-----------------------------
i have just spent the last 45 minutes creeping susanna on facebook. i recommend it as a wonderful sunday afternoon activity for anyone of any age. i think i've stock piled around 20 photos from the interwebs now, but it just doesnt seem like enough. there is so much to this girl that no photo could ever capture. i have known her by third party description (via marissa) since spring of 2010 when they all were in france together. since the beginning susanna has been a resounding "yes" in the awesomeness file of my brain. i first met her (and rachel self, to come soon!) in February when i made my mid-winter escape to the south...i felt so creepy at the time, meeting her after having loved her from afar, already feeling like we should be in each others lives forevermore. she ended up coming to NY with marissa for 3 weeks in june, even getting to visit my tribute-to-france installation in houghton. after hanging out more regularly with her over those weeks, i felt a little less creepy/frighteningly over enthusiastic but still very much excited that she existed.
susanna is a painter, and a really REALLY wonderful one at that. she is a thinker, and you can tell that by her paintings, so often pursuing an idea through an image, using her work as a way to reason through things...at least, thats what a lot of it seems like to me (plus i've cheated and read her artist statement for her most recent work...). she has worked in all sorts of mediums and sizes and everything is always amazing.
-stop blushing/denying the truth woman. this is my blog, and i will tell the truth.-
last quarter was portrait painting and so there now exists a wall of almost 50 personal and never overstated portraits. her work is never cliche, never trite. at the same time she was creating the portraits she was also taking a large format painting class...8 foot tall greatness, using her hair as inspiration.
anyway, though her work is definitely amazing, susanna is susanna beyond the makings of her hands.
one of my first creeptastic moves was to paint a portrait of her from this photo.
yes, before i had met her.
i knowwww.
anyway, i gave it to marissa and marissa in turn gave it to sus/her mom, and that is that.
i also sent her a poster of monet's water lilies that i had but didnt need anymore.
she get's giddy, quiet, all sorts of speechless smiles, troubled, and content from looking at artwork.
it is good.
i think she is a wanderer.
this is good, but i am glad she is rooted in these friends i have adopted.
she loves nature.
by the end of their time in france marissa had told me that if they didnt see sus at lunch it was likely because she had chosen to, once again, climb the mountain ridge near their little town.
she is a musician of many talents, but she is yet more than this as well.
still, the songs she pulls, strums, and presses out of those instruments are things that could save. i was at her house last night for a dinner party her parents were hosting and it turned into an impromptu concert. from the guests we heard puerto rican folk and classical guitar, classical and contemporary piano, and then finally, this girls voice. she played an acoustic version of abba's lay all your love on me- please trust me when i say that it was so hauntingly beautiful. later she played naked as we came by iron & wine and at its conclusion i was just so moved by the whole experience- her humility, her rich voice- i was just so proud to know her and count her as a friend.
sorry if i am weirding you out sus. it can't be helped.
time to marvel at her beauty, but i hope by now that you know for sure it is not only skin deep:
yup. thats forreal.
most of these photos were taken by marissa, i think, and i swiped them all from facebook, so due credit to those who created the others but have not been named.
...and this is where i found her right before starting to write this.
reading, in the hot georgia sun, with a basil plant for company.
oh su-sanna. you are good.
No comments:
Post a Comment