{"id":24256,"date":"2013-12-05T13:31:14","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T19:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=24256"},"modified":"2018-12-13T14:28:11","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T20:28:11","slug":"suzanne-storer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/suzanne-storer\/","title":{"rendered":"Suzanne Storer at The Gallery at Library Sqaure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blogstorer\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMy art stems from my innate desire to make connection with my fellow human beings,\u201d says ceramicist Suzanne Storer. Working out of her Ogden studio, the potter turned sculptor creates uniquely definitive and characteristic wall sculpture.<\/strong>\u00a0The line drawings that had previously graced her platters and functional pottery have become fully-rounded sculpture, to be viewed in the round or as high relief wall pieces. This move into the third-dimension has not, however, lessened her interest in the human qualities that energized the paintings on her ceramics. \u201cLike a lot of artists,\u201d she says, \u201cI work alone in my studio and it\u2019s very isolating. Maybe I work with the figure to be closer to other people.\u00a0 Certainly drawing a nude model is a very intimate thing to do. And after intently looking at the person for 3 hours, they almost always appear beautiful to me\u2014no matter what they look like. I believe in beauty and I like for it to get its due\u2014especially people.\u00a0 People talk about inner and outer beauty. I can\u2019t distinguish the two.\u00a0 It\u2019s all one to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the nineteenth-century poet\/art critic Charles Baudelaire called sculpture \u201cboring.\u201d Objects that can be approached from all angles, he suggested, fail to reveal an artistic point of view, a subjective vision of the world, unlike painting, which he described as \u201cexclusive and despotic.\u201d Driven by her desire to connect with her subjects, Storer\u2019s work exists somewhere in between these two worlds. She has not chosen, as one might expect, the expressive symbolic medium of painting. But neither does she wish for a more autonomous, universal, birds- eye view. Hers is an intimate, one-on-one engagement, a direct result of her artistic process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI begin each work by looking at my model for an extended period of time while drawing a portion of their body always from a point of view that creates an interesting shape,\u201d Storer says. \u201cAs a sculptor I\u2019m drawing an object or form on a field, my paper. Mainly I just want the shape I draw to fit on the page. When it doesn\u2019t I\u2019ve got to tape on more paper. Since I know I\u2019m drawing what will become a 3D sculpture the shape is the most important thing. I\u2019m a sculptor and form matters most.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Storer moves from her initial drawings to create her sculptures, she must transcend the two-dimensional narrative plane of her subject. But that is easily done. What is the challenge for Storer is to make that transition while retaining all of those qualities that are encouraged in a two-dimensional subject to grant personality, character, uniqueness, and that have traditionally been found wanting in the objecthood of sculpture without a narrative or even a non-narrative structural support for meaning and responsiveness. In short, the benefits, or universal laws, of subjectivity must NOT be transcended in the process of going from two to three dimensions. How she does this in literal terms\u00a0and not emphatically<\/em>\u00a0is through a methodology that might have been arrived at decisively but has the organic feel of a natural, fluent genesis and maturation by the artist.<\/p>\n

To create an initial rendering articulated in exactitude, Storer employs the drafting system of measurements of thirds she has long utilized to create a harmonious, naturally-rendered figure. She relies heavily on the fundamental principle that the figure can, in all of its components, be broken down, or built up, by three points. Storer always starts with the same three on the face, from which any other three can be built upon and thus the body is successfully constructed. And this is only the beginning to the realization.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking in clay I add volume to this drawing,\u201d she says. \u201cI make what was once an illusion (a drawing) real because it now exists in three dimensions.\u00a0 So working in high relief is perfect for me. Akio Takamori suggested I do so 3 years ago and I\u2019m forever grateful to him.\u00a0 And I chose this very foreshortened point of view because the entire triangular shape was interesting to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storer has carved her own niche as a sculptor and it is a very humanist one.\u00a0 This humanism reveals her sitter\u2019s maximum personality. As an ensemble, her works are a parade of the fascinating, made so through very unexpected compositional choices, most often made so through what appears to be the exaggerated or the maximized. But appearances can be deceiving, and the final structure, built upon the matrix of exacting and natural human lines created of thirds, with a uniquely chosen perspective, is constructed in ceramic form along those lines together with the use of proper perspective without any manipulation of exaggeration or maximization. Only the singularity of the \u201cinteresting shape,\u201d derived from the original nude study, makes any kind of departure from these natural processes and the ultimate chosen angle of representation is something chosen for Storer\u2019s \u201cbest\u201d interpretation of that \u201cinteresting shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike traditional sculpture, these measurements that are exacting do not make allowances for objective three-dimensionality seen from all perspectives, nor for the two-dimensional planes that allow only for a fixed frontal point of view.\u00a0 These are unusually and awkwardly beautiful, the kind of figure to be intensely studied and still have more to offer so much is the essence of their irresistible and likable personalities, a materialization of the \u201cinteresting shape\u201d and perspective of it.<\/p>\n

Storer\u2019s work currently on exhibit at Salt Lake\u2019s Gallery at Library Square is a definitive manifestation of this singular method that organically
\nresults along the lines of natural principles to create the subjects
\nas such, and not the inverse. One may judge for themselves the
\naccuracy that supports each utterly distinctive vantage point of
\nspecial interest that can be any, from one that peers into the sitter
\nthrough an acutely foreshortening of the breast through the side of
\nthe face, or up and close, examining the sitter starting from the nose
\njutting out while at an angle.<\/p>\n

All of the drama that is created by the traditional narrative or non-narrative based content, broken, once a two-dimensional representation becomes ruptured and the flat picture plane becomes object, in Storer\u2019s case remains, and is retained as subjectivity for the works of the artist.\u00a0 The process of the actual build commences from the base and from inside outward, delicately and with great finesse.\u00a0 A \u201cformal subjectivity,\u201d a concept new in theory, is manifest according to natural laws and synergy of both two-dimensional precise accuracy of drawing and masterful expertise of skill in rendering perspectival accuracy in three-dimensional ceramics.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow line and shape combine with volume and all the other elements visual and tactile art can provide to make that connection as poignant as possible between artist and model and you, the viewer,\u201d Storer says of her work.<\/p>\n

Many artists and viewers see and connect with the personably ineffable and ineluctable charming individualities of each of Storer\u2019s creations. One sees not only\u00a0with<\/em>\u00a0the artist but one sees through her and feels through her. What Storer finds interesting about each of her subjects reveals the kind of artist and human being Suzanne Storer is. This choice is the very\u00a0raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em>\u00a0of her exceptional efforts and the toilsome labor devoted to each subject, revealing great fragility and care, is weighty testimony of a uniquely impassioned creative artistic vision and perspective.<\/p>\n

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Suzanne Storer\u2019s exhibit\u00a0People, Crows and Ravens<\/em>\u00a0is at\u00a0The Gallery at Library Square<\/a>\u00a0in Salt Lake City through January 3, 2014. In addition to her figurative sculptural work, the exhibit features what Storer says are the last of her works as a potter. You can view more of the artist\u2019s work at\u00a0suzannestorer.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy art stems from my innate desire to make connection with my fellow human beings,\u201d says ceramicist Suzanne Storer. Working out of her Ogden studio, the potter turned sculptor creates uniquely definitive and characteristic wall sculpture.\u00a0The line drawings that had previously graced her platters and functional pottery have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":24315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[916,1169],"class_list":["post-24256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-gallery-at-library-square","tag-suzanne-storer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/blogstorer.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 09:58:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24256"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41696,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24256\/revisions\/41696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}