Chattanoogan: Sue Markley, Gallery 1401 Owner - “A Wanderlust For Life”

Being raised in the mountains of North Carolina outside of Asheville, Sue Markley left everything she had worked for when coming to Chattanooga. “I had a professional career and had just been offered tenure when my husband Jim was offered a better position and we moved to Chattanooga,” Sue says.

Jim had always done his own thing and this was the first time he was going to make a commitment in working with a corporation.

“That did not work out at all,” Sue says, “Jim would be the first to say that it was the worse business decision he ever made - but it was the best family decision; because we love Chattanooga,” she insists.

The Markleys came to Chattanooga in 1991 when Sue was ready to give birth to her first child.  “I moved here kicking and screaming; I did not want to come. Of all the stressful things you are not supposed to do all at once – I did in one year. I gave up a professional job; I had tenure and gave that up and I was eight and a half months pregnant,” Sue declares.

A master at sales marketing, Jim has put companies on the map. “That is his forte,” Sue maintains, “to take a product that he thinks is really awesome and put it out there for the world. He was the first sales rep for Oakley; he was the first rep for Croakie and brought the neoprene strap to a million dollars. He has always seen little products and catapulted them and now owns the greatest sock company in the world, called Goodhew Socks,” she says.

Sue’s parents, Robert and Jimmie Patterson, were instrumental in giving her that same can-do spirit that she witnesses in her husband.

“The way I was raised, there was nothing I thought I couldn’t do,” she attests. “I grew up playing in the streams in the mountains; I would do my homework on a rock by a waterfall - how beautiful is that?” Sue exclaims. "I love nature and I love the mountains. I like it all.”

Surrounded by such beauty, Sue had developed an eye for splendor. It was a childhood experience as well that may have given her the passion for art.

“My father was a director at a paper company in Canton. I wanted to be an artist because my dad would take these massive rolls of paper that his company made, roll them out and the three of us would plop down in the floor and color on it,” Sue describes.

“All of us have some artistic background because of that little period of our lives where we expressed ourselves on paper. My sister is a graphic designer in London and married to an Olympic gold medalist, and my brother is a mechanical engineer - he can draw anything,” Sue says proudly.

Her mother Jimmie was a senator’s secretary at one time before starting a family but Sue knew that she did not want to be a housewife like her mother. She was brought up in an era where women were starting to have more opportunities.  

Sue’s father had probably made the most impact on her desires. “He was such an influence over our family. He was very proud for us to have our mountain roots but he was out of his element. He was very educated, sophisticated; he traveled and he just plopped us down in the middle of the mountains. He wanted us to grow up with a normal upbringing,” she says.

Sue’s dream was to go to Switzerland to a design school. Her father had already paid her tuition and two weeks before she was to leave her mother was crying and Robert talked his daughter into going to school in the states for two years and afterward, if she decided that she still wanted to go to Switzerland, she could.

With two weeks to decide where to go Sue frantically weighed the odds. “My uncle was Chancellor at Chapel Hill and I could have gone there but it didn’t have a design school or liberal arts program. So I picked Peace College in Raleigh; it was a two-year girls school,” Sue says.

Sue began with design and studio art. “I wanted to be a design architect or some kind of artist – a painter maybe, I couldn’t decide which.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to paint my way through Paris and make a fortune and I wanted to make money. I wanted to earn a living and my father told me that I could do that. He said, ‘Go for it. You need to be something that is not traditional’,” she conveys.

Sue moved from thoughts of being an artist/designer and moved toward becoming an architect. “I took all the classes and during that period I was pretty much just a draftsman and I didn’t want to be a draftsman, I wanted to be an architect and it was going to take too long; I was ready to make money,” she laughs.

Sue went into engineering and she liked the merge. With her father’s engineering and architectural background and her mother’s talent and creativity, it helped Sue define the career path she chose for herself. She finished college in three years and went straight into her master's program.

Sue was asked to be a grad assistant in engineering and asked to teach design and architectural classes at  North Carolina State. “It was perfect,” she says, “I was the only woman out of 22 engineers. I was 22 years old and they were West Point graduates, old mechanical engineers and electrical engineers - and then me,” she laughs.

While in her early twenties, Sue had traveled to China all alone. “I went to a country that had just opened their doors to Americans.  I was one of the first Americans to enter China,” she marvels.

Sue had an interpreter and stayed as a guest of the government. “I stayed there traveling all over to learn their industries and to get in the back door of everything. China had opened their doors to the world and they wanted to understand computers. They had a call to bring engineers together and talk about the cutting edge of technology.  I wrote a paper and they picked 50 out of the whole world and they had selected my paper. I was excited,” Sue attests.

She gave a lecture outside of Beijing and was one of the few women participating. Sue’s number one passion is traveling. “It’s my most favorite thing to do; I go as much as I can,” she says.

Her youthful personality is just as infectious today as she describes her compelling passions.

“My father instilled in me this wanderlust! We would travel every year as a family - from the tip of Canada camping with alligators and panthers up to the year he died when we were headed to South America. He always took a month off to be with his family to go somewhere. We went to all the museums and cemeteries and even the coal mines… he wanted us to see it and experience it,” Sue recalls.

Sue didn’t really want to be a teacher but they were paying her to take classes and she would be on the faculty. “I thought it would be a temporary thing until I got my master's and started on my PhD. I never finished my dissertation because I was given a job full time as a lecturer,” she states.

Sue was offered tenure before she and Jim moved to Chattanooga. She had just gotten her office at the university just before her father had passed.

After beginning a family raising her two sons Max and John-John, Sue wanted to do something part time.

“I wanted to work but now my focus was my family. I started a little company with a friend of mine, Alexis Probasco. Her aunt was a big designer in New York. We both love travel and we had friends in common. We started a little art company called Walker Maxwell Company – our boys’ names. We would find art all over the country that was brought in from all over the world onto the piers and started pulling together trunk shows,” Sue says.

“We did this for a long time but I never knew anything about these artists. I didn’t have resumes and I wanted more. After a while when so many people started getting into that market it started looking watered down and I wanted it to be special,” Sue confides.

Her friend Alexis was pregnant with her third child and wanted to stay home, so Sue went solo and took the business into retail.  “I found a few artists that I liked and I opened Gallery 1401 on April 1, 14 years ago,” Sue says.

Sue still has trunk shows all over the country and travels. This year; again on April 1,^, she moved her Gallery to Warehouse Row.

“I love this location. The move has offset my cost and I have tripled my business. When they say ‘location, location, location’ – that’s this place. We are lucky to have these nice quality shops. It draws so many people,” Sue says.

“Whether it is established art or emerging – I know what I like and I know what sells,” Sue vows.

Loving variety, there is no certain theme she clings to. Having traveled the world and studying art history, Sue knows art.

Her personal favorite style is Impressionism. “When I painted - that’s what I painted. It’s hard for me to appreciate contemporary abstract,” Sue admits.

“I can’t take an art piece that has not evolved to a level that I feel is worth the price tag that is on it. Some contemporary artists would slap prices on ‘bronzed poo’,’’ Sue laughs.

“I don’t want to be associated with that – I want absolute beautiful work that looks like a labor of somebody’s love instead of just hurrying up to paint it and sell it. I have taken a huge range of good contemporary and traditional and put it on the walls. Everybody here has an amazing wonderful story and talent,” Sue maintains.

“I buy a lot of art but I also consign art. I have represented artists from all over the world but the majority are from the Southeast,” Sue says.

“It is my dream to be able to sit down and paint a painting but I don’t have the time - one day in another life, I will be able to paint.” 

jen@jenjeffrey.com