October 2, 2012
Sweet and Scary
at Lux Art Institute
by James Chute, San Diego Union-Tribune
U-T
San Diego
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/sep/27/sweet-and-scary/
Susan
Graham’s sugar-based
artwork reflects her
worries over ‘problems I
can’t solve’
Artist Susan
Graham doesn’t expect you
to spend much time looking
at or thinking about her
guns made out of sugar.
“The reaction I
get quite often — because
I know I come from a
family of non-artists and
I know lots and lots of
people who don’t talk
about these things in any
kind of analytical way —
is they just look at them
and go, ‘That’s really
cool.’
“And I have to
admit, that’s sort of what
I’m thinking people
probably will think.
‘That’s made of what?’
That’s always the
question. ‘How did you do
that?’
“Sometimes,
people just end up staring
at the stuff,” said
Graham, whose art is on
display through Oct. 27 at
the Lux Art Institute,
where the Ohio-born, New
York-based artist is in
residence through Oct. 6.
But there’s an
entire world embodied in
Graham’s delicate but
deceptively powerful art.
There’s her
father.
He and his
daughter were often in
conflict over his gun
collection. It’s
replicated in Graham’s art
(which also includes other
common items). She grew up
in Dayton, Ohio, and he
was a strong figure with
distinct opinions,
including that everyone
should be allowed to have
guns (except women, as he
wouldn’t allow her to go
to a shooting range) and
that his daughter
shouldn’t be an artist (he
initially withdrew
financial support when she
switched her major to
visual art in college).
“The gun thing
is very powerful,” Graham
said. “Even if you are a
pacifist, you run into
them. You know they are
there. They are
everywhere. They are
ubiquitous.”
And there’s her
grandmother, too.
She lived next
door with her husband
(another gun enthusiast)
and had members of her
craft club over to her
home, which was a
significant influence on
Graham and her decision to
use sugar as her primary
medium (along with
porcelain).
“They made all
kinds of stuff,” Graham
said. “They didn’t make
things from sugar, per se,
but they made things from
stuff in the kitchen. They
used to make little
flowers out of salt dough,
all kinds of little
things. And I kind of knew
that sugar would be a good
material for me to use.”
And there’s
Graham.
She uses her art
to express things she’s
unwilling or unable to
talk about: her conflicted
feelings about the guns,
for example, and the
fascination and repulsion
those guns have brought
her over her entire life.
“In a sense, the
art is about things that
have gotten to me, almost
like problems I can’t
solve,” Graham said. “You
know, things that are
going to bug me on an
ongoing basis. Things like
the gun stuff. Things that
are conflicted …
“I actually have
kids, and I’m sort of not
obsessed (but concerned)
with what’s going to
happen eventually. I don’t
talk about it too much. It
only comes up in the art
really. But it’s the idea
that somehow we can’t keep
going the way we are and
have things be OK on the
planet.”
There’s more if
you consider her art long
enough. But perhaps it’s
enough to just wonder and
delight at her delicate,
magical objects, which are
being increasingly shown
in galleries from Milan to
New York.
And don’t be
afraid to stare.
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