Guest Interview: Susan Fae, Artist, Part Two of Four

Question Number 2:

How does your love of nature and animals inform your art? Does your work with airport therapy dogs influence your creative expression, and could you tell us a little about it?

Chinook Arch in Calgary by Susan Fae

Hoar Frost by Susan Fae

I believe that my surroundings influence my art; living in a beautiful landscape with wildlife and having my pets part of my personal space, supports my purpose for creating. And, yes Charlie is a nice tactile work of art if I do say so myself, though the airport houses a lot of fabulous art and architecture influencing my own art making as well.

Charlie, and all the airport therapy dogs comfort so many travelers and staff, it’s a true break from the stress of flying or the departure delays & cancellations. It is amazing how open and expressive people are with the dogs; they hug, stroke, talk, even hold their head and look right into the dogs eyes, it can be a personal and touching moment.

Work in Progress by Susan Fae

I love to build and experiment with a structure, give me a idea like “flamingo” and away I go. I create a base; usually a simplified shape, then layer it with character (colour & pattern), after that I adjust the sculpture so that it can stand on it’s own. I would call it therapeutic, handling the soft sculpture is like observing and talking to a dog, lucky for me I put the art sculpture away when it’s misbehaving.

Changing weather conditions will affect my art practice as well, in Calgary the Chinook arch and the hoar frost are pretty remarkable works of nature. If I’m out for a walk or drive and I’m moved by what I see and feel, when I get to the studio I express my feeling of wow with fabric and threads. 

Click for an article about Susan’s work with airport therapy dogs at the Calgary airport.

Check out Susan Fae’s Etsy shop.

See Susan on Facebook and Instagram.

Guest Interview: Susan Fae, Artist

Susan Fae

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.

Sing Like a Bird by Susan Fae

Now for Question Number 1:

Miss Fancy Feet by Susan Fae

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.

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Linocut greeting card designs by Susan Fae

Check out Susan Fae’s Etsy shop for more beautiful birds.

Follow Susan on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our interview next week!