Category: Creativity Q+A

Photographer Susan Tusa learned her craft in the days before digital, and plied it in the field of print journalism. She was a staff photographer with The Detroit News; and The Detroit Free Press, from which she retired in 2012 after 22 years. Susan is the recipient of numerous awards, and has exhibited her work in Michigan and France. During her decades as a news photographer, Susan created lyrical images that hinted at the kind of images she might create when not tasked with the work of reporting. She resides in Empire, Michigan.This interview took place in April 2021. It was conducted by Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC Gallery Manager, and edited for clarity.

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What draws you to the medium in which you work

That’s a difficult question at this point in my life. I’ve been photographing pretty much daily for 40 years. It’s just what I do.

Did you attend art school or receive any formal training in visual art?

My formal training was very limited. On a bit of a lark, I took a photojournalism course at Michigan State University and fell madly in love with the whole thing: the going out and shooting, and coming back and processing the film; then it magically appearing like a memory. I was at MSU thinking I was going try to become an environmental reporter. It hadn’t been a well-formed idea. I was just taking courses. And then I took a photojournalism course [in 1976-77], and completely changed directions. It hadn’t occurred to me that a person could make a living doing something they loved. I had purchased my first 35 mm camera a year earlier with money from unemployment checks [1]. I took a couple of courses per semester so I could work at the college newspaper [State News], and then doggedly pursued a career in photography. I started at small town weekly newspapers photographing things like little league tournaments and Farmer of the Week.

When so many people are working with digital cameras and technology, that darkroom magic is unknown or foreign to them. Is this a loss, the lack of direct experience in the darkroom?

Yes, I do think it’s a loss.

I think the more we know about, and the more we experience, in regard to any art we are practicing, widens our view. Having firsthand knowledge of different aspects of craft deepens the experience of not only practicing art, (in this case photography), but viewing it, and understanding it. I’ve met young photographers who have never even focused manually, and always use auto exposure, and I wonder how they can possibly get the results they want. The camera certainly doesn’t know, at least not yet. I think it’s really important to know the equipment you’re using and what it’s capable of. I also think that instant results cultivate unreal expectations, and an impatience that can be detrimental to producing good work.

I think there’s less time for contemplation, and that sense of what a photo actually is: a moment in time, a recent memory. The darkroom experience really illustrated that. You watched this moment from a while ago slowly appear. It’s a ghost, a mirage, and then it’s solid.

How did your formal training affect your development as a creative practitioner?

Like I said, my formal training was limited. The photojournalism courses introduced me to the basics of black and white 35 mm photography – exposure, the function and relationship between shutter speed and F-stops, controlling depth of field, that sort of thing. I learned how to develop film, make black and white prints, and the importance of getting to know your subject.  One of the first assignments I recall, was to come up with 10 portraits of people on the street – perfect strangers – and hand in not only quality prints of each person, but brief biographies. I discovered that I loved talking with strangers and finding out about the different lives they lived. And I was surprisingly comfortable doing it. (I’m not sure why, maybe from years of watching my mom talk with cashiers, plumbers, the guy on the phone, the mail carrier, pretty much anyone she came in contact with.)

The rest of my education was trial and error. Lots of error. I remember while working at The [MSU] State News, my boss, a prickly sort, sent me to shoot an advertisement at a women’s clothing store. He loaded me up with a closet full of equipment I had never touched — lights and batteries, umbrellas and light stands — and sent me off to shoot the ad. He was a bit terrifying. So, rather than speak up and admit that I hadn’t a clue how to use any of the equipment, I muddled through with predictably terrible results, and got fired. It took a while, but after a lot of experimentation and wasted film, I learned to manage lights quite well. After I was quite comfortable with them, I found myself avoiding them whenever possible anyway, even when shooting food or fashion. I always prefer shooting on location or using window light and reflectors. Too much equipment always feels like a barrier to me, and I never thought that the artificial light I created was as pleasing or effective as the light of the world.

Describe your studio/workspace.

I practice photography everywhere: inside my home, outside, wherever I am or wherever I am assigned to go. Most often, these days, it’s wandering the trails and shore of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

My editing/printing space is in the bedroom/office/laundry room in the little house I just moved into. It’s tight, but it works – a perk of not needing a darkroom anymore. Years ago, pre-employment, I made prints in my bathtub. My enlarger was on small back porch that I blackened with dark plastic bags, towels and lots of duct tape. Now I do all my “developing” on the computer. I’m quite comfortable doing what I used to do in the darkroom, in Photoshop, and since I left the Detroit Free Press. I’m learning to feel free to make more adjustments than I was ever comfortable with. When working as a photojournalist, it’s not acceptable or ethical to alter photos in any way. Basic toning — that’s it. If I photographed someone and didn’t notice the bushy tree in back of them looking like an eccentric’s hat because of the angle I chose, well, too bad. We don’t alter reality. I get so angry at people crying “fake news” when I’m well aware of how the vast majority of journalists and photographers work so hard to produce an accurate representation of whatever the subject, story, or situation is. Even now, when I’m doing a close up of something in the woods, I feel a twinge of guilt if I remove a twig from the scene; but I’m getting over that little by little as I work on artwork. I’m becoming a bit more playful, because I can be.

You have been in the process of transitioning from your professional work as photojournalist with the Detroit Free Press to the work of a studio artist.

I left the Detroit Free Press at the end of 2012. I don’t consider myself a studio artist. I approach my work in much the same way I always have.

How are the two forms of photography alike or different?  

I don’t think there is a big difference between the work I did at the Detroit Free Press, and the work I’m doing now except the content and pace. I rarely have deadlines, don’t have daily assignments, and live in a different place. I’m still photographing most days, and when I’m not, I’m editing, printing and trying to figure out ways to make this daily practice of mine useful. I’m trying to sell my artwork, which is relatively new to me. I’m fumbling my way around the art world, figuring out pricing, limited editions, that sort of thing.

Which of your photojournalist’s tools/equipment have transferred to your studio work? 

My tools are pretty much the same, except that I don’t have as many cameras and lenses. The paper used to provide whatever we wanted in terms of equipment, and now I have to buy my own, so I can’t afford the really long lenses I’d like; or to replace my older cameras with the newest, better, faster versions.

What did you bring [visually, philosophically, aesthetically] from your former profession into your studio work?

My visual, philosophical, and aesthetic approaches to my work have developed throughout my career. And they continue to develop and change as I do. As a photojournalist I’ve had to photograph everything – portraits, prison riots, fires and fashion, the rich and famous, the poor and impoverished, violence, kindness, mayhem, quietude. The challenge was always to get to the truth or essence of whatever it was I was shooting, make it visually interesting/artful in terms of composition and content, and fulfill the needs of the paper – the space it was destined for. The difference now, is that I’m most often photographing with no assignments, deadlines, or the demands of a particular publication.

