Guest Interview: Susan Fae, Artist

Part One of Four

Posing a series of questions to my new friend and comrade in art, Susan Fae, provides a glimpse into a fantasy world of 3-dimensional art. We connected through social media where I discovered her delightful bird sculptures formed from fabric, threads and objects, such as the cutlery you see as feet in the photo below. We have created a four-week blog exchange to share our favourite media and art techniques. Susan’s colourful birds are inspired by her love of nature but her passion for opera is also in evidence with these birds representative of The Three Tenors: Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, and Jose Carreras.

Now for Question Number 1:

The lovely Miss Fancy Feet arrived on my doorstep with a linocut greeting card depicting a beautiful butterfly. Which discipline came first, material art or printmaking? What drew you to each technique and do they share any commonalities?

Susan Fae:

Miss Fancy Feet – through your enthusiasm and encouragement she was created, and has a home that appreciates colourful and unique art. Thank you.

My appreciation and knowledge of fabric came first; both my grandmothers were handy with needle and thread. Reflecting back; I worked in the fabric department in two different stores while going to University in the 80s.

But it was later in life I returned to University to extend my Art Degree (drawing & photography) to “art developmental” so that I could teach art. While in the process of creating art curriculums I had to teach my peers an art form, it was linocut carving. That experience of sharing a process of creating encouraged me to extend the fun into a regular linocut art practice.

It was during a summer Artist’s Residency with my “Contextural” group that I began to combine the two techniques. Surrounding myself with creatives is one way of pulling out something I never knew I had in me, and that was printmaking and thread.

The Contextural Cooperative motivated me to create more textiles, maybe not to what anyone expected (including me) but I began to build sculptures and adorning them with fabric feathers. Along the way, I discovered my resourcefulness in saving found objects on my dog walks with Charlie came in handy, the found cutlery became the support for my bird sculptures.

I haven’t mastered the printing on fabric, but have printmaking with thread. My fabric sculptures share the same theme throughout my art and that is BIRDS.