{"id":35464,"date":"2017-07-10T06:48:35","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T12:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=35464"},"modified":"2018-09-22T20:16:47","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T02:16:47","slug":"bonnie-sucec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/bonnie-sucec\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinballs and Paintsticks: A Profile of Bonnie Sucec"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bonnie Sucec in her Salt Lake City studio. Photo by Simon Blundell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

W<\/span>hile her father was busy shaping his young daughter into a pinball wizard, Bonnie Sucec\u2019s mother encouraged her to paint pictures on the walls of their Midvale home. And later, at Jordan High, revered Utah abstract painter Don Olsen would fuel her passion for art.<\/h4>\n

This doesn\u2019t in any way explain Sucec\u2019s current work, but may give some insight into the mind from which the vibrant, readily recognizable paintings of queer creatures in dreamy, improbable landscapes and startling, sometimes Munchian, hooded figures arises.<\/h4>\n

The work is figural, but nonrepresentational \u2013 even the artist doesn\u2019t know what is going onto the paper until it appears, sometimes evolving for a month or more \u2014 and though I like to tell myself little stories about what I see in her paintings, Sucec would prefer I didn\u2019t: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t intended to be a specific story. You don\u2019t want to try to figure it out.\u201d<\/h4>\n

One prominent admirer was the late U.S. Poet Laureate and then-University of Utah Professor Mark Strand, who called up Sucec and asked her to collaborate on an art book of his poetry to be illustrated by her paintings, for which he gave her co-authorship.\u00a0A Poet\u2019s Alphabet of Influences<\/em>, published in 1993 by Red Butte Press, is long out of print: if you can find a copy the going price is at least $2,000.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cThe Heart of the Matter,\u201d by Bonnie Sucec 11\u2033 x 14\u2033 2015 acrylic Courtesy the artist<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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\u201cLost and Found,\u201d by Bonnie Sucec 22\u2033 x 30\u2033 2016 oil pastel Courtesy the artist<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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\u201cThe Vain and the Desperate,\u201d by Bonnie Sucec 22\u2033 x 30\u2033 2015 oil pastel Courtesy the artist<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Sucec offers directions to her home in the 9th<\/sup>\u00a0and 9th<\/sup>\u00a0area, saying it can be distinguished by its \u201cpinkish\u201d color. I might as well have looked for the \u201cSave Bears Ears\u201d sign prominently displayed in her yard \u2013 the only yard sign visible on the street. When I last talked to Sucec, about her show at the then-Salt Lake Art Center (now UMOCA) in 2007, and another with her then-student Josanne Glass at Studio Nine, she was painting at the Guthrie. \u00a0She was there for 25 years, moving from space to space as a \u201cchoicer\u201d studio became available. At that time, she was protesting the Iraq war \u2014 imagery evident in her artwork \u2014 as she had protested the Persian Gulf War. \u201cI can\u2019t do that anymore,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m in a different place. I just can\u2019t go back there.\u201d Given their strong, flamboyant sense of color, Sucec\u2019s paintings can sometimes come across as \u201cpretty,\u201d even \u201cfun\u201d pictures \u2014 but often have a serious message.<\/h4>\n

Her welcoming bungalow is filled with art, literature (baskets in her studio behind the house hold mysteries-on-tape, for painting \u2013 \u201cIf I reach a point where I have to think, I punch it off,\u201d says Sucec), and a wealth of brightly colored\u00a0objets<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 including numerous Milagros, or charms referencing the Virgin Mary in one of her many appellations (here, as Our Lady of Miracles), and yet the rooms feel surprisingly uncluttered and spacious. Behind the front door hangs a skillfully crafted baked-dough piece (a medium for which Sucec was known back in the day, says Bonnie Phillips, whose gallery represents the artist) of her son, stretched out on the back of an elegantly striped tiger, a dough\u00a0guinea pig on his tummy. (Gregor is now 50 years old, his pet guinea pig no longer with us.) The majority of these joyful items, right down to the floral oilcloth on the kitchen table, came from Mexico, where Sucec\u2019s parents had a home for 37 years and where she frequently visited.<\/h4>\n
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Sucec was once well-known for her baked dough pieces. This one is of her son, Gregor, now 50, pet guinea pig on his stomach. It hangs by her front door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is at this table that we sit down to talk, after Sucec grinds coffee beans, brews and pours two fragrant cups. We first mourn the loss of art critic Ehren Clark, who had reviewed Sucec\u2019s work for this publication. Then, as women of an age tend to do (having vowed never to do so), we discuss our various ailments, until realizing it\u2019s all small stuff after Ehren.<\/h4>\n

Sucec points out the curtains \u2013 she not only made them, she had the\u00a0fabric\u00a0<\/em>stamped with her own design.<\/h4>\n

The artist relates that her father owned Amusement Sales, a company that had pinball machines, slot machines and jukeboxes in bars and restaurants all over the Midvale, Sandy, Herriman and Jordan area. \u201cI had a nickelodeon, and gambling machines. We had a shop full of stuff, purple teddy bears for prizes on punchboards and stuff like that. It was fun,\u201d Sucec recalls. \u201cI still have some 45\u2019s. I had a jukebox in the basement and would have my girlfriends over and we\u2019d do the Twist.\u201d<\/h4>\n

She painted everything: walls, furniture. \u201cThat was the thing I was best at in school. I decorated for the dances, made the announcements . . .\u201d And then there was high school and Don Olsen. Paint came in cans then. And his students painted on old doors. And Sucec learned that maybe you could be an artist and have a studio that was once a greenhouse behind your home, like Olsen did.<\/h4>\n