But I always have a camera, and inevitably something will catch my eye: a shift in the light, a sound, some movement on the ground or something incredible at my feet that I’ve never seen before. Whatever it is summons me to stop and look more closely. I’ll begin shooting, and then I’m pretty much lost to whatever drew me in. I’ve always loved being in nature, where life and death and the whole mysterious mess becomes less scary. The “I” is replaced by a kind of mindfulness.

Please elaborate.

When I begin photographing something, and “working” it, nothing else exists. I’m not thinking, just seeing and making adjustments in focus, depth of field, shutter speed, changing my position — standing, kneeling, laying down, watching the scene or whatever it is change in the viewfinder, shooting frame after frame. I’m not thinking about the past, or worrying about the pandemic or politics, mass extinctions, what I’m going to make for dinner, or the million other things that are always scrolling through our minds.  All I’m doing is seeing.

In the Washington Post article  about the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which your photographs illustrated, Rebecca Powers said you “often recite poetry while hiking.”

I don’t have a lot of poems committed to memory, but sometimes I’ll think of a part of a poem and look it up. I like trying to memorize poetry while hiking. I find it easier when I’m out walking to memorize things. Sometimes walking, a poem will occur to me, and I’ll incorporate it in the pace of my steps. A few poems I know by heart are like prayers, particularly a couple by Mary Oliver. She’s so in tune with nature. It’s a nice way of centering.

Thinking about poems doesn’t take away your focus from your walk, and the seeing part of your walk.

It’s almost like the walk and the seeing conjures up the poem. I never memorized a lot of poems throughout my life; but now, it’s probably a good idea. My legs are moving. I want to get the brain to do a little work, too.

I used the verb “illustrated” to refer to your images in the Washington Post article; but I don’t think that’s accurate. Your images stand on their own as much as Powers’s words stand on their own.

The words and photos aren’t supposed to mirror each other. Ideally they work together to communicate and make a connection with readers/viewers.

What themes/ideas are the focus of your work?

Life, death, the all of it, I suppose.

How much pre-planning do you do in advance of beginning a new project or composition?

I’m not a pre-planner. I might return to something I’ve seen when the light is better, which for me usually means softer or darker. Even when I do still life photography, there is no real plan. I begin with something I might’ve picked up — a rock or dead bug — and go from there.

Do you work on more than one project at a time?

I always have several things going at once; but I’m very unorganized and photograph an unmanageable volume of work. I have hundreds of thousands of files and negatives in boxes and folders, on hard drives and my computer desktops that need editing. During the summer months, when the light is harsh, and the heat and chaos are a bit much for me, I spend time inside editing and trying to create some order out of the chaos. I have an embarrassing number of folders on my desktop computer, and lately I’ve been doing nothing with them except adding more images. Each of these folders represents a potential series or project; but at this point they are becoming less defined and more unwieldy.

What’s your favorite tool?

Whatever I happen to be using or have with me on my walk. My Canon 5D Mark II with various lenses is what I like to shoot with most; but it’s also heavy and weighs me down [2] when I’m walking a few miles at a time. Sometimes I’ll carry a point and shoot, and always my iPhone. If I leave the Canon behind, I can be sure I’ll come across something particularly beguiling and I’ll regret it, so I try to have my camera and at least one lens with me. I purchased one of the new iPhones, simply for the camera. I justified the purchase while dealing with a shoulder issue not too long ago. The capabilities of that camera are astounding; but I also have to be careful not to submit to the convenience, because the days that I do, are inevitably the days when I’ll kick myself for not carrying the heavy stuff.

Do you use a sketchbook? Work journal? What tool do you use to make notes and record thoughts about your work?

I always carry a notebook and write down random thoughts that might occur to me, or that I might want to expand on. A couple of years ago I completed a master’s degree in creative writing [3], and am in the process of trying to combine the two arts. It’s really a difficult and interesting process. I’m still a novice in terms of writing. My writing is about as organized as my images. Folders, both physical and virtual, notebooks, scraps of papers, piles of them all over the place.

How do you come up with a title?

I’m terrible at titles. Generally, I try to keep them simple: a geographical location, a botanical I.D., or “untitled” if I can’t think of anything. My daughter cured me of trying to come up with meaningful names when I was getting my first exhibit together. We laughed pretty heartily at how lame the names I was coming up with were. She is my go-to editor. Never afraid to tell me the truth or hold back an opinion, and I trust her eye and judgement.

What’s the job of a title?

I’ve learned, that for me, a title is simply a point of reference. Like a number. If the image is particularly abstract, perhaps a word or two as a way to orient the viewer. I don’t like titles that qualify the subject in anyway or tries to induce a reaction in the viewer. I never use a title to spell out a particular emotion or whatever it is that I’m trying to communicate. I think it’s somewhat disrespectful to the viewer. If what I was trying to communicate isn’t within the photo, the image failed.

When did you commit to working with serious intent?

When I took my first photography course.

What role does social media play in your practice?

I’m active on Instagram and follow visual artists from all over the world. Looking at images every day is inspiring. Paintings, photos, sculpture, all of it. Every encounter we have with art affects us, I think, and influences the slight shifts in direction our own art takes. Whether that encounter or immersion is via social media, an art gallery, in books or films, it all becomes a part of us.

What’s its influence on how you let the world know about the work you make?

I think it’s a way of getting work out there. As your community grows, so does exposure. I’ve gotten some freelance work that way, sold some art, and was asked to participate in an exhibit through Instagram.

What do you believe is the visual artist’s/creative practitioner’s role in the world?

To make art.

What part or parts of the world find their way into your work?

I believe that everything is connected to everything else, our memories and histories, all of it affects who we are and our world view. I guess every part of the world I’ve had the privilege to be exposed to – physically, virtually, intellectually. All of it has somehow found its way into my work. I could look at one of my recent photos and say, for example, this photo is because as a child I went to a Catholic girl’s school or because I recently read a novel by Chris Abani, or because I took a walk and saw that dead mouse, all of it’s in there somewhere isn’t it?

How does living in Northern Michigan inform and influence your creative practice?

Nature is pretty much center stage here, and since I moved to Empire full time a couple of years ago, it has taken center stage in my work too.

Is the work you create a reflection of this place?

I think my work is definitely a reflection of wherever I am, both physically and mentally.

If not directly reflected or depicted in your work, are there other [unseen] ways Northern Michigan informs your work? 

I’ve spent the majority of my life in Michigan, so my work most likely carries the sense of Michigan.

Would you be doing different work if you did not live in Northern Michigan? Would your work have a different look or appearance?

There would be different content, of course, but I’m sure there would be similarities in the mood or texture of the photos. I lean toward the quiet, and solitary, sometimes dark, whether in color or black and white. My color photos are most often monochromatic. That said, if I lived in Cuba, say, I’m pretty sure I’d be photographing the rich color palette there.

Did you know any practicing studio artists when you were growing up? 

Just an uncle who I rarely saw.

Who has had the greatest and most lasting influence on your work and practice?

