Suzie Greer Baker discovered in high school that the sky was the limit.

Lead Image: “Stars,” by Maxfield Parrish, 1926, oil, 35 1/8 x 21 3/4 in.

Her art teacher in high school, the potter Ken Tracy, had a book on Maxfield Parrish in the classroom, back in Grant Parish, Louisiana. “I would find out later that the representational artists of today would be standing on the shoulders of the illustrators of that era,” says Baker. “Mr. Tracy was an important influence on me. He created a whole new year of art so that I could take Art 4. We are still friends on Facebook, and I hope to do a trade with him soon.”

She goes on, “I was lucky; when I attended high school and college I had no idea that classical training wasn’t in fashion anymore. I didn’t know this because I wasn’t taught it. Mr. Tracy, and my most influential oil painting professor in college, Peter Jones, taught the form and working from life. I didn’t get a lot of art history in high school, so when I had it in college, I really loved it. My art professor would say, ‘And when you go to Rome, you will see’ — that supposition that you would go really inspired me.”


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