Susan Dobay's themes and techniques are varied, but the goal remains the same and valid. There is no barrier between the observer and the art. As in the prose of Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf, so it is in the visual art of our contemporary Susan Dobay. "Still Life with a Bird," for instance, is realistic and real, but it is also surreal. It depicts the outer world and the inner one with equal success—body and soul as a unity—which is a message and goal of the greatest art.  Mira N. Mataric Poet, Educator, Writer, and Critic