When I was younger, I read a biography of Georgia O’Keeffe, and was awed by her vision and the way she lived her life. That might have been one of the sparks that first pointed me in the direction of visual art. I didn’t grow up in an artistic household. I took piano lessons in the first grade; but a cranky teacher convinced my parents that I was not musician material (and this was after having just mastered “Yankee Doodle”). I have no memory of trips to art museums, art lessons, things like that.

It’s difficult for me to name one person. I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of the most talented photographers and editors out there – Eli Reed, Stephanie Sinclair, Taro Yamasaki [4], Joel Meyerowitz, Joyce Tenneson, Romain Blanquart, Kathy Kieliszewski, David Gilkey — at the papers I’ve worked at, on various assignments, and during different workshops. Some are well known, some are not. But their collective knowledge and different ways of seeing widened my vision and continues to do so.

Where or to whom do you go when you need honest feedback about your work?

My daughter. She’s not afraid to say exactly what she thinks, she’s smart and funny and has an incredible eye.

You’ve moved from having a reliable, regular platform for your “showing” work  — i.e. The Detroit Free Press — to a place where you are asking people IF they’d like to show your work.

Entering exhibitions — I didn’t even realize that that was a thing. The first exhibition I was a part of, I was contacted by a man who was curating exhibitions at the Detroit Artists Market. I just thought gallerists found you. I’m starting to learn the process.

Exhibitions are prohibitively expensive in terms of getting the framing done. I’m particular and don’t make frames myself. And then you have to figure out prices. I have a friend who’s been doing this for a while, so she’s been advising me on the business end of things. It’s probably a good thing I had a regular job because I’m really bad at it. I’m trying to get better because I’d like to get my work out there and sell it.

What is the role of the exhibition in your practice?

I’ve only been involved in a handful of exhibits. I suppose their role is to release the work into the world, and hope it speaks to someone. Exhibits also provide deadlines which for someone like me who has spent most of her shooting life with daily deadlines, is really helpful. An upcoming exhibit is a sure way to get moving on some of the series in those bulging folders I mentioned earlier.

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Footnotes

1.)  Susan had found employment as an EKG technician, proofreader, cashier at a bookstore, and waitress.

2.) Susan estimates “heavy” at 20 – 25 pounds.

3.) Susan received a BS in cultural anthropology from Grand Valley State in 1975; and an MFA in creative writing from Pacific University in Oregon, fiction, 2018

4.) Taro Yamasaki, a Pulitzer Prize winner, resides in Leelanau County.

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Susan Tusa is represented by the Sleeping Bear Gallery in Empire.  Learn more about Susan here.

Sarah Bearup-Neal develops and curates Glen Arbor Arts Center exhibitions. She maintains a studio practice focused on fiber and collage.

Thanks to Susan Tusa for generous use of images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melonie Steffes, 48, learned by doing. And by reading library books about practice and process. And by finding other makers to mentor her. Her paintings are filled with bears, insects, mushrooms, and other woodland influences that describe the world of the body and mind in which she lives. In both subject and presentation, Steffes’s paintings communicate an otherworldliness, a Magical Realism that charms. Like all enchanments, there’s a lot more pulsing around beneath the surface. Steffes lives in Thompsonville,  Michigan. This interview took place in March 2022. It was conducted by Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC Gallery Manager, and edited for clarity.

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Describe the medium in which you work.

I mostly work in oil on canvas. I do do other things — occasionally I do watercolors, I’ve been thinking about getting back into them. Also, I do some sculpture, which I’m going to return to this summer. It’s better to do it outside because I use a lot of rusty metal. In the summertime I move everything out to my porch. I’d rather be outside in the natural light, with the bugs.

What draws you to oil painting?

I like that it doesn’t dry quickly. I have time to move the paint around. I like the way the paint feels, that I can make it thick or thin.

Did you receive any formal training in visual art? 

My first year-and-a-half in high school, I went to a special program — I was living down in Florida then. I had extra art classes. But that’s it. After that I moved up here, and it has been mentors, and library books, and practice.

[NOTE: Melonie attended Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, Florida,  in the late 1980, and was enrolled in the school’s artistically talented program.]

How did your formal training affect your development as a creative practitioner? Do you consider the training you got in high school “formal?”

It was really only touching on the basics. I wasn’t there very long. I didn’t get to the classes about oil paint or watercolors. There was a lot of design, a lot of drawing and printmaking. I really feel I learned so much more after I was gone.

Talk about that.

When I was in school I was learning some rudimentary things, but I wasn’t learning a lot that I didn’t already know. After I left and I was off on my own, there were a few years when I wasn’t doing a whole lot of art; it was just wanting to. When I was able to come back to it, at first I was getting books out of the library — straightforward how-to books, and poring over technique. I still do this today. I love to look at peoples’ processes, start-to-finish. I find it super inspiring. So, today, I’ll still go get books, or now, you can look on the internet. I love that. And then, I met Dan Oberschulte. He’s the one who got me painting in oil. I wasn’t using oils. I was using acrylics, and watercolors. He kept saying,”Here, try these,” and he gave me some [paints] he wasn’t using. I loved it once I got going with it. And, observing him — we used to paint a lot together quite a bit. When I say “mentor,” I mean that kind of thing: Looking at what he looks at, [specifically] the Impressionists. I love the texture and the color — I don’t paint that way myself; but I do find them very inspiring. They say that the best way to learn a language is through immersion. It’s more like that.

Describe your studio/work space.

“Disaster zone.” I needed to have a room separate from the rest of the house so I could step out, and shut the door, and leave it as it is, and nobody else has to deal with it. It’s filled from floor-to-ceiling with all the different things I do: I also make clothes, I’ve got sculpture things, I’ve got painting things, I’ve got tons of books, and then I have a million knick knack and fetishes everywhere. I think it [measures] roughly 12 feet x 10 feet.

You called your studio a “disaster zone.” What’s the disaster?

The chaos of my brain. It’s a mess. It’s cluttered. There’s stuff going on every direction you look. I’ve been in peoples’ studios that are so nice and neat, and I think why can’t I be that way? I clean it up once a year, and it just blows up right behind me. I don’t have time to be cleaning. I make stuff. It’s a sacred disaster zone. It makes sense to me, but somebody else might be horrified, and wonder how I get anything done in there.

How does your studio space facilitate your work? Or, affect your work?

The messy studio that we’ve been talking about is the Winter studio. The head space is very different when I move out to the porch, and its open, and the breeze is blowing, and birds are flying around me, and the butterflies and wasps — it’s completely different. When I’m indoors and enclosed with artificial light, I’m deeper in my head, less connected to what’s around me — maybe that’s why I have so many fetishes around me, collected from summer.

The natural world is an intrinsic part of the story in your paintings. It would make sense that being outside you might feel more connected to your work.

For sure. The more that I’ve been painting outdoors, the more that [the natural world] seeps in. Indoors, its a different vibe. Right now I’m at the end of Winter, and I need some ideas for an upcoming show [at Higher Art Gallery July 6-August 6], and I’m having a really hard time. There’s not naturally coming in.

