Susan Crowell
Ceramist Susan Crowell was born on November 25, 1947 in Benton Harbor, Michigan. She is the daughter of a physician and a nurse; the pair met for the first time when her father was in the hospital with a back injury and her mother was his nurse. Growing up, Crowell spent a lot of time with her maternal grandmother, a China painter who occasionally worked with clay. She was the first person to introduce Crowell to ceramics. Her maternal grandfather, who passed away when her mother was three, also came from an artistic family; his mother and sisters were involved in the art of pottery. The youngest of four children, Crowell has two sisters and one brother, all of whom she is very close to. One of the earliest difficulties she encountered was developing epilepsy at the age of fourteen, which lasted ten years. However, she believed those ten years to be very crucial in terms of her "ability to feel safe and comfortable in the world." Growing up comfortably in a middle class family, her epilepsy was coined as unacceptable to discuss, and she and her family did the best they could to hide it. It "took awhile before it could be controlled...everybody knew." Crowell believes her epilepsy contributed to the reasons she is shy, but it was this shyness that made the art world appealing to her.
In addition to art influences from her grandmother, Crowell was drawn to art because it became her way of expressing herself. Her theory is that "most artists are really shy, and [she] figured out how not to seem shy, but [she] speaks much better in visual terms." Crowell had the desire to create, which served as a means of communicating things she would not otherwise say. In describing her time spent around other artists, she felt that it was “where [she] belonged and what [she] should be doing.” For Crowell, the art community was both an outlet and a learning experience; the people surrounding her were ones she could “get something from and [could] give something to.” Creating art was of great value to her and so were the interactions with other artists; these relationships and bonds allowed them to share ideas and learn from one another.
In terms of education, Crowell decided early on that she did not enjoy high school because it was a “very sports oriented and very commercially oriented” atmosphere. Because of this, she applied to the Interlochen Arts Academy, a boarding school for students interested in artistic careers. During her first year at Interlochen, Crowell did not study art, but instead went with the intent of studying music; her primary instrument was the flute. She took only one art class that year, but by her second year she had changed her mind completely and was taking strictly art courses. Crowell received her diploma from the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1966 and two years later was doing a summer study at the University of Wisconsin. After returning to Michigan, she attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics in 1969 and then completed her Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics at the same university in 1972.
Crowell got her first taste of the world outside of the United States in 1980 after receiving a full scholarship to study Architectural Ceramics at the Centro Internazionale di Ceramica in Rome, Italy. While abroad, Crowell worked with Nino Caruso, helping with a film series, and “studied in the sense that [she] followed him around [and] helped him on projects.” Crowell began dating someone prior to leaving for Rome and together they decided to continue their relationship, going six months without seeing one another. They were married sometime after her return to the United States in 1981. Her husband is a history professor at the University of Michigan. Crowell decided early on that the man she married would not be an artist, “because when there are two people that are artists in the household, nobody can support anybody, or someone loses, or somebody takes the backseat.” Crowell believes herself fortunate to find someone who has not only made a commitment to their relationship, but to her work. They have a son who, at 25 years old, is “very distinct from his parents” with degrees in mathematics and philosophy.
No amateur to ceramics, Crowell’s creative process always begins with sketching out the initial ideas for her pieces. She makes her pieces out of white stoneware using plaster drape molds, often building the shapes from multiple molds and focusing the forms on vessel shapes similar to ones found in the body. Although viewers are not meant to see the insides of the pieces, Crowell wishes she could make the interiors of her work just as presentable as the exteriors “in case they break.” After the molded pieces are joined together into the desired shape, they are bisque fired, (bisque firing refers to the initial firing of clay to drive out all remaining moisture and vitrifying the piece) glazed, and fired again between cone six and cone ten. (Cones refer to pyrometric cones, which are pieces of ceramic material engineered to melt at very specific temperature. This in turn tells the artist at what temperature the atmosphere of the kiln is at). It is vital that pieces are heated according to the type of clay as well as the type of glaze used. To get specific colors, Crowell uses an airbrush to spray on “layers and layers and layers” of industrial pigments before firing them again. If she does not like the colors, she continues adding sheets of color until the results are what she wants. To refine her pieces, she alternates between layers of glaze and color to fuse the overall look. Crowell also likes to incorporate texture variations in her pieces, usually using clay stamps that she creates herself. To prevent the clay from getting dried out, she stores her work in large plastic bins. The majority of Crowell’s work revolves around natural forms and pigments, and over the years it “evolves in and out of intense involvement with color.” She will use black and white; black, white, and gray; or a trio of black, white, and one bold color to create a monochromatic color scheme. However, sometimes the colors just “flower,” directly relating to the “kinds of forms [and]…feelings [she] wants to convey.” The whole of her work has always led to greater thinking and the focus on theological questions, such as “why are we in bodies?” and “why are we not something else?” Her present body of work has lasted about ten years, and it continues to change and evolve with each new form.
