Interview With Suzanne Hicks

I sat down to speak with local artist Suzanne Hicks on April 22^nd, 2014. We met at noon at the Hamilton St. Café, in Albany, New York.

Chloe Houseman: Hello Suzanne! Let’s get started, okay? I saw that you got your masters at Albany, how was that?

Suzanne Hicks: My masters degree wasn’t in art, actually.

CH: Oh, really! I did see you had several different professions listed on your website, and I thought that was interesting.

SH: Yes, exactly! Most of my professional life I was a psychotherapist, for a little over thirty years.

CH: Oh wow, has that influenced your art much?

SH: Oh yeah, absolutely! It’s all creativity. I think the luckiest people are the people who are able to stay curious, and be around people who have something interesting to say. To be in a profession that keeps your brain working. And really every session was an art project. Which makes sense: it was limited time, and you start with certain ingredients, and you wind up with certain kinds of products. I have also been a stoneware potter for a few years.

CH: I was also interested in that, I was interested in how you kind of got involved in that field.

SH: It was just something I’d always been interested in, so I took a course, and I loved it! When I moved to this area, I took one class at SUNY, and then I started getting asked to teach! I was the potter at the art center before it was the art center, when it was the RCCA. And we didn’t have kilns. We had wheels, and we would have to go to my house to fire, andto unload, and all of that.

CH: For sure. I tried to do wheel thrown pottery once, and it didn’t really end well for me. So I really respect that you were able to pick it up so quickly.

SH: Well, I’m lucky to be able to do that.

CH: So on your website, you say you’ve been making art basically forever, was there a point when you realized that you wanted to be an artist?

SH: Well I wanted to be a potter, and was headed really in a more sculptural direction. And then I realized I couldn’t make a living out of it. So it was really basic. I was at a point in my life where I felt I needed to support myself. And I sold everything I made, but I wasn’t able to even cover the cost of supplies. So I realized I needed a different kind of profession. Again, something creative, but something that would support me. So that’s how I wound up becoming a therapist. And when I closed my practice in 2005, I thought why not open an art studio? And luckily, that worked out. And I’ve been working full time since then, about six to eight hours a day.

CH: Have you run into any challenges running your own art studio, was it difficult at first? Or has it been easy from the beginning?

SH: There was a fast learning curve. And in some ways, there still is. So I’m mostly self-taught, but I take courses occasionally. There are a couple of people I’ve studied with in the last five years that have been particularly helpful.

CH: What kind of classes have you taken that you think have particularly helped you in your art?

SH: I don’t think it matters so much what you take, as where its coming from and what you want from it. So I’ve taken a number of courses with a woman named Catherine Kehoe. And if you like current painting she is just fabulous. So its good to have some goals, some things I don’t do so well and want to. And then I think, probably for me the best learning has been two things. It’s been going in the studio and making mistakes every single day, and then coming back and doing something different, or doing the same thing differently. And then, my husband and I travel all around the world to wonderful art sites.

CH: What kinds of places have you visited?

SH: Well we went to Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, all over Europe. It’s really exciting! Especially because seeing a representation of a piece is not the same as seeing it in person. I’m always trying to see what the strokes are, and how the paint was layered.

CH: I’m always doing the same thing, actually. Was there a particular museum or piece that really struck you, or really affected you art?

SH: I’ll tell you the one I come back to again and again: Masaccio. It’s like, when you talk about putting knowledge of people together with knowledge of painting, his work just gives me shivers. To think about what he knew about the human being! It was really amazing. For more current artists, I’m interested in Euan Uglow, Tai-Shan Schierenberg, and Jenny Seville. Most of these people are really involved with painting the figure, which is where my interests lie at this point. I’m trying to simplify the figure, which I think is one of the hardest things in the world.

CH: Yeah, I noticed that you use a lot of large brush strokes to give the viewer information about the form that you’re painting. Has that been difficult, to get those down to their smallest component?

SH: Oh, very hard. It’s like a life process. I guess I feel like making art is a process, and someone who makes art is an artist. I feel like a lot of people don’t realize that. It’s not someone who wants to, or who can, but who actually does it.

CH: Right. I know a lot of people who could be great artists; they just don’t really want to make art.

SH: A big piece of what I’m working on right now is how do you make a piece that speaks to both the internal and external? I haven’t quite figured it out yet. I’ve also been looking at a lot of books of cave paintings lately. I’ve been interested in them since I was a kid. So I’ve been looking more at work like that, and I have a small show I’m going to do at the East Greenbush Library.

CH: Oh great, could you tell me more about that?

SH: I’ve been trying to work in some of my personal history. The places I’ve lived, the lives I’ve lived. I think basically, I could do this for the rest of my life and never run out of ideas. I know people get stuck, but I just can’t imagine how!

CH: Really, because a lot of artists I know, myself included, struggle with art block. So you haven’t really had that in the past?

SH: Not at all.

CH: Lucky you!

SH: Maybe in part that’s age and experience, because I’ve always had lots of ideas and previously I never really got to pursue them. So yeah, I can’t imagine having enough time for them all. And one thing leads to another, as well, so the ideas keep coming.

CH: That’s great, that you just keep on keeping on, and are having such a good time being part of the art community. I saw on your website that you do some embroidery, and I was especially interested in that because I also do that.

SH: Nobody does that anymore!

CH: I don’t know why, it’s so fun for when you’re traveling. You mentioned you do it on airplanes or places where you can’t really paint, so I thought that was an interesting way to get around the airline restrictions on painting supplies.

SH: Exactly! For this, I only need a needle, a piece of linen, and some thread.

CH: It’s so minimalist in terms of supplies, but you can make such beautiful things. Your embroidered works are very abstract, do you just kind of start going, and just let a pattern emerge?

SH: Absolutely.

CH: So it’s kind of minimal planning, stream of consciousness kind of work?

SH: Exactly, you got that! And then, we just got back from the southern part of the Caribbean for five weeks. And basically, I was outside for five weeks. And again, materials are an issue. Oil paints are just impossible. So I wound up doing watercolors.

CH: Yes, watercolor is a great medium for working outside. One other thing I wanted to ask you about is the injury you sustained to your right hand. You have a bunch of works done with your left hand, and I wanted to know how that affected your art. Were you discouraged, how did you feel?

SH: What I did was I fell in my backyard, and I broke my elbow. I snapped the muscle off, and I broke the bone. So I had two surgeries, and I now have a Kevlar elbow. So now I’m recovered, but I couldn’t use it for about three months. And I just couldn’t imagine not making art.

CH: Of course, I mean it seems like such a part of who you are.

SH: Absolutely. So I thought okay, what do I have here. I have my feet, and I have my left hand. And it was really interesting! Totally different. Sometimes I like to challenge myself, and using my other hand was an excellent challenge. It really helped me understand Matisse. No matter how old he was, he made his mark.

CH: Well I am really impressed by your determination to make art; it’s really very impressive.

SH: Thank you! I have had some major illnesses. I had melanoma in 2001, and breast cancer in 2003. So I loved what I did, but I thought you know I really don’t know how long I have. Turns out I’m still here, but it really helped me make the decision to pursue what I love to do. And I loved being a therapist, but it was a 24/7 kind of job. I didn’t have time to develop other skills. But being an artist has worked out really well.

CH: So would you say that those illnesses gave you the kick you needed to start doing what you really wanted to do?

SH: I’m sure they did. And I love doing this work. I love making art.

CH: Excellent, well thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me!

SH: Absolutely, thank you too!

 Under the Waves I 

Cotton and linen