Susan Andrews was drawn to painting early on through her mother’s artistic endeavors, the natural world, and cinema. These influences have factored prominently in defining her style. She depicts animals in close personal terms that force the viewer to experience wildlife in its purest form. Susan is a graduate of Pikes Peak Community College. Currently, she’s working on a BFA with a concentration in painting at Adams State University, Alamosa. On a brisk sunny day in early January, US Represented caught up with her for a brief interview.
USR: Your love of art shines through in your paintings. How did it all begin?
Susan: It began when I was a very young child. My mother was a painter and exposed me to her work, as well as artists that she loved: Andrew Wyeth, Monet, David, Renoir, Raphael, etc. Classic Disney was also an early inspiration. Fantasia, accompanied by its classical music score, was something that drew me to art. Mainly, the animals in the movie fascinated me. I began painting and drawing them before I was a year old.
USR: Why did the animals fascinate you? Why the heavy influence on nature settings?
Susan: Nature and animals were a big part of my childhood. I spent most of my time growing up around them. I always felt most comfortable when I was surrounded by nature. It’s where I learned the natural order of life and the way things were meant to be.
USR: How does this translate into the defining features of your art?
Susan: Wildlife, in fact animals in general, are what I paint, but it’s the eyes that I’m drawn to. Animals are pure. They look you straight in the face when most people you meet can’t do so. The eyes tell the story, and, in my work, I want to confront the viewer with the animal, close and personal. This forces the viewer to see them in their purest form.
USR: You’re also a talented historian and nature writer. How do these other genres influence your painting?
Susan: Our family history matters to us. Likewise, my father’s mother was big on making sure that we knew how to write properly. Just recently, I learned that there have been several writers in my family, including my grandmother, great-aunt, and great-grandmother. Writing for me has become a means to organize my thoughts and transfer my feelings to my artwork. It’s begun to help me get in touch with my emotions. This is something I’ve recently discovered I struggle with.
USR: Speaking of struggles, where’s your artistic comfort zone? Are you challenging yourself enough these days? I would think this even affects the mediums you use.
Susan: My artistic comfort zone is in detail–literal detail and control. I mean, it’s not just detail for me. I’m a very literal person. I see things in absolutes and obsess over the smallest detail. I paint what I see to an extreme. The challenge for me is learning to let go and allow my emotions to show through my medium. Therefore, I’ve chosen watercolor as my prefered medium. I’m learning to master it and, at the same time, I’m learning to let the water take the color where it should go.
USR: But what about Patches? It’s more experimental and amorphous.
Susan: Patches originates from an experience that occurred on one of my walks along the Rio Grande. There’s a doe that would come to the edge of the trail several times a week as I walked. She would just stand there and watch me walk by. I named her Patches because of a tuft of missing hair on her left flank. One morning as I made my way back to the car, she came to the edge of the trail to watch me. The sun was just rising and hit her from behind, illuminating her. I stopped and took a photo. I knew I wanted to paint her, but I wanted to focus on form and light. This is how this painting came to be. I poured paint and let the water do its thing.
My next venture will be to bring a closer emphasis on the eyes of my subject, magnifying them in large scale. When you look close at an eye, it’s really an abstract thing of beauty. I’ll be focusing on the pupil with its shapes of light and color, while the surrounding shapes and forms of the animal will be more abstract.
USR: Excellent. It’ll be fun to see how your work evolves as the year progresses. Are you going to teach after college?
Susan: Yes, I plan to teach, at first in a conventional setting. My goal is to start my own school and gallery. The type of gallery that I want to open is nothing like Colorado Springs has ever had, and we need one in this town if we want to seriously move forward as an art community. I want to introduce this town to big name artists, the caliber of artist that can be found in New York, San Francisco, and Denver. To make a gallery like this work, I’ll be supplementing it by starting a charter school for young artists in this community. We’ll focus on those kids that fall through the cracks in our piblic schools. I want them to have access to everything, from painting to art history, ceramics and sculpting. Well rounded and entrenched in technique.
USR: That would be good for the community, no doubt. By the way, why did you choose Adams State? Did the Western Slope environment inspire your decision?
Susan: Adams is a smaller university that affords more personal interaction with the other students and instructors. It concentrates more on fine art and technique rather than the tech side. It’s one of the few schools in Colorado that offers a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in painting. The fact that this area is where Adams is located was strictly coincidental, but it was a lucky coincidence.
USR: Susan, thanks for sharing some time with US Represented. Any final thoughts?
Susan: Sure. Don’t let the chair of the Art Department insist that you take Advanced Painting I and II in the same semester. I do not recommend that. And if you think you need more time to develop your work, don’t be afraid to tell your professors that you’re not going to graduate when they think you should, and extend your time to make it happen.
