Susan Hensel received her BFA from University of Michigan in 1972 with a double major in painting and sculpture and a concentration in ceramics. She has a history, to date, of more than 300 exhibitions, 35 of them solo, twenty + garnering awards. Recently, Susan had solo and 2-person and group exhibitions in Suwon Museum of Art, S. Korea; Artistry, Bloomington, MN and the Garrett Museum of Art, Garrett, IN as well as solo exhibitions in Leipzig, Germany, Hopkins, MN, Duluth, MN and Springfield, Il. Hensel's artwork is known and collected nationwide, represented in collecting libraries and museums as disparate as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and The Getty Research Institute with major holdings at Minnesota Center for Book Arts , University of Washington, Baylor University and University of Colorado at Boulder. Archives pertaining to her artists books are available for study at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle. In recent years Hensel has been awarded multiple grants and residencies through the Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Art to Change the World, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and Ragdale Foundation. Hensel's curatorial work began in 2000 in East Lansing, Michigan with the Art Apartment and deepened with ownership of the Susan Hensel Gallery in Minneapolis. The Susan Hensel Gallery continues on Artsy.net as an online project promoting Midwest artists with a particular interest in materiality. Hensel has curated over one hundred exhibitions, and supporting events, of emerging and mid-career artists from all over the United States and Canada.
Published on March 3rd, 2024. Artist responses collected in months previous.
What are you working on these days?
Mostly I am working on healing from a complex broken leg and a move of home and studio as a consequence! Geesh! What a year. I have returned to work near full time at about 80% healed. I am working on projects that were in process before the fall: Floating World. I am striving to find ways to use fine hardwoods and organic forms to offset the mechanical regularity of the digital embroidery.There are glimmers in my imagination of what I am seeking...and lots of physical therapy.
What has been going well for you in your art career and life recently?
I bought a new house that is safer for me as I recover and age and that has a magnificent studio space! I had been working on 3 floors, which included the 100 year old basement, the shop level and the garage. Now it is ALL in the walkout basement...even the woodshop! I continued having lots of exhibitions, even right out of rehab. I recently placed 2 pieces in the permanent collection of Garrett Museum of Art, in Garrett, Indiana. This week I'm sending 4 pieces to the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art in Wisconsin. During the recovery period I was interviewed multiple times for podcasts and magazines. Because I established the contacts and relationships before "The Fall" that broke my leg and took me out of operation for such a long time, I had plenty of visibility to support me as I returned to studio work.
What is something new that you have discovered this past year that is meaningful or helpful for you?
Wet leather forming! Well, that is only one thing, and it is very recent. In making FLORA I decided that the background was best done in leather and I had no idea how to get it to lay down well. Internet to the rescue. It was very easy, although it did turn my hands red for a bit. THIS is not new: I learned, once again, to persist, say yes, and ask for help. This is the third time in my life I've needed to learn how to walk! It is humbling, frightening and amazing. Many of us artists are fairly introverted, happiest noodling away in our studios. It turns us into lone wolves, or my son's favorite, "cave creatures!" We forget to ask for assistance and forget to say yes to offers. Friends and new neighbors, both artists and non-artists, helped me set up the studio and make the home function. I am beyond grateful!
Briefly walk us through your process of making art or thinking through a new project, focusing on what's most important to you as you create.
For me, working creates more work. One thing leads to another in a very organic way. Despite the look of my textile pieces, they are not planned out much ahead of time. I have been researching the interactions of color and materials for years and the effect of form on color perception. So...that is where I start: a set of colors, and idea about form and I begin to experiment. It is highly intuitive. Yes, I am working in software, but it is playful! I really lose time and self drawing the many, many layers of color in the computer. Then the file goes to the embroidery machine where more things happen, both in and out of my control. When the fabric is out of the machine, it becomes the material for magic, if all goes well.
Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers?
