October 12, 2012
Susan Graham:
Artist Uses Porcelain,
Sugar to Make Industrial
Goods Seem Dainty
By Lillian Cox,
EncinitasPatch
http://encinitas.patch.com/articles/encinitas-susan-graham-lux?ncid=newsltuspatc00000001#c
“Whatever
you choose, however many
roads you travel, I hope
that you choose not to
be a lady,” advised
writer Nora Ephron. “I
hope you will find some
way to break the rules
and make a little
trouble out there. And I
also hope that you will
choose to make some of
that trouble on behalf
of women.”
Artist Susan
Graham began stirring
things up in 1995 as a
young sculptor in New York
City selling white, lacy
guns she made of sugar and
eggs whites.
“My father was
into the NRA, and hunting,
and I had a childhood
fascination with guns,”
she recalled, looking back
on her conservative,
Midwestern roots. “My
younger brothers could use
them, but I was not
allowed to. I ended up
being a liberal.”
Graham’s father
didn’t approve of her art
studies either, thinking
she should be more
practical and major in
science. She followed her
own path anyway,
graduating with a BFA,
with an emphasis on
sculpture, from Ohio State
University in 1991 and
moving to New York City
the following year to
study at the School of
Visual Arts. After paying
her dues as a waitress and
faux finisher, she located
a small, shared studio
that was once a classroom
in an abandoned school.
Her next challenge was to
find a medium she could
afford.
“I didn’t have
tools and had to do
something that meant
something to me,” she
remembered. “Sugar was the
answer because of its
lightness and sweetness.
It’s also domestic and
white.” Graham liked the
ethereal, white-on-white
effect as well.
She started by
making beds with white
sugar as an expression of
the insomnia she
experienced in college
that sometimes left her
sleep deprived for up to
three days. That led to
the inspiration to begin a
gun collection.
“I made guns for
a year and a half in
sugar, then porcelain,”
she explained.
“The mixed
message sent by a
dangerous object like a
gun being made in a
fragile material like
sugar or porcelain is a
reflection of my own mixed
feelings of desire and
nostalgia and apprehension
toward guns.”
At one point she
called her dad to get a
list of the firearms he
owned.
“I eventually
had to broach the topic
with my parents because,
of course, my father
especially was quite aware
that the gun imagery
probably had something to
do with his own guns and
he alluded to
this—eventually opening
the door to more stories
about them being told as
well as there being more
arguments between us about
the politics of gun
control in the United
States. We could agree on
some things but others
seemed to set us at
opposite ends of the
spectrum.”
Soon Graham
branched out, drawing on
her dreams, fears and
memories of the American
Midwest by also fashioning
machinery and industrial
goods into delicate
representations.
Her next project
titled “Beautiful Ohio”
with its semis, taxis,
monster trucks and SUVs
pays homage to the
American car culture she
first experienced in
Dayton where family,
friends and neighbors
worked for General Motors.
That was
followed by another iconic
expression of Midwest
Americana: lawn mowers.
Her most
recent project, “New
Gardens” unfolded after
Graham looked up at a tree
one day, then realized it
was a cell tower instead.
“It made me
think of this odd and, at
this point, futile way we
are trying to make these
technologies more
appealing by blending them
into the landscape,” she
explained.
Like guns,
Graham says there is
ambivalence with cell
towers, which she
describes as “very
American.”
The “New
Gardens” show last year
took place at the
Schroeder Romero Gallery
in New York. Her work has
also been exhibited at the
Neuberger Museum of Art
and the Whitney Museum at
Phillip Morris.
Graham lives in
Harlem with her husband
and two children.
Visitors to the
Lux Art Institute have the
opportunity of viewing and
discussing these projects
with Graham who will be in
studio through Oct. 6. The
exhibit will remain on
display through Oct. 27.
Lux
Art Institute is
located at 1550 South El
Camino Real, Encinitas.
Hours: 1 to 5 p.m.
Thurs.-Fri., and 11 a.m.
to 5 p.m. Sat. Admission
$5. For more information
call (760) 436-6611 or
visit visit luxartinstitute.org or susangrahamart.com.
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