artists to watch
Susan Lenz Columbia, South Carolina Susan Lenz collects discarded items and puts them together, magically it seems, to focus attention on what’s important in life. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but sometimes we all need a little help to see the viability of society’s remnants. Susan works to articulate the accumulated memory inherent in discarded things. From grave rubbings to discarded thread spools, Susan creates installation pieces and individual works of art that speak in bold terms. Whether making a statement with centuries-old gravestone epitaphs or reusing objects from more modern times, Susan creates artwork at once individual and universal.
A
rtists are required to write many types of statements — for various series of work and for individual pieces, and all sorts of other forms of explanation, documentation, and inspirational messages with word counts from 100 to infinity. I have dozens. One statement, however, seems to address the emotional impetus for my creative endeavors. It comes from hope of a spiritual place on the world’s timeline. That statement is: I am old … middle-aged … past the days of turning heads … past days of fertility … past the days when my art might raise eyebrows in the circles of those looking for tomorrow’s new, great, up-and-coming artist, the
24 | SAQA Art Quilt Collector
one who might shake up the world with cutting-edge work. I just work. I ply an age-old needle, pulling timeworn thread through layers of vintage fabric. I work like so many women all over the world from every century since the dawn of time. There’s nothing new about a straight stitch. Repetitive … pierce and pull … hour after hour … day after day … year after year. My sewing machine hums with near-constant activity. My fingers are nimble and quick. Productivity is in my blood. Finished pieces stack up on out-of-the-way shelves, begging to be noticed, ready for the chance to hang on an exhibition wall. I don’t hold my breath. I just work.
