A week has passed since Sue Christiansen died. Besides grieving for my friend, I searched my mind for an appropriate emblem that best represented her talent, generosity and power.

Finally, I decided that the Colossus of Rhodes was Sue.

You might remember from your history books that the Colossus was a vast statue of Helios that straddled the mouth of the Rhodes harbor.

Here, I can imagine Sue saying to me, “Where do you get ideas?”

Here is the connection. I imagine her with one foot planted on her family shore, her friends, her adventures around the world, but the other foot was planted soundly in her creative life.

As artists together, we sat in meadows, in figure-drawing classes, in workshops, by a golden river, on a sandy beach, beside a cabin in the woods and in each other’s kitchens doing what dedicated artists do, make art.

Hers was not an ordinary gift. She calmly drew a figure, and her powerful energy descended down her arm and through the charcoal. She brought the drawing on the paper to such life, I imagined her figure would soon leap up and dance.

She imbued each of her works with this energy. A Sue tree waved in an imaginary wind. A Sue animal raced to leave the paper. A Sue carved cat purred.

I have never known anyone who displayed such brilliant draftsmanship.

“I like to draw hands and feet,” she once told me as I hid my poor example of a thumb.

We bought several of her paintings and many of her ceramics. One painting was of abandoned trucks in Hawaii.

Abandoned? Yes. Wrecks? Not in Sue’s hands.

Standing before that picture, I felt the vibrations of engines running, gears shifting, and expected at any moment to run for my life.

I wish that all island residents could see the journals she kept on her many travels. There, alligators roam, penguins putter around like penguins do, llamas gaze at the reader with wistful expressions as birds fly overhead and butterflies flitter from flower to flower.

Bainbridge Arts and Craft and Fraga Galleries recognized her gifts, too.

She was a dear friend, a wonderful companion, and an artist I shall never forget. She was my Colossus of Bainbridge.

Sally Robison

Bainbridge Island