We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sudie Rakusin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sudie below.

Sudie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

In 2021, within a single month, I experienced the loss of two of my most beloved dogs, Marmalade Moon (a mixed Boxer/Pitt), Fiona Fig (a Great Dane) and I 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 mediation, something I looked forward to that brought me solace and comfort. Using only pen, ink, and colored pencils, I let the sunflowers bring me back into the studio, back to the 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. The 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, stickers, glass coasters and pillow shams. To title these drawings I chose words I associate with hope: witness, simplicity, perseverance, inter-being, flow, unfettered, guide and breathe. The sunflower note cards and stickers are now available in the shop on my website, sudierakusin.com. My hope is that these sunflowers bring the same sense of solace and comfort to others as they did me.

Sudie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I always knew I was an artist; there was never a question about this and there were no other options. As I grew in my art and my feminism broadened to include the welfare of the earth and her animals, I understood we all were categorized as the ‘other’ and in danger. I knew I wanted my work to speak to this truth. I am more political now than I have ever been. In order for us to hold onto fairness, equality, respect for diversity, for our earth, air, water, and animals we need to fight for these things. Maybe because I am a fierce Aries, I cannot abide injustice and why I named my Pittbull Justice Grey.
Every action we take and word we utter is a political statement. I want my work to speak to this. I want it to be a ‘soft place to land’, an oasis, a place where beauty abounds and pays homage to all we hold dear.

I don’t often take time to rest on my laurels, to pat myself on the back because I’m proud of something I’ve created or accomplished. I have a strong work ethic that I learned from my father. I go to work everyday, come down to my studio and pick up where I left off the day before. So perhaps this is what I am most ‘proud’ of. I have never given up. No matter what befalls me I will find a way back to my art, this gift for which I am eternally grateful.

I had a shop on Etsy I left as a political action to protest them having vendors benefiting from the incarceration of those in Florida by selling Aligator Alcatraz merchandise. We tried another platform for awhile that folded. We have just recently refurbished the website, sudierakusin.com, and added a shop to it. It’s really lovely and easy to navigate.

On my website you will be able to see all the different media I have explored; cold wax and oil, acrylic, pen and ink, collage, papier mache, as well as all the many items on the shop. Also you will see the different themes and topics I have looked at closely through my art.

My latest has been numerology. A couple years ago, there was a guest on a podcast who discussed his passion for numerology and the book he was in the process of writing. I bought the book, didn’t read it and misplaced it. In June 2024 I broke my wrist. As part of my ‘OT’ I made papier mache bowls. When I felt ready to try painting again this book resurfaced. I read it, took copious notes and decided to personify each number by capturing the guidance and essence in the inherent expression of the woman and her familiars depicted in the painting. I was in my sketchbook for a long time. It was an amazing experience to see that my hand could again achieve the details that I love so much. All eleven are completed. The last one, number 11 is about the vibrational frequencies all of nature shares and is how we, they communicate.

I found vibrational frequency symbols and incised them into the background of the piece. This idea of trees, mushrooms, dragon flies, elephants, giraffes, etc communicating from one to another fascinated me. I found that bees alert flowers and flowers let bees know where the pollen is most plentiful. Hummingbirds talk to calla lilies and this helps the callas make more nectar. On and on. So ‘There is a Secret Vibrational Language in Nature’ is the series I am working on right now. Please check out my website to see the Numerology Series and the first 5 of the Vibrational Language in Nature series.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I am not sure why the word ‘creative’ rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I do know. I’ve worked diligently, constantly and consistently my entire life doing my work. I feel I’ve earned the privilege to call myself an artist. ‘Creative’ is a random word that anyone can adopt. So, are you a creative because you did a collage last Saturday? My soapbox moment on the word creative.

I was given the gift of a vivid imagination. I tasked myself to get educated to learn perspective, anatomy, light, shadow, design so I could manifest my ideas. One rewarding part of being an artist is that I can make my dreams come true in a number of media as I have envisioned them. I am also rewarded when others see my work and are deeply touched by it. My work is soul work and when it is received by another and they are moved on a heart level I feel I have done my job.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

This particular goal and or mission does not drive my creative journey, but, it is a hope of mine. That is I want my work to get out into the world because I feel I have something to say. I paint and draw and sculpt what I find beautiful; women, animals and the earth. I want women to feel seen and represented in art and know there is someone who finds them powerful, brave and stunning. As a feminist and animal activist I want to create the world as I wish it to be- where harmony exists between animals and humans, where animals are not ‘grown’ for our subsistence but roam free of human predators, where nature is revered and cherished and not ravaged and drained of its resources

Some cannot afford the original, so, my wonderful team and I brainstorm to come up with diverse and exciting ways to reproduce my art. My work has been turned into notecards, coloring books, puzzles, divination cards, a game of concentration, children’s books. My drawings have illustrated and been on the cover of many poetry books, novels, feminist periodicals and newspapers. Some have asked for permission to use my pen and ink drawings for tattoos.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sudierakusin.com
• Instagram: @sudie.rakusin

Image Credits

Avery Danziger – photographer, Chapel Hill, NC