If being outside and having a direct connection to the natural world feeds your work, how do you override the fact being inside during the cold weather months cuts you off from that?

I cross county ski a lot. I still get outside, but most things are sleeping. I probably should be sleeping, too, but being human, I’m trying to work. I still try to be out there, at least for a little while. The first few paintings I’ve gotten done for this upcoming show were ideas I already had going into Winter, and I wrote things down. They were already there. I wasn’t drawing off now. I was drawing off things I had in my head. I listen to stories a lot in winter. That’s a helpful thing. I listen to them while I’m painting, and that gets my mind turning.

I always think of your paintings as full of greenery, and Spring, and light, and warmth. Your paintings don’t reflect the winter world. True?

I don’t do tons of them. I was just thinking that today I hadn’t painted any Winter scenes. At the end of Winter, I don’t know if I want to do more black and white. I want to do color. This is a good example of where my mind goes more in Winter. It’s a big painting of a woman holding open her chest, and all these frogs are pouring out. That’s definitely a Winter painting. The ones I come up with in the Winter are way more interior, like that.

Talk about all the elements of the natural world you bring into your paintings.

[Depicting] the natural world isn’t all I do. Though these days, it’s definitely more and more, but I don’t like to get too boxed in. I like to paint what’s around me. For a lot of people that would be a landscape. The paintings are really autobiographical, but it comes out in these crazy ways. I spent my summer immersed in my yard, and my gardens. Every year more so in certain places I like to go to in the forest. I rarely design something ahead of time. I can tell you this really crazy story about one of my recent paintings, with this bear.

I have a place I like to go to in the Spring and Summer, in the middle of a creek. I call it my island because it’s literally in the middle of this creek, a mound and an old tree growing out of it. It’s also a place bears go. I’ve seen their track. I’ve never actually seen the bear. I like to go there, and take off my shoes, and I walk in the creek in the mud, and I’ve literally stood in the bear’s tracks in the mud. When I’m in a place like that, I’ll be sitting there, and see a vision in my head. When I see that, I’ll go home and sketch out what I saw in my mind. I’ll try to put reference materials to help me paint it. I have to look at things to make it look as real as I want it to look. A lot of my paintings come from being out there. There’s a certain meditative place when I’m relaxed, and I’m really present. I found this wasp’s nest out there one time, that a bear had taken down from a tree. You could see the claw marks on one side, and there was only half a nest. This is the weird story: If fit perfectly over my face, and there was one hole I could see through. I sat with it like that — I could still smell the bear — losing myself out there.

Magical Realism is the term that comes to mind when I look at your work.

Twenty years ago, a friend said, “What you do is Magical Realism.” I’d never heard the term. He said it was literary. Magical Realism, I think that sums it up. A long time ago, when I was 14, I went to a Renaissance festival, and there was a painter there. He did oil paintings of unicorns and stuff, but they were very realistic. He said something that always stuck in the back of my brain: If you want to do fantastical things, and grab people, do them in as realistic a way as you can. I think that really affected me. Even if I try to be looser, I end up being realistic with the whacky, fantastical world in my head.

Realism suggests to the viewer that what they’re seeing on the canvas actually is. So, you’re playing a trick with people.

Another person told me she thought my painting are very shamanic.  Which I thought was interesting. Sometimes they feel like that to me. It feels like a journey. So when an artist creates something, especially something that’s realistic enough the viewer almost believes it, isn’t that magic? Bridging two worlds? It’s telling a good story. It may have never happened, but you draw the person in, and then they have feelings, and emotions, and, maybe, challenging thoughts. That’s a good thing artists do.

What prompts the beginning of a project or composition?

In the best way, in my favorite way, it’s that lighting bolt of vision in my head. And, words can do it. Sometimes I’ll hear a phrase incorrectly. If I’m listening to a story or someone is talking, I hear it incorrectly, but what I hear is more interesting, and I visualize it, [and think] that would be an amazing painting. A nugget. I’ll write them down. I have a million little pieces of scraps of paper, and napkins that have these inspiring phrases on them. I even have things written on the wall in my studio. If I hear or think of it, and I’m right there, I’ll grab the charcoal and I write it on the wall.

How much pre-planning do you do in advance of beginning a new project or composition?

There can be quite a lot of that. It depends on how complex the picture is that I want to do. For instance, I have one that’s almost complete right now. This painting has literally been in my mind for 10 years. For whatever reason — it’s too much work, or I’m not there yet — the painting stays in my mind. Well, I’ve done it now, and thank goodness. It fit this [Higher Art exhibition] I’m trying to paint for. There’s a lot of preparation. There are quite a few animals in it. There are bubbles, which I’ve never painted before. There are a lot of landscape background. To put all that together, to what’s in my head,  first I sketch out the rough idea, and then I start grabbing [reference] photographs — it’s a Summer-Fall painting, and it’s not that now. In the Fall, I took a lot of pictures anticipating doing this painting. My camera is really important. And, I really hate to admit this, but [so, too, is] the internet. I have a love-hate relationship with tech. I‘ll gather all the visual reference together I need, and put it together into the composition I’ve sketched. I know people who can paint right out their head. I need to see the fur, and the whiskers, and the way the body twists. It feels like a little like cheating, but it works in the end.

How does it feel like cheating?

It doesn’t when they’re my photos, but when I’m using someone else’s photos … I’m not using their composition … I try to use my own photos as much as I can.

Do you work on more than one project at a time?

Yes. I will put things aside for a few days, sometimes longer, so I can’t see them, and I’ll be working on something else. I’ll go back and forth. Sometimes it helps me to take breaks, especially if I feel stuck, or I’m overworking, or some challenge in it that my mind isn’t working out, I’ll take a break and work on something else. There’s two paintings now that are in a state of almost-done, and I’ll come back to them. Sometimes I put things away for years. I just did this: I pulled one out that was done two years ago, and pulled it out to work on it some more.

Some of your paintings get put away to rest. Why?

Because I’m not ready to finish it yet. Not that I don’t want it to be finish. Maybe something I see, I’m not quite able to [translate it] to the canvas yet. Usually, that’s what it is. Or, sometimes, I’m inspired to do something else. I lose the energy and am not into [the painting] right now. And that painting may completely change later when I come back to it. When the energy changes.

Do you work in a series?

I didn’t think that I did. Well, I’ve come to realize, that in the past few years, the same characters are popping up through my work. When I put together everything I have now, I see themes. I see recurring characters and themes. I just didn’t do it intentionally. Some of these paintings have sold, and now I’m doing something that feels like it goes [with the sold work]. I feel weird about it. My bears, I’m holding onto now. I think there are more bear pictures coming. I don’t know what they are yet, but it makes me feel like I should cling to these, keep them, don’t put them out there.

What’s your favorite tool?

