Artifex Almanach: Susan Strachan Johnson

Mother Universe

     Susan Strachan Johnson is a Fibre Artist, Painter and Teacher whose
love for Mother Earth shines through her art. A member of the Connections Fibre Artists since 2004, Susan has
completed her Diploma in Stitched Textiles Design with the City & Guilds
Institute, U.K. She teaches workshops in fibre art techniques throughout
Southern Ontario, and also offers private instruction in her studio, though her
popular "Play for a Day" getaways. 

Shoreline

 Almost
as soon as she had finished her Diploma, Susan was struck down with congestive
heart failure. Since she leads a healthy life, this was a shock, and she had to
take much of the summer off. Regrettably, some workshops had to be postponed,
and work slowed right down. But as of the fall of 2011, she’s back at work,
catching up on commissions and planning a new shows about the experience of
healing and caring for her heart. 

Back Street in Florence Barn Ruins

      In addition to her fibre art,
Susan also paints portraits in watercolour and other media, from photographs. A
synopsis of comments from clients reveals her ability to capture what is loved
about something or someone. "Somehow she just picks up on it, and then
puts that love into the painting. It's so much better than the
photograph."

Final Exposure

        Susan's conceptual media collages and fibre artworks
depict landscapes, pastoral scenes, and animals. She uses watercolour paints,
appliqué, fabric paints, and quilting to create unusual and beautiful art. Her
work often involves human shadow figures. She works with distressed fibres,
paper-and-textile combinations and found objects. She also paints and dyes her
own materials. Susan is currently working on the theme of "this fragile
planet", using a combination of texture through layering, and organic
methods of construction and distressing.

Barn Ruins Study #2 Barn Ruins Study #3

        Her
work is informed by nature and the rural landscape around her home in Everton,
Ontario and is only partly abstracted. Susan wants to show how she sees the
world and each piece invariably has an environmental theme, since she believes
artists cannot say too much about how they need to care for our planet, instead
of merely using it for their own ends. So her work is always representational
in some way. She sees decay, de-construction, repair, re-cycling and
regeneration as part of the cycle of life, so she try to use each of these
methods in her work.

 
Grandmother
in My Garden

      Originally trained as a painter, Susan has been
working in fibre art since 2003. Among other juried shows, she has shown by
invitation at the 2003 Biennale in Florence, Threadworks 2004 and 2007, and the
Grand National Quilt Show at Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery each year since
2007. Awards include Best in Show in Threadworks 2004, the Fibre Art award at
Insights (2006), and the Rebecca Burghardt Emerging Artist Award at Touched by
Fire (2008). 