Possibilities opened up for her. \u201cWe just painted everything. It was abstract expressionism and it was just great.\u201d Olsen had been a violinist with the Utah Symphony and would compare abstract art to music, \u201cthe complexity of different sounds without images, the light notes with dark notes, putting them together like paintings. It\u2019s where they\u2019re placed, you know: The dark and the light. And the shapes. Whew! I was sunk,\u201d says Sucec.<\/h4>\n
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Photo by Simon Blundell<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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Photo by Simon Blundell<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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Photo by Simon Blundell<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

She went to BYU for two years and ended up on social probation for being at a party where she doesn\u2019t think she had a beer but was certainly dancing to Chuck Berry and wearing a T-shirt and short skirt when it was \u201cstormed.\u201d Her work in a pretty important art show was taken down (social probation) and Sucec headed to the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.<\/h4>\n

That\u2019s where she met artist, arts activist and teacher David Sucec, who was at San Francisco State. He got his master\u2019s and a job offer at Purdue; they got married, had a baby in Haight Ashbury, \u201cwhere everyone was smoking dope on the streets and it was a time of being alive and so we went to Purdue with a little baby in a cardboard box.\u201d<\/h4>\n

He went on to teach at the University of Minnesota, Western Illinois, and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and Bonnie took classes wherever they were. They returned to Utah after 15 years away.<\/h4>\n

Bonnie and David Sucec broke up after several years living in a house on the Avenues; in 1984 Bonnie got her MFA at the U., where she was teaching assistant for Tony Smith and Doug Snow and Sam Wilson was an important adviser.<\/h4>\n

She eventually married Glenn Herrick, then a professor of genetics at the U. Medical School, \u201ca whole different slice of life,\u201d she says. They were together for 15 years and remain good friends, although he now resides in Italy. Herrick offered stability and time to paint, plus the travel his position required.<\/h4>\n

Well-known as a teacher of art to abled and disabled individuals, Sucec chooses to have only one private student now, a physician whom she has taught for years. And although she is in numerous private and public collections, her show at Phillips last year was a rare opportunity to see a lot of Sucecs hanging at once. But I am about to get lucky.<\/h4>\n
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A Mother and Child sits atop \u201cThe Heart of the Matter,\u201d by Bonnie Sucec 11\u2033 x 14\u2033 2015 acrylic , photo by Simon Blundell<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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Tools of the trade consist largely of oil pastels sorted into Styrofoam plates.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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A grouping of new works, including the oceanic \u201cOver Here, He Yells,\u201dby Bonnie Sucec 22\u2033 x 30\u201d 2016 oil pastel, photo by Simon Blundell.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

We walk through her charming garden back to the studio, a former woodworking shop, a cool, spacious place with tables all around the walls \u2013 one holds art from South America and baskets of books on tape, one a flat file, one is covered with stacks of Styrofoam plates, each holding a pile of oil pastels, apparently sorted partly by hue, largely by size: nubs to full sticks. \u201cOil pastel is a drawing medium but I treat it like paint, kind of. It\u2019s like lipstick. I use my finger and just spread it out.\u201d She used to favor gouache, but those days are long gone, it seems.<\/h4>\n

Pinned to the easel is a stunning piece of multi-paned windows at night all in red: \u201cI got a new red and I just loved it. That\u2019s how it started, honestly.\u201d She does a lot of scraping, revealing the color beneath, yellows and pinks. \u201cI started with the image of the windows first and then built upon it. I like not to get in a rut, to start differently every time.\u201d When she\u2019s done, there are large birds scraped into the surface resting on tiny feet, the windows have been scraped to a bronze finish, ethereal things emerge as you look.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cI Couldn\u2019t Believe My Eyes\u201d by Bonnie Sucec 22\u2033 x 30\u2033 2016 oil pastel Courtesy the artist<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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\u201cWhistleblowers\u201d by Bonnie Sucec 22\u2033 x 30\u2033 2016 oil pastel Courtesy the artist<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n
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\u201cSabotage\u201d by Bonnie Sucec 22\u2033 x 30\u2033 2016 oil pastel Courtesy the artist<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Other new work emerges from atop the flat file and gets pinned up in turn. All of it stellar stuff. A very few have titles. One, of black figures racing down a wind-swept path is called \u201cWhistleblowers.\u201d This artist still hasn\u2019t lost the politics.<\/h4>\n

Sucec is a little touchy when asked if her imagist work might be termed magical primitivism. \u201cI am a formally trained artist,\u201d she replies somewhat archly, but immediately adds with a smile, \u201cI do know what you mean.\u201d If you\u2019ve read Gabriel Garcia Marquez, then you know, too.<\/h4>\n
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In Sucec\u2019s dining room, hanging at right, is \u201cDog Splash,\u201d by her longtime friend and collaborator Susan Beck. Note the bird\u2019s nest on the table.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Bonnie Sucec\u2019s work can be seen at\u00a0Phillips Gallery\u2019s\u00a0<\/a>annual Summer Group Show, July 21 \u2013 September 9.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bonnie Sucec in her Salt Lake City studio. Photo by Simon Blundell. While her father was busy shaping his young daughter into a pinball wizard, Bonnie Sucec\u2019s mother encouraged her to paint pictures on the walls of their Midvale home. And later, at Jordan High, revered Utah abstract […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":38130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist_profiles","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/bonnie-003-1200x800-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 05:13:41","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\/35464","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\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35464"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38132,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35464\/revisions\/38132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}