Susan Mentrak
Birth Date: June 22, 1969

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Susan Mentrak is a ceramic artist and illustrator born and raised in Ohio. She graduated with a degree in Illustration from The Columbus College of Art and Design, where she was greatly influenced by her instructors Lowell Tolstedt and Mark Hazlerig. Tolstedt taught her to pay attention to minutia and Hazlerig encouraged her to dream big and make the impossible possible. After adopting her daughter in 2003, Mentrak chose to devote much of her time to being a parent, where she found new outlets for her creativity. While sewing items for her daughter, she learned how to design her own fabric patterns and was discovered by a Nordstrom buyer who licensed her work for use on cell phone cases. Her patterns utilize bold, confident color alongside joy and whimsy. In 2013, Mentrak moved from Columbus to Canton, Ohio. Being in a new location where she didn't know anyone proved difficult, and for 4 years she primarily spoke only with her husband and daughter. During this time her husband was deployed to Afghanistan, which furthered her into isolation. As another creative outlet, Mentrak began making dolls to illustrate books for her daughter. In 2017, she signed up for ceramics classes at the Canton Museum of Art to learn to make the heads and limbs for her new creations. These too were discovered, this time by several publishers of doll magazines and collectors worldwide. Through the ceramic community at the Canton Museum of Art, Mentrak fell in love with ceramics and thrived in exploring her new creative medium. She was introduced to the science of clay and encouraged to pursue her ambitions. Now that her daughter is an adult, she devotes herself full time to developing her expertise in clay. She is the Ceramic Studio Manager at the Massillon Museum of Art and a former member of the Canton Ceramic Artists Guild at the Canton Museum of Art. Mentrak currently makes ceramic works that speak to family history and how traumatic events can become embedded in our DNA and passed on to future generations. She said, "My work is about the power legacy has to shape our lives, and how we should be deliberate with what legacy we are choosing to pass down." Her work utilizes bright colors and highlights the contrast between the playful and serious.