My camera is my most important tool. So many of the paintings are — this is the whacky part of my process; if I had neighbors who could see me, oh my gosh … I will set the camera up on a tripod in my yard, and set timer, and try to get into the positions I need. I end up taking a million pictures to get what I want.  That’s how I do most things if the [recurring ] woman is in it. Do you know how hard it is to paint a hand nicely? I have to see it.

It sounds like your camera is a tool for gathering reference information — rather than something that creates a picture you reproduce as painting.

Yes. Mostly. I do take a lot of B-roll — pretty landscapes, interesting bushes I might use at some point. I have to say that 9 times out of 10, in my thousands of photos, I don’t have what I want. So, I have to go do it again. It’s reference. Occasionally I’ll paint something directly from a picture, but very rarely.

Do you use a sketchbook? Work journal? What tool do you use to make notes and record thoughts about your work?

Sketch books for sure. Piles of them. I sketch down an idea whether I’m going to do it or not. Sometimes I go back [into the sketchbook] and realize I’ve forgotten about a great idea. It’s there, the nugget of it is there. I sketch. I write. I write notes to myself.  Sometimes I even record audio when I’m driving. [Recording on her phone] is much safer than trying to write them while you’re driving like I used to do. Inspiration comes, and you never know when, so you have to have tools around to record it.

How do you come up with a title?

That varies. Titles sometime are in my head simultaneously with the picture in my head. Or, they come as I’m doing it. Sometimes, they don’t come. It’s a struggle. Sometimes the title comes before the painting. It’s the words, it’s a phrase, and I think, “That’s beautiful,” and I see it, and the title is already there.

What’s the job of a title?

The title gives a person a reference point. I prefer that my titles be little vague. I don’t like them to explain too much. I want the person’s mind to take the story where it will. A good title leads a person a little bit in a direction, but not to much. I don’t like titles that completely explain everything. There should be mystery. I want the painting to evoke things in peoples’ mind.

When did you commit to working with serious intent?

That’s been a hard questions. I’ve always made art as long as I can remember. I was encouraged to, early on, because I showed a level of visual skill. I was drawing people with clothes when the other kids were drawing stick figures. So it was part of me, and it became also a way — when I was getting into my teens — to deal with things in my life, to get out difficult emotions, and deal with challenges. I had this wonderful tool of expression. And, I’m really thankful for that, to this day.

I was 20, traveling, so I wasn’t doing a lot of artwork, and I met with this friend I knew in high school. He’s a classically trained guitar player. He said to me that he’d met a blues [musician in Chicago]. He asked him how he got so good? And the guy said, “It’s what I do.” That stuck with me. I always thought of myself as an artist, but I started saying it to myself: It’s what I do. It’s real. I had to start thinking of it that way. So many people talk about having a hobby. I decided that I didn’t want to think of it as a hobby. It’s such a big part of me. Somewhere in my early 20s I started to say to people out loud that I am an artist. And, I do other things to support that. I’m a maker. I need to make things. I really started to hit it hard as practice when my son was born.

When my son [Seamus] was born, I was 24. I was able to stay home with him for quite a while. It became such a priority to me to do my art work. So, he would be in his baby bassinet on the table next to me, watching me paint. He seemed very content to watch. When he’d go down for a nap I’d unplug the phone, and lock the door — he’s napping and I’m painting.  It became a huge priority — the time that I had to paint, to use it, every bit, for that. I also wanted him to learn that I’m mom, and I’m absolutely here, But I have my own identity. That was something I grew up hearing about [from her mother and grandmother], that they gave up all their dreams and identities to be moms. There was a little pressure there to not do that. My grandmother was an artist, and starting to work in the fashion world, gave it up all completely when she got married and started having kids.

What role does social media play in your practice?

Social media. It’s such a bad word to me. I have an Instagram page, but I’ve never put anything on it. I just don’t want to. I don’t think it would be helpful anymore. All these social media platforms are so crammed full of information, and you have those no attention space. It’s like: click click click. Everything’s so fast. You forget the last thing you looked at.

You said social media is a “bad word.” Tell me why.

I see whole lot wrong with it, a whole lot that’s going wrong with us as human beings because of it. There’s some cool stuff, and that what get us hooked. We feel like we’re part of something, and we feel more connected, and yet, we get together less, and not because of COVID. That was happening before COVID.  When you read or post something on a social media site about yourself, that is the edited version of you. We can sit here and talk, and all of my foibles — I’m going to say dumb things, I’m going to look cross-eyed — it’s unedited. It’s me. But I can totally put out the honed version of myself on line, and it’s never fully real. The connection aren’t fully real. The way that it’s used to condition us, to train us to think in certain directions, to pit us against each other …

It sounds like you’re a direct-experience person.

Yes. I am. I do use Facebook. I wasn’t even going to get Facebook. I have this musical duo, and the several years back people were saying that the only way people will know when you’re playing is to get it on Facebook. I resisted for a while. And then you’re in. Now you’re looking at it, and it starts sucking you in. I hardly ever go there.

What do you think is the visual artist’s role in the world?

It’s different for everybody. There are plenty of people who make things, and never show their work to someone, or show it to very few people. What is their role? Do we ever know what our role is? On a quantum level, you never know what those waves are doing that you put out there. There’s also that role, in the social world, to make a statement, evoke change. Some people paint beautiful landscapes. Does that end war or cause social change? Maybe not, maybe it does, but it’s still totally valid. If you get too involved in what is the purpose of this, what is this going to do, I know I can paralyze myself [thinking too much about it]. I do like the idea of evoking some sort of shift in a person, in their consciousness. Or, changing their mood for the day. I hear this a lot: “I hadn’t thought of that like that before”; or, “That makes me think about that creature differently,” like the bears or the wasps [in her paintings]. I do like that.

What parts of the world find their way into your work?

Other living beings. Plants to bears to lots of mushrooms. People ask me all kinds of weird questions about that. And, no I’m not eating that.

What is it about mushrooms that make them recur in your paintings?

First and foremost, they’re all around me. I see mushrooms all the time. They’re everywhere. Such a vastly important part of the ecosystem. The mushroom is only the fruiting body that we see. The mycelial web, the roots of the mushroom, are under our feet all the time. We’re always walking on mushrooms and fungi. They’re part of everything. I’m kind of obsessed with mushrooms, and I have been for such a long time. They’re part of my everyday mind. They come up all around my house, all kinds, and are part if everything.

How does living in Northern Michigan inform and influence your creative practice?

I am very grateful for the fact I live in the woods, and that there is so much forest in Northern Michigan, and water. I can be in the forest. I can be on the Big Lake. I’m a boat person, a sailor. I love the water. There are other places I’d like to live, and go to, but I was born here. The is my native land. You can see in the work that I do, most of the creatures you encounter are here. I don’t paint a lot of lions, tigers, and elephants.

Who has had the greatest and most lasting influence on your work and practice?

