Susan Rivers
Personal Statement
If singing is like praying twice, then art is surely like praying three times.
But for years I was almost mute: haphazardly fitting creative pursuits in a demanding work schedule so I could earn a living. I focused on photodocumentary in college, but my family obligations demanded I take a detour to other kinds of journalism. I was able to do freelance photography and writing here and there, but it was others who set the standards.
The years wore on, and as I wore out, I knew that my time to speak through art was getting shorter and shorter. I took random workshops to ease my anxiety: glass fusing and ceramics workshops, a class in welding. Finally in 2019 I quit working full-time, moved to Richmond and focused on making up for years of artistic silence.
I began with the familiar medium of documentary photography when the George Floyd murder ignited protests against racial injustice and demands for dismantling the statues of dead enslavers in Richmond. As I photographed people and events and rich array of graffiti art, I met several like-minded photographers and artist-activists. At last, I found my church, and rediscovered my own creative voice.
But photography and digital compositions weren’t enough.
So, I converted my back yard shed into a studio and in the fall of 2021 began to experiment with acrylic, collage, watercolor, crayon, markers, pastels, and other media.
My initial focus on digital documentary photography involved layering several images, sometimes adding paint or pastel to tell stories. That work has evolved into works on canvas combining a variety of media including, paper, string, acrylic, pastel, and markers, joint compound and other construction materials.
I’m constantly learning from experimentation, studying art museum collections, and studying the works of my accomplished Artspace colleagues. I display my work on Instagram where artist friends offer tactful encouragement.
To gain more formal training, I am taking courses. Acrylic and encaustic painting through the Visual Arts Center and a course on the “business” side of creating art Megan Nolde at Artspace. I approach my work as I did my career: doing all I can to learn. Practice, practice, practice. I want to gain the skill and artistic maturity to make serious art. Memorable art.
I deeply appreciate your considering my application and am grateful to the Artspace Community for the opportunities it offers to me
Artist Statement
My photographs and mixed media explore the complicated interplay of pain and healing; the social and psychic wounds of modern life intersecting with moments of beauty that restore and nourish us.
Rage and hatred are undermining our civil rights and bringing harm to us all, particularly the weakest and most vulnerable. Many of us respond by working to bring healing through social or political action, and art.
Through use of color, contrast, and texture I create mixed-media work on a variety of surfaces to capture the grit and glow of everyday life.
Through continual experimentation and discovery, my works exhibit a wide range of styles. Yet, all driven by a common theme: Creative truth must embrace both the harmony and discord of our unpredictable existence.
Susan Rivers Bio
Susan T. Rivers is a former Wall Street Journal editor and corporate communicator who has lived and worked in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
Born in 1956 in New York of Quebec immigrants, she earned a degree in photography at Trinity University, and won a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to photo document rural villages in France, Ireland and Quebec. She worked as a writer and editor for 30 years at several major news outlets, while occasionally freelancing as a photographer and illustrator for several years. She shifted into corporate communications, serving at financial institutions in Boston for over a decade.
Having completed her sentence in the corporate world, she now focuses her energy and passion on making art.
Her photographs and/or writing have appeared in The Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic among other publications. Since arriving at Richmond in 2019, Susan has exhibited her photographs and mixed media work at Art for the Journey, Artworks, Artspace Gallery, the Boyd Realty Gallery, the FemLens online gallery, Montpelier Education and Arts Center, and Pine Camp Cultural Center. Her first solo show at the invitation of 1708 Gallery in Richmond opened in 2024 at Linden Rowe Inn and earlier this year she had a major exhibit of recent works at Artspace Gallery.
Deeply affected by her multicultural travel and troubled by the social and economic disparities she witnesses in urban America, she creates work that explores the complementary elements of pain and healing in our shared humanity.
Susan Rivers
1-857-472-8292
5812 Lee Avenue
Richmond VA 23226
susantrivers@gmail.com
https://riverscreative1.com
IG @riverscreative1
Linkedin.com/in/susanrivers
