Where does new work come from?

Somewhere between Pebble beaches and Urban Living.

read about the development of New Work at Susan Hensel Projects

Not too long ago, I got back from vacation on the shores of Lake Superior.  To me, it is the greatest of all the Great Lakes.  It is cold, deep and wild!  Rarely swimmable and always dangerous to inexperienced fishermen and boaters.  I go there every year to decompress, hear myself think and “wash off the city.” I read. I write. I sleep. I walk. I pray for clarity. I make artwork with lesser means and no exhibition goal in mind. Sometimes I try to plan for the future, but that rarely works here. I often have studio breakthroughs from this 2 weeks away.

Was this year any different?

This year was no different than many others. Sometimes I’m ecstatic to be away.  Sometimes I’m sad, mourning friends and pets who have recently died. Often, I am filled with wonder at the beauty of our fragile world. This year, with smoke from encroaching wildfires and drought, the fragility was far more present. The roaring waterfalls were down to a trickle or completely absent this year. The air was orange with smoke. And there was pensiveness, for sure.

I remember

The beaches of my youth, in the Finger Lakes of New York were shale, hard, sharp. fossil filled rockiness. The cliffs of the Ithaca gorges were always shedding fresh sheets of sedimentary rocks. On Lake Superior, the rocks are harder, older, rounded and polished by the wildness of the inland sea. Driftwood is battered, skinned of its bark by the abrasive action of the waves against the granite and taconite pebbles. It is a primordial beach: my favorite kind.

I have always found these environments inspiring.

So, is it any surprise that this environment begins to engage with my work? The new  work series, Seed Pods,  was born on this pebble beach.

(click on the individual Seed Pods for more info)

One of them (Lordy!  I cannot remember which one as I write this!) will be showing in Omaha, NE  at an International Sculpture Center  event, the littleSCULPTURE show exhibition and Art Sale at KANEKO (Omaha, NE). The exhibition will be on view September 22nd-October 24th, 2021

It’s good to wash off urban living from time to time and return to the pebble beaches.