Dan Oberschulte. He put the oil paints in my hand. He also helped foster that seriousness we talked about.  Seeing somebody who was that serious about [his painting practice] was helpful to me. That thought of art-as-life, and art life. I have two people I would call, and send picture of my art, and ask them, “What do you think?” I would bring paintings to him, and he shows me his, which we do to this day. That’s the trusted feedback, him and my son. My son has become that now.

[The late] Steve Balance — I used to model for him. He became a mentor. He would give me feedback too. I do things similar that he did with his photographs. He sets scenes up. He wasn’t an on-they-fly, capturing a moment. He would have an idea in his head, and set it up. That’s what I do. I have the idea, and set up my references to make what I see in my head.

What is the role of the exhibition in your practice?

That is the part where I get to share that with the rest of the world, which I seem to need to do. There’s a lot that goes with it. I’m very introverted,  and I do spend most of my time alone, with my partner, and I want that and need that. It’s the point at which I push myself out there [believing] this thing needs to be seen by other people. There’s the validation wrapped up in it. There’s the selling, making some sort of income. There’s wanting to tell the stories, or at least put the stories out there for other people minds to start to playing with it. That makes it bigger than me. There are things on my wall that I never put out. Some of it is that’s what artists do. But I have a lot of issues around that, too. Once you start [exhibiting] in galleries, and you start putting your work into the public eye, all the voices start coming into your head. She said this, and he said that, and the gallery said I should do this or shouldn’t do that. That can be a real problem. I used to struggle with it more than I do now.

Is it hard for you to detach yourself from peoples’ responses? Or, do you take it in?

I take it in, but I feel like I’ve gotten good at … I’ve got this punk rock bone my body that wants to give everyone the bird when they telling me all this stuff. I try not to censor myself because of those voices. What I try to do is not censor myself. Make the thing. Put it out there, and it’s going to have its own life after that.

How do you feed/fuel/nurture your creativity?

That is so much mostly about getting outside. It’s looking at art. I do have a Pinterest problem, I think. I can go on there for so long because it keeps spitting things out.  It’s so inspiring sometimes. I see things I never would have thought of, wish I would have thought of. I love picture books. Music inspires me. I love to listen to stories. One of my bear paintings [came out of a] literal fever dream. I had this fever, and I was lying on the couch. And all I wanted was a big bear to come and read me a story. And so I grabbed my sketch book, and started drawing that. Later, when I was well again, it became this painting — that I really, really love — of this bear sitting in this big comfy armchair. The chair is outside with rose bushes behind him, and he’s got a big story book in his lap. The girl is lying on the ground, at his feet, in this white nightgown. And, then it gets a little dark, according to some people. If you keep looking behind the bear, there’s some bloody meat and bones. The woman is holding a bone. That is all very warm and fuzzy for me. The painting is called “The Nature of the Beast.” 

What drives your impulse to make?

Processing. It’s all processing the world, my immediate environment, the bigger environment. I’m creating ways to deal with it, whether it’s good or bad, and that’s why I’ve been doing it since I was a little. It’s what mankind has always done: We’ve created stories to make sense of what’s going around us. I don’t need to understand everything, but I need to process it. I don’t think we have to understand everything to benefit from it. Allowing things to move through you, being present, and then allowing whatever is there to move through you, whether you understand it or not — I think that’s really important for being in this world. When I had COVID, literally laying there, I laid on this table so much letting go of my body and going into this meditative state. It was there I realized if you can let go and let things just be, there’s so much there. There’s imagery, and there’s nothing, and silence, and it’s so healing. When I’m making anything, I don’t know I’m hungry, I’m not aware of my body any more. The creative process, my whole life, has given me time to let go of that physical weight, and that allows other things to happen.

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Read more about Melonie Steffes here.

Sarah Bearup-Neal develops and curates Glen Arbor Arts Center exhibitions. She maintains a studio practice focused on fiber and collage.

Benzie County artist Susan Thompson believes “Art is a gift that is meant to be received and that touches others. Art is an essential and primary means for mutual understanding, belonging, and commiseration.” She brings these beliefs to life through many media including works on canvas, paper, paint, collage and sculpture. This interview took pace in June 2021. It was conducted by Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC Gallery Manager, and edited for clarity.

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What draws you to the medium in which you work?

I work in many 2D mediums on canvas and paper. I’ve also done series of 3D sculptures, assemblages, and wall reliefs. I love combining multiple media in ways that create unique textures, forms, and colors. My primary medium is oil painting. Oil paints are very multi-dimensional in their rich, luminous quality. With oil paint what one sees and works with are the actual color pigments in their variety of hue, transparency, viscosity, and reflectivity of light.

Did you attend art school or receive any formal training in visual art?

I started learning about art from my mother who was an artist. She introduced me to watercolors, drawing, and oil painting at a young age. In middle school and high school in northern Virginia I went to art classes in watercolor, printmaking, and painting. I was friends with a couple of other budding teen artists and we would hitch hike into D.C. to see art in museums and galleries — not formal training, but one of the best ways to learn. I went to art school at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA and graduated in 1977 with a BFA in painting and printmaking. In 1985 I received an MA in art therapy at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

How did your formal training affect your development as a creative practitioner?

When I was in art school in the 70s, the art world was in a process of a shake-up – Abstract Expressionist and Action Painting gave way to Color Field Painting, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Minimalism, Performance Art, and Neo-Expressionist Art. I experimented with many art modalities including installation, collage, and very large format painting. Experimenting and trying new ideas in my art continues to inform my process. I also value knowledge of art history, especially contemporary art. Some styles of art that I studied continue to integrate into my work today: Surrealism, Expressionism, Chinese brush painting, and the work of the Chicago Imagists.

Describe your studio/work space.

Soon after my partner and I moved to Lake Ann, I renovated an Amish-built garden shed on our property and made it my art studio. All my various mediums, collage materials, and tools are organized in the relatively small space (11 x 20 feet) while completed work is stored on shelves in our basement. I love having many material options available that I can spontaneously incorporate into my work. Working in my studio reminds me of being in my room as a teenager where I would listen to music, draw or paint, read or write. It was a private world I could step into.

I spend several days each week in the studio working, usually 3-4 hours at a time. I don’t paint every day. I’ve learned and accepted that taking a break is fine for my process, even several days in a row. Often I need to step back from paintings that are in process in order to let the paint dry and allow ideas to steep. I also work on “quicker” collage and mixed media on paper or assemblage as alternatives to paintings on canvas. When not painting I am reading and writing about art, viewing art online, and working to promote my work. Of course, an important part of the practice is spending time looking.

What themes/ideas are the focus of your work?

