Growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, Susan Lyon studied at the Art Institute of Chicago* and earned a degree from the American Academy of Art*. She painted at the Palette and Chisel Club*, a mansion converted into studio space by art students, and there in 1989, met Scott Burdick, whom she married in 1993. Exhibiting there from age 23, she became the youngest winner of the prestigious Gold Medal for Oil Painting two years in a row. Other exhibition venues have been the Oil Painters of America, Laguna Plein Air Painters, and the Northwest Rendezvous. She and her husband also have a two-person show each year.

"Her initial interest in art was sparked by a television show on Georgia O'Keefe. "I hadn't seen art like t...