It isn’t every day that you’re walking down the street and happen upon a plein air artist painting the local museum where you volunteer. But that’s exactly what happened to some of our members as they were on their way one sunny day in the summer. As a plein air artist 80-90% of his work is in the field and the rest in the studio. He often works with an umbrella, a bike, and an easel and we were so fortunate to have him choose our museum for his stop. He has a brilliant, illustrious career spanning many decades. When he first began he was doing storyboards using poster paper and magic markers. As he continued through his work he did editorial illustrations for magazines, flat graphics, stylized paintings, and scratchboard. Of note, he began visiting ballparks and painting them. He has painted 96 ballparks. Mr. Suntala was our speaker for our December program. He spoke about how the bottom fell out of the watercolor market he first embraced, but he was able to pivot to the computer and began doing digital photos. Although he spent many years doing digital graphics, he soon wanted to return to his beginnings and do watercolors. Jeff Suntala, the urban plein air watercolorist was born. Since 2021 Mr. Suntala has been creating a Cleveland Plein Air Watercolor calendar. Look for the next one in mid-October. As a member of the Ohio Watercolor Society, Mr. Suntala has received several awards for this work. He credits Bob Moyer as teaching him how to watercolor and called him a Cleveland illustration genius. We think Jeff is on his way for the same recognition. The museum is honored that Mr. Suntala painted both the Finnish Heritage Museum in Fairport Harbor, Ohio, and the Finnish Cultural Gardens located in Cleveland, Ohio. He then gifted both paintings as well as the rights to the paintings to the museum. Our gift shop manager, Mrs. Linda Penttila, has had the paintings put into postcards and they are for sale in our gift shop. If you’re able to stop in the museum, we hope you will purchase one of these gorgeous postcards for your own enjoyment.