Suzanne Blaine Siegel received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Western Michigan University in 1988. Prior to the MFA, she earned her Associate of Arts in English Literature at Santa Barbara City College and her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at University of California at Santa Barbara.

After studying, teaching and painting in the Midwest from 1982 until 1993, Ms. Siegel returned to Santa Barbara where she currently lives and works.

"The beginning of Evening Star Studio dates from the early morning hours of Jan. 13, 2001, upon my waking up filled with an unaccountable and overwhelming desire to make beaded, fringed amulet bags for myself and all my female friends. Initially I dismissed this mysterious notion as too frivolous, expensive and a distraction from my painting. But the compelling idea would not go away. Three or four days later I began working on my first bag, having little clarity about what it should look like or how to create it, other than knowing how I wanted to feel when seeing it completed.

After several days of work, I was uncertain about how to finish it or what the whole activity really signified. Then I was fortunate enough to witness an amazingly magical interpretive performance by a dancer in a swirling white costume that generated extraordinary energy and light. Suddenly it became clear what the amulet bag represented for me and how to proceed.

Subsequently I had very powerful dreams whose imagery reconfirmed these intuitions in classical archetypal symbolism. Only one other person has seen the original black amulet pouch; it remains a very private object.

Later the bags took on different shapes and sizes to hold more pragmatic items as well as spiritual and aesthetic qualities. Stitching a Sacajawea golden dollar coin into the lining of each one began with the second bag, one made in gratitude for a close friend who had searched out something of enormous personal importance for me. Then the question arose: do I put a coin in all of them? The answer had to be "yes", honoring the Inner Guide to Undiscovered Territory in the heart of every woman.

No two Beaded Radiance Accessory Bags are alike, and each is individually designed and personally crafted by myself. My plan is to go on working alone for as long as I can. Whatever inspired the enterprise from the outset will undoubtedly inform me when it is time to do something else.

Meanwhile, whether with the Beaded Radiance Accessories or my painted and drawn imagery, my goal is to grow increasingly able to fulfill the Artist's function as so eloquently stated by Joseph Campbell who declared, "The task of the Artist is to carry the radiance of the Transcendent into the field of Time."