[folk music]