Meet Susan Plum

Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Plum.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was raised in Mexico City. My mother and would fly to Houston to have her children.  Having American parents though culturally Mexican caused an identity crisis and cultural confusion on the one hand, and on the other, a poignant awareness about how personal realities get formed.

Developing a deep love and connection to nature brought me comfort in my early years. Not yet having a language for expressing myself, I learned experientially of the intelligence in nature and forged a deep heart connection through its beauty. Later, I spent time with curanderas in their botanical shops at the local marketplace, which led me to investigate nature-based spiritual traditions. In college in Mexico City I learned about surrealism and magic realism. Art gave me a voice to express and experience, unravel, explore, a safe place to swim in deep waters, a place of inclusion and synthesis.

Please tell us about your art.
I am a story-teller, weaving stories into installations, performance or objects that create a world for the viewer to enter. Because I feel that art is a transmitter or receiver, as in ancient amulets or talismans, there is a hidden or invisible component to the work that is perceived energetically.

In 2006 I began a 10-year project/activism, Luz y Solidaridad/Light and Solidarity, to bring awareness to violence against women, originally focusing on the situation in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, later expanding to address violence against women worldwide. For the first time, I incorporated ritual performance. At every venue, a different number of women from the community would participate. There was no time for rehearsing; therefore, it became a practice of releasing control over the ritual and becoming a conduit for the ritual. This experience changed the relationship to my work. In 2012 I began a series called Divining Nature: the Art of Search. This series explores the question of what it is that we, as humans, can do to emulate and embrace the coherence that exists in nature.

The current works are power objects made of natural branches, drawings and paintings that have been evolving since 2013, inspired by el Ojos de Dios/Eyes of God of the idegenous Huichol art.  I consider the sculptures power objects to promote healing of the heart–the heart of the earth, cosmos, and all living beings. I believe we have a poignant example on our planet that discord, on every level, comes from the disconnect between nature and man.

Along with my other work, I recently returned to making glass candelabra, inspired by the ceramic Tree of Life made by artisans in Mexico.

Titles-description
01. Luz y Solidaridad
installation-performance 2006-
Museo de la Ciudad, Queretaro, QRO, Mexico

2. Luz y Solidaridad – World Tree: Era for a New Technology,
   Museo de la Ciudad, Queretaro, QRO, Mexico 2006-
3. Luz y Solidaridad
   ritual-performance
   Museo de la Ciudad, Queretaro, QRO., Mexico 2006-
4. Naturaleza Oculta (Hidden Nature) installation
   UAC Contemporary Art Gallery, Houston Baptist Univeristy
   Houston, Texas, Curated by Jim Edwards
   2013
5. Divining Nature: The Art of Search
   HAA, Houston Arts Alliance Gallery
   Pastel on tar paper
   103h x 36”w
   2014
6. Divining Nature: The Art of Search
   Field of Science Museum, Chicago, Il
   Biodiversity: Art and Invention, curated by Randy Rosenberg, Artworks for Change Organization 2012
   Hunter and Plum, HAA Houston Arts Alliance. Curated by Matthew Lennon, 2014
   Wild Design, PEM, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA – 2018
   Flameworked borosilicate glass, acrylic rod, metal chain
   22h x 61w x 22d”
7. Sycamore Leaf 3
   Hunter and Plum, HAA, Houston Arts Alliance, Houston, TX curated by Matthew Lennon
   Flameworked borosilicate glass – 2014
8. Candelabra 5
   Flameworked borosilcate glass
   32h x 28w x 9d” –  2017
   Collection of Ann W. Harithas
9. Candelabra 3
   Flameworked borosilicate glass
   27h x 19w x 9d” – 2017

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Currently:

FINLAND+MEXICO=HOUSTON : NEW WORK BY SUSAN PLUM and INKA-MAARIA JURVANEN through February 2019.

My studio is open throughout the year by appointment.

Divining Nature: The Art of Search is part of a group exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA about co-existing with nature.

Recently I have participated in group exhibitions at the Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL., Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art,
Thessaloniki, Greece, The Field Museum of Science, Chicago, IL., Museo del Chopo, UNAM, Mexico D.F., Mexico, the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL.

Contact Info:

• Address: 1829 Arlington St.
  Houston, TX 77008
• Website: susanplum.com
• Phone: 713 542 6986
• Email: susanplum@gmail.com

Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.