Susan Drey has spent the last ten years making painting the center of her work. This Saturday, she’s inviting the public to her studio.
The space is on the second floor at 625½ St. Joseph, above the sidewalk downtown, and it will be open for three hours on Saturday afternoon. Inside, the work centers on watercolor. Drey builds compositions through layered washes and loose, expressive lines, landscapes from around the Hills, florals, smaller studies. The medium rewards speed, and the work shows it. Originals will be on the walls alongside prints, notecards, and maps, with most pieces marked down for the afternoon.
Before settling into painting full-time, Drey spent sixteen years in architecture, then more than a decade running a wedding and portrait photography business, then several years in landscape design. Art ran alongside all of it. The last ten years are when it moved to the front.
Saturday is three milestones landing at once: ten years focused on painting, ten years in Rapid City, and a studio that’s usually private opening up for an afternoon with wine poured, food on the table, and people moving through a second-floor space most walk past without looking up.
