Artist’s Statement – Playing in the Mud
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Irises

My preference is for low-fire clays, especially the iron-tinged terra cottas.
Made from actual clay soils, it is called earthenware. Their natural glowing warmth and relative softness (compared with stoneware, which is made from degraded stone, like granite) make the name all the more appropriate. There’s nothing quite as calming and inspiring for me as working in such lovely mud.

Shapes are what I see. Not color, so much. Mostly it’s the curve and line, shape and shadow of things. Clay allows me to focus on those elements.

Showing the earth-bound connection feels important. I seldom make anything that doesn’t show at least a bit of the clay body. But how does one imply an airy quality from an earthy material? How thin and attenuated can earthenware forms be and retain strength? And, while tinkering with the mechanical, can one still bring beauty? I’ve developed, adopted or modified construction methods from diverse sources – from nature to the building trades. These have helped me achieve both goals: strength and beauty.

With this work, I feel I’ve come home to myself.

Ophidiphilia

Only recently I realized that I’ve now lived longer in Colorado than anywhere else – even Florida, where I grew up. As a child I thought I’d always live with sand in my shoes and salt on my skin. Salt air still has strong appeal for me, but it’s the high and dry desert’s mountains and canyons that now bind.

From each home (Florida, Mississippi, Turkey) and each bit of travel (Great Britain, Scotland, New Zealand, Italy, Greece, Mexico and all around the U.S.) I absorbed and learned from both natural beauty and human-work. However, since Southwest Colorado came into my life in 1984, I’ve never wanted to give it up.

Life’s common distractions arced me away from art, but I kept completing the arc by returning. An unfinished art major at a Florida junior college was finally resolved a decade later (in 1980) as an art minor at the University of Mississippi. A journalism degree seemed a better way to make a living at the time.

A bit more than a decade later, I came back to art for the third time when I took a part-time job in 1994 with a custom tile maker. I eventually moved on to other jobs while attending "throwing" classes at the local college, and continued to hand make custom tile, tile murals and cabinet knobs.

Moving beyond the functional, in the late 1990s I started working in a more fluid hand-building style using softer, organic shapes. Several pieces (Reality Is What You Make of It, Out My Window, Ophidiphilia, Timeless Lilies) were accepted in various juried shows at the Durango Art Center (Durango, Colorado). Timeless Lilies won best of show in the summer of 2003. Balcony House Ruin, a triptych in high-relief of a popular ruin in Mesa Verde National Park, was purchased by the park. Park administrators had it placed at the ruin’s trailhead by so those who couldn’t make the trek could still "see" the ruin. Leisure Mountain Studio and Gallery in Dolores, Colorado, allowed me a show in September of 2004.

Artist with Balcony House Ruin triptych at Mesa Verde National Park

Click here to view thumbnails of more of Susan's work.
Click address image to e-mail Susan: