YorkSusan J.

About the Artist

I define myself as a teaching artist, and writer. I enjoy teaching and sharing the creative process with people of all ages. I use the principles of aesthetic education in my classes. Each person in my class is an artist with a vision to share. I give my students the tools to explore their response to the world and the language to express it to others.

I believe being an artist means being life long learner. I explore new ideas constantly. My work is the answer to questions that I see in the world around me. The questions may be in reply to a specific proposal, a commission, or, as in my children?s books, the answer may be a narrative response to another's story or one of my own. I use the relationship of color, spatial relationships and the emotive effect upon the viewer whether the subject is portraits, architecture, flowers, or an abstraction. The question may be the relationship of people to the landscape. My final response may be an abstraction of the land masses from a plane, the blur of colors from a speeding train, the angle of view from a car, or the details of a quiet walk through the woods. I will have researched the question that the world presents me whether it is the costuming of a particular tribe, the healing power of a herb, or the tinsel strength of a metal that I want to use in a sculpture. I enjoy competing in public art projects because it is an excuse to lose myself in researching that area's history, land, architecture, people, and culture. In my solution, I consider all these influences as I create the next series of paintings.

I feel artists need to help each other grow. Therefore, I am a board member for the Southern Aroostook Cultural Arts Project(SACAP), which creates opportunities to highlight the art and artists of this region.