Artist with heart: Susan Carmen-Duffy

"I still hear my mother saying to me, 'You mistake art for who you are, as opposed to what you do,' " says multimedia artist Susan Carmen-Duffy. "Art is in every cell of my being. I'm happiest when I have a paintbrush or lump of clay or collage paper in my hands."

Carmen-Duffy's 600-square-foot studio, in the Hungerford Building on East Main Street, is also home to Create Art 4 Good, an organization that supports both artists and those in need. She works full time managing the media labs at West Irondequoit High School but can be found at the studio most every day of the week, working on her own art, hosting workshops and curating a rotating monthly exhibit.

"I'll work with almost anything," says Carmen-Duffy, 53, who lives in Irondequoit. "When you use a multitude of media in one piece, each has its strengths. Watercolor is great for washes and background. You enhance that with colored pencil for more detail and richness of color. Throw in a little collage and ink ... It's just the best."

Starting out with hand-built clay in the late 1980s, she later switched her focus to colored pencils. When a friend asked how long she'd been creating mandalas, Carmen-Duffy had never heard of the complex, abstract, typically circular designs used by Tibetan Buddhists and Native Americans as a means for personal growth and spiritual transformation. She immediately bought a book about them and stayed up all night, reading and sobbing.

"It was like, 'That's what I do,' " she recalls. "There was a power that came with drawing mandalas, and I was just completely intrigued. Something in me changed. There was a quiet confidence that welled up in me as a result."

That confidence "attached the spiritual and creative parts" of her life and led her to experiment with "any medium I could get my hands on," she adds.

Carmen-Duffy founded Create Art 4 Good in August 2011. At the time she felt fragmented, known at her former job captioning audio information for hard-of-hearing students as "someone who could type 180 words a minute" instead of as a passionate artist who liked to help others. (She grew up with parents who invited impoverished strangers to dinner and gave 10 percent of their income to charity, regardless of their own financial position.) She decided to write a business plan and open a gallery. That dream came to fruition in October 2013.

Twenty percent from the commission of every sale is donated to one of four community-based charities: Human Touch Initiative, which provides massage to people with cancer; Camp Hope, which offers family camp experiences for single and blended families; the Josh Rojas Foundation, which assists families suffering the sudden loss of a child; and the Alle Shea Project, which raises awareness and money for Type II Osteogenesis Imperfecta, a genetic disorder characterized by brittle bones.

Customers decide the charity they want their purchases to help.

In 2015, Carmen-Duffy will establish The Barbara Carmen Artistic Experience Scholarship, named after her mother. Twenty percent of workshop tuition will go into the scholarship fund to cover the cost of workshops for people with cancer.

"I really feel that art heals," she says. "And the world needs more people paying it forward. This is a way I can support art in the world and be seen for all of who I am."