I’m primarily inspired by how perceptions of spatial dimension and flatness can simultaneously play in a dynamic way on a 2D painting surface. I experiment with form, line and color to create ambiguous space and movement across the canvas. Color is supreme for me as it creates space, light, and mood. My process involves a resistance to anything that seems rule-bound or pre-ordained. I start a painting with no preconceived idea and allow spontaneity and chance events to play out. Often areas of the painting will become too precious and I will need to obliterate those areas so something entirely new can happen. While I look to the painting itself to guide me, I also rely on my experience and skills to make choices in painting that will bring about the effect I want. I enjoy the physicality and materiality of painting, its rhythm and visible history. The layering of materials plays with the time element as it gives evidence of history, memory, and disappearance.

Underlying this process is my philosophy of life:

…that all is in continual flux …that much is uncertain and out of our control …that life energy ebbs and flows…that it seems like an infinite process, but all things must pass (as George Harrison put it)… and that human consciousness is capable of a profound, wordless understanding.

What prompts the beginning of a project? How much pre-planning do you do in advance of beginning a new project? Do you work on more than one project at a time, and/or in a series?

I don’t pre-plan my artwork. Usually I have anywhere from 6 to 12 paintings going simultaneously. Often the idea for a series emerges from particular materials. For example, in 2019 I was inspired by seeing tulle fabric used in the art of Irfan Onermen. I started using tulle and natural fiber paper integrated with painting and drawing on canvas. That has resulted in an ongoing series of multi-media work. Another example: In 2017 and again in 2018 I attended the Buckley Vintage Engine show and took a lot of photos of the tractors with their beautiful designs and surface patina. This was the starting point for a series of assemblages I completed using the photos along with old crates, rusty tools and fixtures. It struck me how rural folk treasure and preserve the past by using these very old machines. Another example: In 2019 I was wondering how to use 10 empty 11” x 14” frames that I had and so I started a series of collages on paper in which the only material I used was collage scraps with no added drawing or painting. This year I decided to start a series of paintings where I only used oil paint and nothing else, returning to earlier roots. Often I have more than one series in process. I’m never short of ideas.

What’s your favorite tool?

I like to use a variety of tools to create marks, texture, and layered effects. One of my favorites is the brayer. I use it to roll over an area of paint to unify the field and create texture. I like this tool because it obscures any sense of the artist’s hand rendering with a brush and instead breaks free of that control and creates the unexpected. Whether it’s a brush, brayer, squeegee, palette knife, charcoal stick, or marker; I love to use my hands and tools to create work and get out of my head and into flow.

How do you come up with a title?

I free-associate titles in a process similar to painting. The title I choose gives a hint to the viewer but doesn’t spell out what it is. This is a kind of humor that is part of my work. Finding a title can be like a surrealist poem where an umbrella and a sewing machine are united on an ironing board in a strangely erotic way.

When did you commit to working with serious intent?

My growing up included a lot of exposure to art and art techniques. In high school my mom gifted me with a subscription to Art In America that I kept getting until her death in 1990.  I eagerly looked to each issue to find out what artists were doing. That’s when I decided I’d be a professional artist. I expected that if I pursued my art I’d be in Art In America someday. Well, it didn’t turn out that way, but after 50 years of making art I’ve found that my true commitment is to the painting itself and not to any external validation.

What role does social media play in your practice?

I have a feed on Instagram [1] I totally enjoy connecting with other artists all over the world. Some of the artists I follow and who follow me share like-minded approaches to art and support each other. I am at times influenced by what I see other artists doing. Especially when I see an artist whose work I really like and respect, painting in a brutish style. That bolsters me to keep doing the spontaneous, raw, sometimes edgy work that I do.

Besides Instagram, I post my work on my website and Singulart, an art sales platform. These regular postings online are an important bridge between my studio and the world.

What do you believe is the visual artist’s/creative practitioner’s role in the world?

I believe that as an artist my job includes doing whatever I can to facilitate my artwork being seen and experienced. This is a way I honor the autonomous life of the painting. Art is a gift that is meant to be received and that touches others. Art is an essential and primary means for mutual understanding, belonging, and commiseration.

As an abstract artist my work doesn’t tell a story or paint a picture about particular things or events in the world, yet universal experiences of living and being are expressed in a deep and wordless way. I believe in the collective unconscious and my art taps into that. I hope to generate curiosity, surprise, and befuddlement in ways that open a space for unknowing. As the painter Arshile Gorky put it: “It is better to be conscientiously troubled and perplexed by the vastness of the unknown, than content with the little that is known.”

How does living in Northern Michigan inform and influence your creative practice?

Living in Northern Michigan is a balm for my spirit. It is a natural environment that reminds me very much of my long ago childhood home in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Having moved to Lake Ann after 35 years in Chicago, I find a simpler, quieter life in which I can paint my heart out without a lot of distraction. In a way there’s a bit of dissonance between my style of art and the art that I see as popular in the region. I don’t paint recognizable images of the surrounding beauty and nature. My work is informed by the tension between order and chaos, beauty and ugliness, a moment’s serenity and millennia of change. This is going on any place one goes. Here in the countryside, woods, and lakes I am able to practice letting go of tasking, and move toward being present and accepting. Nature is both disinterested and cradling.

“An artwork must be fertile. It must give birth to a world. Whether you see in it flowers, people, or horses matters little as long as it reveals a world, something alive.” — Joan Miró

Did you know any practicing studio artists when you were growing up?

I knew a few practicing artists growing up. The artist who was the greatest influence on me growing up was my mom, Jane Thompson. She painted from her teen years until she died at age 67. She belonged to a local art guild and showed her work in community venues like the library or a cooperative gallery in town. One might say she was an “amateur” artist, but I prefer to call her an artist since that was her life-long passion and commitment. What I learned from her was to not be constrained by thinking that one isn’t good enough. My mom could spend an afternoon arranging her supplies and organizing the dabs of paint in a certain order on her palette. I discovered my impatience with perfectionism and that has been a drive for my practice.

Later in life I have gravitated to a couple of artists as influences: Arshile Gorky and Philip Guston. There are many artists I love, but these two stand out: Gorky for painting true to his memories and soul; Guston for his guts in abandoning a highly successful style to paint the raw truth of his daily experience.

What’s the role of exhibiting in your practice?

I always look forward to exhibiting my work. Last year I was one of three featured artists at the 2020 Oliver Art Center’s Abstract show. While the exhibit was preempted by the COVID shut down, it was great to see a large number (18) of my paintings hanging in one gallery space. It’s a lot of fun going to openings, which I hope will be returning soon. I enter many juried shows. Currently I’m proud to have a painting in “Women’s Works” at the Woodstock, Illinois Old Court House Art Center through June 2021.  It’s wonderful to be given an opportunity to have my work exhibited and to meet other artists and art lovers.

Do you have a day job?

I don’t have a day job other than art making, having retired from a 35 year career as an art therapist and psychotherapist in private practice. I have pretty much continually made art and exhibited it during my adult life and now can truly devote myself to it. I’ve taught some workshops in the area and enjoy teaching as a gentle guidance to others’ experimentation and art making.

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Footnotes

1: Susan Thompson’s Instagram address is https://@susanthompsonartist.

