Bennett-Williams, Sue
Whether working in watercolor,
charcoal or clay, Sue Bennett Williams (born 1947, New Jersey, USA) has a
meticulous commitment to the chosen medium, taking obvious pleasure in
mastering each process while also constantly pushing its boundaries into
unexpected territory. In turn she often pushes her students—whether at the
College of The Bahamas or at her own After School Music and Art Classes (ASMAC)
program—to do the same, encouraging up-and-coming generations of practicing
artists and art teachers to find value in creative experimentation and process.
Though born in the United States of
America, Bennett-Williams has nonetheless always felt a bond with The Bahamas
as her family often visited Abaco while on sailing trips. She deepened this bond whole working as an art
teacher in the schools in the 1970s, and is now Bahamian.
Despite showing promise and drive in
the field of teaching early on, Bennett-Williams nonetheless developed her love
for art in college. She was
significantly affected by her teacher and mentor Rueben Hale who—against the
conservative institution’s rules—often invited his students to learn figure
drawing through live nude models off campus of Palm Beach Community College.
For the artist, process remains a
central motivating part of her practice. Such an approach instills in her work both an adventurous
spirit and an insatiable curiosity that captivates viewers. In the midst of Bahamian neo-realist and
neo-impressionist landscapes and figures of the 1970s, she experimented with
abstract paintings, moving from oil to acrylic and finally to watercolor. With encouragement from June Knight and Brent
Malone, the artist exhibited her watercolor paintings throughout the 1980s at
their gallery on East Bay Street and also in a major 1991 exhibition Expressions of Spring to raise money for
her year abroad to complete a Masters in Education at Florida State University.
Bennett-Williams set out to develop
her skills in clay in the early 1990's. Encouraged by Denis Knight, who allowed
her to use the facilities during his evening clay-making classes at Bahamas
Technical and Vocational Institute, she developed a deep love for the process
that continues today as the predominant medium in which she works.
In the 1970's,
the opportunity arose to teach first grade and art at Wentworth Primary School
in Nassau for a semester, and the artist began to seriously consider teaching
as another path to developing her artistic practice. She completed her BFA in Art at Florida
Atlantic University, ensuring she took all of her electives in education, and
returned to Nassau in 1972 to teach art in schools like Highbury High (now R.M.
Bailey) and C.C. Sweeting until 1988.
Since 1988,
Bennett-Williams has been an art professor at the College of The Bahamas,
teaching both applied arts and art education courses. Instrumental in developing and changing the
first complete art program with Stan Burnside, she went on to revise their
current program for their Bachelor in Fine Arts, crafting new art upper level
art courses and rewriting existing ones. She also co-chaired the annual COB art exhibition
Colors of Harmony and acted as a
faculty advisor to the COB Transforming
Spaces Exhibition before retiring her position in 2012.
Bennett-Williams
continues to mold the minds of primary and secondary-school level up-and-coming
artists though the After School Arts and Music Program (ASMAC) that she founded
in 1993 with her husband Tom Williams. In
1998, she was awarded the Silver Jubilee Award by the Bahamian Government for
service to the community through her afterschool classes.
Perhaps her
most significant student is her own son, Jason Bennett, an accomplished abstract
expressionist in his own right. The pair has exhibited together twice—Union in 1998 and Bond in 2005.
The artist’s work has been
exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions in The Bahamas, and her work can
be found in many private and public collections in The Bahamas.