Persist. Work ahead. If you are a planner, do it. I'm not really an organized a planner, but I want my artwork to be seen and you have to do something to make that happen. That something takes you into the future. This is important to me because I don't consider the artwork complete until it has "done its work in the world." Coincidentally, a workman in the new house stopped in front of a painting I had hung in my front hall. He really looked and told me what he saw and felt without prompting. I told him that that was the point. As long as I have been making work, my goal has been to capture lookers sufficiently to make them take a small pause in the day, wonder about what they see. The pause is the point: a mini-break, an opportunity to take a deep cleansing breath and leave subtly changed for the better. I painted that painting more than 50 years ago and it is still doing its work in the world. If you persist, your career will persist even if, God forbid, you break your leg.
What are you working on these days?
Mostly I am working on healing from a complex broken leg and a move of home and studio as a consequence! Geesh! What a year. I have returned to work near full time at about 80% healed. I am working on projects that were in process before the fall: Floating World. I am striving to find ways to use fine hardwoods and organic forms to offset the mechanical regularity of the digital embroidery.There are glimmers in my imagination of what I am seeking...and lots of physical therapy.
What has been going well for you in your art career and life recently?
I bought a new house that is safer for me as I recover and age and that has a magnificent studio space! I had been working on 3 floors, which included the 100 year old basement, the shop level and the garage. Now it is ALL in the walkout basement...even the woodshop! I continued having lots of exhibitions, even right out of rehab. I recently placed 2 pieces in the permanent collection of Garrett Museum of Art, in Garrett, Indiana. This week I'm sending 4 pieces to the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art in Wisconsin. During the recovery period I was interviewed multiple times for podcasts and magazines. Because I established the contacts and relationships before "The Fall" that broke my leg and took me out of operation for such a long time, I had plenty of visibility to support me as I returned to studio work.
What is something new that you have discovered this past year that is meaningful or helpful for you?
Wet leather forming! Well, that is only one thing, and it is very recent. In making FLORA I decided that the background was best done in leather and I had no idea how to get it to lay down well. Internet to the rescue. It was very easy, although it did turn my hands red for a bit. THIS is not new: I learned, once again, to persist, say yes, and ask for help. This is the third time in my life I've needed to learn how to walk! It is humbling, frightening and amazing. Many of us artists are fairly introverted, happiest noodling away in our studios. It turns us into lone wolves, or my son's favorite, "cave creatures!" We forget to ask for assistance and forget to say yes to offers. Friends and new neighbors, both artists and non-artists, helped me set up the studio and make the home function. I am beyond grateful!
Briefly walk us through your process of making art or thinking through a new project, focusing on what's most important to you as you create.
For me, working creates more work. One thing leads to another in a very organic way. Despite the look of my textile pieces, they are not planned out much ahead of time. I have been researching the interactions of color and materials for years and the effect of form on color perception. So...that is where I start: a set of colors, and idea about form and I begin to experiment. It is highly intuitive. Yes, I am working in software, but it is playful! I really lose time and self drawing the many, many layers of color in the computer. Then the file goes to the embroidery machine where more things happen, both in and out of my control. When the fabric is out of the machine, it becomes the material for magic, if all goes well.
Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers?
Persist. Work ahead. If you are a planner, do it. I'm not really an organized a planner, but I want my artwork to be seen and you have to do something to make that happen. That something takes you into the future. This is important to me because I don't consider the artwork complete until it has "done its work in the world." Coincidentally, a workman in the new house stopped in front of a painting I had hung in my front hall. He really looked and told me what he saw and felt without prompting. I told him that that was the point. As long as I have been making work, my goal has been to capture lookers sufficiently to make them take a small pause in the day, wonder about what they see. The pause is the point: a mini-break, an opportunity to take a deep cleansing breath and leave subtly changed for the better. I painted that painting more than 50 years ago and it is still doing its work in the world. If you persist, your career will persist even if, God forbid, you break your leg.