 

 

As part of the GAAC’s Everyday Objects exhibition, we spoke with Leelanau County author + illustrator Lynne Rae Perkins. Lynne, 66, is the author of 14 books for children, including the young adult novel Criss Cross, for which she received the 2006 Newberry Medal for excellence in children’s literature. In May, her 14^th was published, a delightful picture book entitled The Museum of Everything. This interview took place in June 2021. It was conducted by Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC Gallery Manager, and edited for clarity.

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The Museum of Everything  is about the mundane — a rock, a puddle, a bush, a skirt made from a bush. It’s about everyday objects that are of interest to one little girl — the story’s narrator — who thinks they’re all museum-worthy. Talk about this. 

I think that in some cases, the objects might start out as everyday objects; but her imagination transforms them into something more transcendent. A Spirea bush is something you might see everyday; but a skirt that looks like a Spirea bush would look pretty spectacular. As with the idea that a rock in a puddle might be a boulder in a pond on an island in a lake, on an island in an ocean. A museum is a place for special objects; but I think a museum is also a place for thoughts. That’s what makes the objects [in the story] rise above the ordinary.

In 1936 Ralph Waldo Emerson published the essay Nature, and said this: “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” The common things you’ve singled out in this book all have something a little marvelous inherent to them. Can you talk a little about your interest in common objects?

I think that, for starters, I’ve always been a day dreamer. I learned to read early. My sister taught me to read before I went to school. When I went to school I always finished my work before everyone else, and I had a lot of time to sit and stare at the room and daydream. I would fixate on something. I drew a little picture to illustrate this. Pens used to come with a metal clip that wasn’t part of the pen — so you could put it onto your pocket. I can remember looking at this, and thinking it reminded me of the little craft George Jetson used to ride around in. Looking at it for the longest time and imagining it as a space craft — in a similar way as the book’s narrator looks at objects in her world.

At Christmastime, my family put those electric candlelabras in the windows. There was one in our bedroom that was left on for a while after my sister and I went to bed. And because we had two layers of curtains — there was a sheer layer, and then a thicker one — the light shined up through the curtains, and made this picture on the ceiling that looked like a landscape. I felt like I could see a river with the near shore and the far shore. I liked looking and imagining it was a landscape. I would fall asleep to that.

Looking isn’t always something turning into something else. When I went to art school at Penn State University in the late 1970s, I would spend hours looking at something — a still life or figure — while drawing. I think drawing things in that prolonged and focused way becomes a habit you take with you out into the rest of life.

Museums, by definition, are filled to the rafters with things. But museums keep chaos at bay by organizing their things into manageable bites. Conversely, the world is full of things — but without the benefit of any museum-like organization. It can get overwhelming. Your narrator opens The Museum of Everything with this thought: “When the world gets too big and too loud and too busy, I like to look at little pieces of it, one at a time.” This child is wise.

I think this is something instinctive we do, in a lot of ways, although it might not look like we’re doing it. When somebody’s looking at their phone, or when a child is playing video games, or if people are dancing for hours at a time, or if we’re reading or housecleaning or making art, we’re keeping out a lot of things, and just focusing on this one thing. [The book’s narrator] has her windowsill full of favorite things. I have a windowsill in my studio that has stones and shells — who doesn’t go to the beach and pick up their favorite stones and then find a place for them. Why do we do that?

 

I think your narrator’s thought is good counsel for young readers — about how to manage an overwhelming world, which is part of being a kid. There’s a lot of stuff coming at you.

That’s true. I was telling a friend, when I’d come up with that line for the beginning of the book, she said that I was giving kids a tool. I hadn’t thought about it that way.

The museum that your narrator talks about has many different locations, and not all of them are represented by buildings with four walls. Tell us about one of these: the Sky Museum.

This part of the book started with an idea I had years ago. Many of us have had the experience of flying in a plane on a cloudy day — when you rise above the clouds, and all of a sudden everything is sun lit and beautiful and golden. I remember having the thought that it was like a page of a book you could turn over. At the time I did this scribbly sketch of what the other pages of the book would be — I was a printmaking student so I made a lithograph that was really unsatisfactory; but I kept it because I liked the idea. I wanted to visit that idea again, and do it better. So I started trying to do that. I think that’s where the idea of the Sky Museum came from. It was tricky. I had to make the book shape, which is many pieces of foam core board cut in the curvy shape of an open book. Then, I used wool to make the clouds. Then for the fleecy, lacy page … I used interfacing, from the fabric store, with little pieces of fleece laid onto it. The blue page is paper, and then the next page is velvet with little rhinestones on it, and then there are lights.

The illustrations in this book aren’t just paintings and drawings. You’ve given the story a rich, textual, visual life through sewing, collage, sculpture, and by creating dioramas. How do these media tell the story differently than painted or drawn illustrations?

I got to go to Moscow in 2006, and we went to a National History Museum there. This museum of history went back to ancient times. We were looking at a piece of jewelry that was thousands of years old. Another artist I was with said that the impulse to make something beautiful has been there from the beginning of human life. I think this desire to make something beautiful starts in childhood. My hope is that when someone looks at these things, part of their mind is engaged in wondering how they were made; that makes them connect with the idea behind it, and they connect with it in a different way.

Talk about how you created the island diorama?

I can tell you where it started. A few years ago I was a visiting artist on a tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts called Cuttyhunk Island. It’s 3/4 of a mile wide and a mile and a half long. It was an interesting sensation spending a week on an island so small … If you stood on this hump in the middle you could see every edge of the island. When I came home I tried to make a watercolor of the island. I was starting to like how the water was coming out, but the island didn’t feel quite the way I wanted it to, so I decided to embroider the island. I’d been there in November. There weren’t a lot of trees on the island — I think they’d been logged hundreds of years ago — but a lot of bushes and grasses in fall colors. I started embroidering the island — before this book even began.

I’d been on the island as a visiting artist. The 12 year-round residents of the island had had a community read of my book Secret Sisters of the Salty Sea. The students at the school had made dioramas of different scenes in the book, so I decided to make a diorama for my island … I’m not sure how to answer the question about how a diorama tells the story differently. I think they’re just fun to look at.

Inherent to this story is the message about slowing down and looking. We have so many things to look at these days, and not a lot of encouragement to slow down and be still. That seems to be one of the book’s central themes.

That’s true. Sometimes, when I watch a Disney or a Pixar movie, I think they’re so marvelous — why would anybody, why would any child choose to look at a book instead of these amazing movie? And yet, I think there’s something absolutely vital about slowing down, about being quiet, about making things and going deeper. I don’t find it boring at all. One of the premises of making books is if you feel something, other people will feel it also. Making this book is an act of faith. That kids will respond to that sensation.

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Learn more about Lynne Rae Perkins here.

Sarah Bearup-Neal develops and curated Glen Arbor Arts Center exhibition. She maintains a studio practice focused on fiber and collage.

The Everyday Objects exhibition runs through October 28, 2021. Read more here.