Artist Profile: Susan Fletcher King

Susan Fletcher King
Houston, Texas
http://www.susanfletcherking.com/ 

1. Describe your signature style in 5 words:  Illustrative, Graphic, Asian Influences, Nature

2. Do you ever work in another medium and, if so, what is it and what appeals to you about it?  Yes, as a graphic designer and illustrator, I worked with a lot of other media such as pen and ink, various paints and some forms of printing like silkscreen.  I am coming back around to these various applications and enjoy mixing them in with the art quilting.  The other media are useful to enhance or alter the purely textile approach which I had originally done when I began my art quilting journey.

3. What's coming up for you in your artistic world?  I will have a piece that is going to show in the Craft Texas Biennial this year at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Also one or two pieces will be included in The World of Beauty at the International Quilt Festival.  I am also beginning to branch out and do some lectures and teaching mostly in the Houston area since I am still tethered to the home with my husband and son.

4. Do you have any studio rituals?  A good studio cleaning after a project is completed so that I can start off with (literally) a clean slate for the next project.

5. Who has inspired you on your artistic journey? My own childhood and my mother surprisingly!  I find myself working on an idea for a piece and will often realize that it is from some deep memory of my childhood experiences.  My mother was always bringing bits of nature ( bird’s nests, an interesting stone, a lizard or bee) to my attention and even into the house.

6. What are the 5 essential things in your studio that you cannot live without?  Good outdoor lighting – one whole wall of my studio is windows, my Bernina sewing machine, air-conditioning!!!, design wall and music.

7. What is on your design table right now? A variety of aluminum cans for a new experiment.

8. How do you juggle your artistic life, family, friends, etc? Family will always be first and then comes my art along with my friends.  A lot of my friends overlap into my art world.

9. Do you have any studio companions (human or otherwise)?  No – in fact I am thankful that I have a good door to close my studio so my 2 cats stay out.  There’s enough fur flying in the house without their added bits in the studio.

10. What was the biggest challenge in creating your piece for Reflections?  I always try and set some new goal in each piece I work on, so this time it was experimenting with different paints and trying to do more of a 3-D construct.