Crowell’s work is influenced by a number of different artists, two of them large scale metal sculptor Anish Kapoor and contemporary sculptor Martin Puryear. She is a firm believer that artists should cultivate other artists’ work. It promises more of an advance in skill than envy. Crowell also allows Buddhist ideals to influence her work. She is drawn to “the idea of emptiness, the idea of connectedness…one of the really astounding and comforting things about Buddhist though is that it sees [people] as not distinct and separate, but as part of a larger, moving, continuous role.” Crowell views Buddhism as a means of explaining things that people do not or cannot understand by themselves and that it is a “great way to acknowledge the degree to which we affect each other and, in fact, our world.” Her thoughts about the world and Buddhism directly influence her work and lead her to view her work as parts of a whole rather than as individual pieces.
Crowell has encountered difficulties in both her personal life and artistic career. She has chronic difficulty with her back as a result of working with heavy materials, believes ceramics to be a “rather macho field where you can’t really ask for help without looking like you’ve compromised your integrity.” Crowell’s philosophy about suffering is that it links you with everyone else in the world; it is the one thing everyone will encounter at some point in their life. She believes that if a person views their pain as a learning experience, they “have a great opportunity to become more of a human being.” To keep her back pain under control, Crowell walks, stretches, and exercises. Something interesting she noticed about her back pain was that it was nonexistent when she was working in her studio, but when she was doing something she did not like or want to do, it hurt a great deal.
A woman artist in a world where men typically dominated the art scene, Crowell believes that she has “been lucky in that a lot of the people [she’s] had to work with have been women, so it wasn’t like [she] couldn’t see [herself] doing what [they were] doing.” Together, they share a sense of camaraderie in going through similar experiences. Despite working with a majority of women in the United States, Crowell discovered that things were different in places such as Italy where, “you definitely felt that guys talk to guys and you can’t join a conversation.” As of 2009, Crowell believes that a lot has changed in the past thirty years; when she was first starting out, she and other women had to fight much harder to be accepted as artists.
In terms of education, Crowell decided early on that she did not enjoy high school because it was a “very sports oriented and very commercially oriented” atmosphere. Because of this, she applied to the Interlochen Arts Academy, a boarding school for students interested in artistic careers. During her first year at Interlochen, Crowell did not study art, but instead went with the intent of studying music; her primary instrument was the flute. She took only one art class that year, but by her second year she had changed her mind completely and was taking strictly art courses. Crowell received her diploma from the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1966 and two years later was doing a summer study at the University of Wisconsin. After returning to Michigan, she attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics in 1969 and then completed her Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics at the same university in 1972.
Crowell got her first taste of the world outside of the United States in 1980 after receiving a full scholarship to study Architectural Ceramics at the Centro Internazionale di Ceramica in Rome, Italy. While abroad, Crowell worked with Nino Caruso, helping with a film series, and “studied in the sense that [she] followed him around [and] helped him on projects.” Crowell began dating someone prior to leaving for Rome and together they decided to continue their relationship, going six months without seeing one another. They were married sometime after her return to the United States in 1981. Her husband is a history professor at the University of Michigan. Crowell decided early on that the man she married would not be an artist, “because when there are two people that are artists in the household, nobody can support anybody, or someone loses, or somebody takes the backseat.” Crowell believes herself fortunate to find someone who has not only made a commitment to their relationship, but to her work. They have a son who, at 25 years old, is “very distinct from his parents” with degrees in mathematics and philosophy.
