We recently connected with Sudie Rakusin and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sudie , thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Last year, within a single month, I experienced the loss of two of my most beloved dogs, Marmalade Moon and Fiona Fig, and went through open-heart surgery. As my physical heart healed, my emotional heart continued to ache and I felt ungrounded. Someone once told me, “grief is love with nowhere to go,” and once again, I found art to be the best conduit for transforming my grief.

Sunflowers have been a significant sign for me over the years. I love how they turn their faces to the sun symbolizing truth, honesty, admiration, and faithfulness, as well as the search for deeper spiritual understanding. When I see sunflowers, it is a sign that my father, one of my guides, is offering me love and support. In my state of not knowing what was next, I bought bunches of sunflowers, all different shapes, and sizes. I arranged them in various vases and tasked myself with doing one drawing each day. I became well acquainted with sunflowers; from their variegated, multiple petals and intricate centers to the arching and leaning of their stalks. Drawing became a moving meditation, something I looked forward to that brought me solace and comfort and got me back into the studio. Using only pen, ink, and colored pencils, I let the sunflowers bring me back into the studio, back to art, and back to myself.

By late summer, I had drawn countless sunflowers, each unique as I drew them from different perspectives, focusing on distinct aspects of their complex forms. These drawings became physical representations of how I was transforming my grief through art. I wanted to share my healing process and the beauty of the sunflowers so I turned the drawings into a set of notecards and stickers. To title these drawings, I chose words I associate with hope: witness, simplicity, perseverance, inter-being, flow, unfettered, guide, and breathe. The sunflower notecards and stickers are now available on my Etsy shop and it is my hope that the drawings bring the same sense of solace and comfort to others as they did to me.

Sudie , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am an artist, author, publisher, and the creator of the Unwind Time coloring app for iPad. I create environments that are lush and surreal. Many of my works contain sculpted papier-mâché features and beadwork, which push my 2-D work into a 3-D realm. My artwork includes 3-dimensional oil on canvas paintings, cold wax and oil paint abstracts, papier-mâché sculptures, and pen and ink drawings. I believe my creations are the best part of me. Art is where I go for refuge, replenishing, and how I pay homage to what sustains me.

When viewers take in my work, I want them to experience a sensory-rich, more-than-human world. Unlike many other pieces of artwork that are for “eyes only,” my paintings invite a multi-sensory engagement, and viewers are encouraged to touch my artwork, which includes 3D elements and textures that can be more fully experienced through one’s own fingertips. The overarching emotional aim of my work is to evoke reverence for the beauty on our planet and to inspire humans to re-imagine a new way of relating to the earth and her many creatures.

You can see my fine art at sudierakusin.com. Also enjoy shopping on my Etsy store Sudie Rakusin Art, which has a wide array of my products including notecards created from my paintings, Journey Cards, the Dreams and Shadows Journal, Coloring books, fabric goods, giclees, children’s books and more. https://www.etsy.com/shop/SudieRakusinArt

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

As an animal activist and feminist, my artwork flows from what moves me and from where I find beauty: women, animals, the earth, color, pattern, and light. It represents the deep connection I feel with these elements. The mission driving my creative journey is to create the world as I wish it to be – a place where harmony exists between animals and humans.

In the Anthropocene, we are witnessing human-caused climate change and pollution on an unprecedented scale. Our geological age is named for the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on our environment. Islands of trash the size of Texas float in our oceans. Temperature rise and extreme weather threaten many species of animals. Ever more development impacts birds’ migratory flight patterns. My art is a part of my activism, my call to action, and my advocacy work in redefining humanity’s relationship with the planet and her many wonderful creatives.

In my paintings, animals walk as equals among humans, and nature is venerated. In my art, the natural world is an oasis protected, treasured, and celebrated. Through paintings, drawings, and 3D creations, I manifest a world without hierarchy that harkens back to the wisdom of indigenous cultures who respected and revered the earth. I hope that my artwork plays a role in redefining how we relate to one another and all living, breathing beings.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

It is hard to remain hopeful in the times we are living through. Darkness, deceit, and devastation plague the planet in many forms. The destruction of the natural world gives me constant anxiety for the planet’s creatures great and small and for all the generations downstream. In the midst of all the ugliness, I feel immense gratitude for the art studio. The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is being able to magnify the beauty of the planet by creating figures and landscapes that reflect the stunning nature of life on earth.

Next-generation marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson talks about how important it is for us to envision what the future could look like in a world in which we constantly take in depressing ecological news. When Krista Tippet interviewed Ayana on her podcast On Being, she explored the question “could we let ourselves be led by what we already know how to do, and by what we have it in us to save?” This is the same inquiry process I take when I work on a new piece of art. There is nothing more rewarding to me about being an artist than offering my vision of the future in the hopes that it helps shape a new paradigm.

Contact Info:

• Website: sudierakusin.com
• Instagram: sudie.rakusin
• Other: Instagram @sudie.rakusin