Susan Lordi Marker

Soulskin: Seeding the Prairie  1999  nylon, iron, copper, pigment 76 x 41 x 3 inches Susan Lordi Marker

When Susan Lordi Marker was a little girl, her mother took her to museums.

Damiana's Cloth 1991 rayon, silk, thread, 22 x 25 x 3 inches Susan Lordi Marker

She also traveled to Sicily to visit relatives.  She was given vintage garments and other textiles by the older generations she met there.  She heard their stories and the old proverbs.

Damiana is the name of Susan Lordi Marker's great grandmother.  In the piece above, although text is visible among the layers,  we can't read it.  Lordi Marker's use of text is as symbol of experience and knowledge.  It communicates without naming.

Excavation: Soulskin #11 1997  linen blend, thread, dye, pigment 66 x 34 inches Susan Lordi Marker

She realized later that the tangible objects that she was given were evidence that those people had been alive.   That they were marked by wear made them metaphors for her relatives' life experience.

Excavation: Soulskin #11  1997 detail Susan Lordi Marker

In her early work, she experimented with using the actual clothing. Pale shapes of a woman's dress floats on a ground of asymemetrical spirals on a fabric made sheer with burn out.

a remnant: Helionthus  2010  linen blend, gold leaf, thread, dyed  48 x 84 inches  Susan Lordi Marker

Trained as a scientist in her first degree, she went back to school when her children were little and received an MFA degree with honours from the University of Kansas in 1993.

soulskin: cricket  2007  silk, dye, thread  96 x 84 inches Susan Lordi Marker

She then studied with Joy Boutrup at the Kansas City Art Institute and learned ways to layer, fuse, and otherwise manipulate cloth.  She learned about cloque (lye crimping) and devore (chemical burn-out), two methods that make her textile work unique.

the field is sewn 2010  silk, dye, thread  30 x 48 inches  Susan Lordi Marker

little marks
metals
cloth that is hung away from the wall so that it moves
it breathes
it casts a shadow

soulskin: sun, lake, dragonfly  2000  linen blend, dye, pigment, gold leaf, devore  90 x 54 inches Susan Lordi Marker

Susan Lordi Marker noticed that cloth has an ability to survive.  In fact, it became more evocative through the variety of harsh chemical processes she imposed on it.  Stronger in a way.  More unique. To the artist, this makes cloth a metaphor for life itself.

Her work is about the essence of cloth.

"You must pull from within to access the universal"  Susan Lordi Marker

soulskin: sun, lake, dragonfly detail  Susan Lordi Marker

Currently, Susan Lordi Marker is working on a line of gift ware called Willow Tree.  She makes original figures based on her observations of life models.  She speaks here about how her small sculptures are for the giver (who will purchase the piece to express an emotion) than they are about the object itself.  Lordi Marker believes that there is a personal connection for both giver and receiver. Read more about the artist's work with Willow Tree here.

Susan Lordi Marker in her prairie

The artist continues to restore a piece of land in Missouri, re-seeding it with prairie grasses.

Seeding The Prairie:  Detail  Susan Lordi Marker 

Susan Lordi Marker and her powerful one of a kind cloths have left a mark in the world.
She has been an influence.

The aesthetic of time is in each piece.
The aesthetic of labour.
The work of the work.

These pieces also remind us of the organic rhythm of nature, evoked here with these small dimensional marks.

The images in this post are from the official website for Susan Lordi Marker's fine art textiles and also from the Telos Portfolio on the artist, published in 2003 with an essay by Hildreth York.  Go to the artist's website for more information and detail images.  Thank you and acknowledgements to Ms York for her informative essay.