No amateur to ceramics, Crowell’s creative process always begins with sketching out the initial ideas for her pieces. She makes her pieces out of white stoneware using plaster drape molds, often building the shapes from multiple molds and focusing the forms on vessel shapes similar to ones found in the body. Although viewers are not meant to see the insides of the pieces, Crowell wishes she could make the interiors of her work just as presentable as the exteriors “in case they break.” After the molded pieces are joined together into the desired shape, they are bisque fired, (bisque firing refers to the initial firing of clay to drive out all remaining moisture and vitrifying the piece) glazed, and fired again between cone six and cone ten. (Cones refer to pyrometric cones, which are pieces of ceramic material engineered to melt at very specific temperature. This in turn tells the artist at what temperature the atmosphere of the kiln is at). It is vital that pieces are heated according to the type of clay as well as the type of glaze used. To get specific colors, Crowell uses an airbrush to spray on “layers and layers and layers” of industrial pigments before firing them again. If she does not like the colors, she continues adding sheets of color until the results are what she wants. To refine her pieces, she alternates between layers of glaze and color to fuse the overall look. Crowell also likes to incorporate texture variations in her pieces, usually using clay stamps that she creates herself. To prevent the clay from getting dried out, she stores her work in large plastic bins. The majority of Crowell’s work revolves around natural forms and pigments, and over the years it “evolves in and out of intense involvement with color.” She will use black and white; black, white, and gray; or a trio of black, white, and one bold color to create a monochromatic color scheme. However, sometimes the colors just “flower,” directly relating to the “kinds of forms [and]…feelings [she] wants to convey.” The whole of her work has always led to greater thinking and the focus on theological questions, such as “why are we in bodies?” and “why are we not something else?” Her present body of work has lasted about ten years, and it continues to change and evolve with each new form.
Crowell’s work is influenced by a number of different artists, two of them large scale metal sculptor Anish Kapoor and contemporary sculptor Martin Puryear. She is a firm believer that artists should cultivate other artists’ work. It promises more of an advance in skill than envy. Crowell also allows Buddhist ideals to influence her work. She is drawn to “the idea of emptiness, the idea of connectedness…one of the really astounding and comforting things about Buddhist though is that it sees [people] as not distinct and separate, but as part of a larger, moving, continuous role.” Crowell views Buddhism as a means of explaining things that people do not or cannot understand by themselves and that it is a “great way to acknowledge the degree to which we affect each other and, in fact, our world.” Her thoughts about the world and Buddhism directly influence her work and lead her to view her work as parts of a whole rather than as individual pieces.
Crowell has encountered difficulties in both her personal life and artistic career. She has chronic difficulty with her back as a result of working with heavy materials, believes ceramics to be a “rather macho field where you can’t really ask for help without looking like you’ve compromised your integrity.” Crowell’s philosophy about suffering is that it links you with everyone else in the world; it is the one thing everyone will encounter at some point in their life. She believes that if a person views their pain as a learning experience, they “have a great opportunity to become more of a human being.” To keep her back pain under control, Crowell walks, stretches, and exercises. Something interesting she noticed about her back pain was that it was nonexistent when she was working in her studio, but when she was doing something she did not like or want to do, it hurt a great deal.
A woman artist in a world where men typically dominated the art scene, Crowell believes that she has “been lucky in that a lot of the people [she’s] had to work with have been women, so it wasn’t like [she] couldn’t see [herself] doing what [they were] doing.” Together, they share a sense of camaraderie in going through similar experiences. Despite working with a majority of women in the United States, Crowell discovered that things were different in places such as Italy where, “you definitely felt that guys talk to guys and you can’t join a conversation.” As of 2009, Crowell believes that a lot has changed in the past thirty years; when she was first starting out, she and other women had to fight much harder to be accepted as artists.
As a ceramist who has been through the process of deciding what her next steps of her artistic career will be, Crowell advises aspiring artists to keep their options open and gather information on not only the well-known schools, but on the smaller institutions as well. The emphasis lies not simply on the location at which people study, but on the quality of art they produce. Some of the best people to ask about artistic programs are the students; they can offer a peek at how things might be better than anyone else. Crowell, as of 2009, is teaching ceramics at the University of Michigan and believes one thing instructors desire the most for their students is “a confidence I knowing that [they] can do things.”
In terms of quality of work, Crowell finds that “No one actually works to make it look easy; it’s so much a part of who they are and what they do...of course it looks easy…it’s a part of them, and if [someone] keep[s] practicing, it’ll be a part of [them] too.” For now, Crowell continues her freely-evolving body of work and welcomes future artistic endeavors.
In terms of quality of work, Crowell finds that “No one actually works to make it look easy; it’s so much a part of who they are and what they do...of course it looks easy…it’s a part of them, and if [someone] keep[s] practicing, it’ll be a part of [them] too.” For now, Crowell continues her freely-evolving body of work and welcomes future artistic endeavors.