SusanMaryMitchell.art

Susan Mary Mitchell is a fibre artist who also delves in painting and ceramics. The beauty of nature around her inspires a passion for texture, color and form, as is evident in her work.

The creation of her art is process driven as she follows an inner sense of wonder and curiosity like a child at play. This has led to the development of her current fascination with the application of paint on wet cloth. In painting, she prefers to not fully mix the colours on her pallet, but lets them organically blend on the cloth. This abstract style mirrors the texture and hues of nature.
Likewise her ceramic pieces echo natural shapes and forms inspired by her home in Alberta, Canada near the Rocky Mountains, and the family cottage in the Muskoka region of Ontario.

The creation of the piece “Sunshine” (see dress photo above) evolved through a similar process. While on holiday in Mexico, Mitchell looked for a portable artistic outlet. She bought fabric remnants and interfacing and experimented with painting them on a plastic sheet spread on the ground. Liquid acrylic paints were applied intuitively on the wet cloth varying the blending of colours and the quantity of water. Once painted, she then experimented with creating wrinkles and folds to increase the movement of colour pigments in the paint as the cloth dried. The tops of folds or wrinkles would dry first, sucking moisture and paint colour from the cloth at the bottom of wrinkles. This created the white patterning.

Since her process has innumerable variables that cannot be fully controlled, she chooses to embrace this as part of the process. For example, cloud, sun and wind will affect the drying time and its results. Sometimes a passing dog kicks sand on the work. This can be somewhat brushed off, and then a similar sprinkling of sand particles added across the work. The sand is slightly salty and also blocks the sun, changing the drying pattern. If the beach is sloped or has indentations, the watered paint will run or collect in different ways. Some of these effects can be anticipated and worked with, but there is an element of releasing oneself to the uncontrollable nature of the process. In this way, each piece Susan does, is unique. (More on the specific process of creating the dress pictured above, can be found in the Portfolio photos below.)

In her painting practice, Mitchell works on traditional canvas, but also on cotton/polyester sheets. She was given bags of discarded hotel sheets that she experiments with and seeks to create innovative ways to use what could be waste. In these fabrics works, additional texture can be created with stitch. In further conservation, she wipes leftover paint from her painting pallet on used dryer sheets which can then by torn and collaged on top of the work, along with other fabric scraps like organza, netting and wool roving.

Creating ceramic works is another path Mitchell uses to embrace her love of texture and form. Again expressing nature, many of her pieces reference leaves, bark, mushrooms, water, and rock. Often she will begin a vessel on the wheel, and then bring it up in a way to create a ‘controlled collapse’. This not only mirrors organic shapes, but also Mitchell likens it to human beings — beginning life centred but often pulled off that centre. However, in the hands of the Creator these can be carefully molded into unique pieces of art.

Susan Mary Mitchell recently graduated as a fibre major, from Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.


Curriculum Vitae
 
Susan Mary Mitchell
susanmary2mitchell@gmail.com

EDUCATION
2025
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Fibre major), Alberta University of the Arts, Calgary, Alberta, Canada 

EXHIBITIONS
2025
“Permanent Record,” ceramics and fibre show, Alberta University of the Arts
2025
The Spindle Gallery, Alberta university of the Arts
 
Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Winter 2021
Alberta University of the Arts Show and Sale, Calgary, Alberta
 
2022
“Because It’s Abundant,” ceramics show, Alberta University of the Arts
 
2022
“Concepto,” Art Vallarta, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
 
Feb 2022
10th Annual President’s Student, Art, Craft and Design Exhibition
 
2017 and 2016
Calyx Distinctive Arts Show and Sale, Calgary Alberta
 
PUBLICATIONS
2013
Photo of fibre work, “Sunset over Mountain Lake,” published in Radiant Landscapes: TransformTiled Colors and Textures into Dramatic Quilts, C & T Publishing Inc, 2013, p. 35.
 
COLLECTIONS
2021
Fibre work purchased by Alberta University of the Arts, Calgary, Alberta