About the Artist
Sue Yanaura
Sue started her painting interest later in life when she was living in Macon, GA in the mid 70’s. There, she met and studied under Theresa Rett English, a renowned artist and art teacher in Georgia. Sue loves flowers of all kinds and still life painting; using acrylics, was her specialty. She spent many hours patiently painting all the details of every flower and as you can see, the finished artwork was quite impressive.
Sue not only painted on canvas, but painted on porcelain eggs, rocks, and shells. She also made numerous hand-crafted items for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, GA. She was in the inaugural festival in 1982 and held a booth annually until 2000, when she and her husband, Kazumi, moved to Denver.
What she enjoyed the most about having a booth at the Cherry Blossom Festival was the reunion with her customers year after year and the joy she saw in their faces as they looked at her crafts and paintings. Her late husband, Kazumi, was her biggest fan and he drove her to many festivals to set up and man the booth. Sue was invited in Macon to have a one-person art exhibit, which was quite an honor. She was fortunate to have a good friend in the framing business who helped her get all the paintings for the exhibit framed. She has a few paintings in her apartment at the Wesleyan, but most of the paintings adorn her daughter and son-in-law’s home. Sue was recently invited to display some of her artwork for The Wesleyan at Estrella, Artist of the Month in August, 2022. To her delight, she had many complements on her artwork by staff and residents; once again, she was pleased to see everyone enjoy her art display.
The Kanji characters represent Sue’s surname by marriage, Yanaura, which means “yanagi” for willow tree, and “ura” for bay. The willow tree’s flowing branches move gracefully in the breeze, like many of Sue’s paintings. This is a short background on the Kanji characters and how the gallery name was created. Naomi Scrivener (Sue’s daughter).