Our featured artist this month is Susannah Raine-Haddad. Here she tells us a little about herself:
ZouZou was my grandmother, who had a basement full of all kinds of stuff. After she passed away and her house was being cleaned out, I took a whole bunch of flower pots from her basement, after my mother begged me (I resisted the several hundred aluminum pie plates). I painted a few, gave a few, sold a few, then sold a few more. Then I moved on to other art projects. And ZouZou’s Basement was born.
I actually work in my attic, and like ZouZou, I save lots of goodies, sometimes not knowing exactly how I will use them. Each day I go to work and am surrounded by paint, glitter, ribbon, and my “paper pond”. Professionally, I’ve worked in advertising, dressed store windows and mannequins, and taught art to high schoolers for 8 years. I presently teach private lessons to children and adults, and am Artist In Residence at Westminster Canterbury Richmond (Gables/Monticello/Parsons) . I am lucky enough to be able to devote myself fully to my creative ideas and to making my two little boys good people.
The animal collages have fermented slowly. I painted various dog portraits for several years. Gradually, my paper projects have become meshed with my paintings so that a large part of my work is a collage of paper and paint. I saw a book called The Zoo by Suzy Lee with brightly and whimsically colored animals on grey backgrounds, and I played around with the idea. Then I went to my pile of animal photos that I’d been collecting, and also tore up my sons’ Ranger Rick magazines (with their permission). When you really look at the crazy variety of animals that are walking around on earth, it’s mind-boggling. I can’t help but feel a spirituality when I see a giraffe, or a zebra, or a peacock! And interestingly, most people relate to animals, and most have a favorite.
Whatever my subject matter, color is always my first decision. Then I decide which animal would look best, with for instance, purple fur. I hope you will enjoy a good dose of color, and have a giggle or two.
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