Susan Bennett is one of the talented artists at The Works, one of six galleries at Studios on Maine Art Hill. She is an accomplished sculptor who has always called Maine home. Working mainly with steel and carbon steel she creates abstract sculpture representing her views of nature.
Below she shares a lovely insight into her experience during the Carina Residency on Monhegan Island, Maine.
“A rare winter day trip to the beach affords me the chance to embrace the wide open space before me, to be soothed by the measure of the waves, and to be distracted by sea glass, grass, and an occasional bird bone. In 2003, I was fortunate to be selected for the Carina Residency, on Monhegan Island. Time away allowed me to feed and nurture the artist within that waits impatiently for time to do so. With no metal shop there, I worked on paper and board, exploring different mediums while enjoying island life. As a metal sculptor, I was naturally drawn to the mass and volume of rocks and I did many drawings, small and large while exploring shapes and colors.
One early evening, a few days before my residency ended, I walked down to Lobster Cove. It was one of those beautiful summer evenings, with the sun shining through a warm moist wind, with the ocean swells just beyond the black rocks where I was seated. A natural landscape that seemed to evoke a physiological response, natural impulses that are a fundamental source of creativity. I mixed up a batch of paint and water that looked and felt like mud. I painted on paper, placing the sheets of paper over the rocks to dry much like clean laundry. I washed my feet and hands with leftover water from my jug. Often, we are missing the magic and spirituality that nourish our confidence, and give us comfort. In our busy lives, non-human spirits and myths and dreams are weeded out of our consciousness. Totemic and ritual symbols were once sought in nature to keep us on course. While representing nature as a work on paper, on this night the mythical references were not forgotten.”
Click here to see our entire collection of Bennett’s work and read her artist statement.
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