Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Susan Bercu. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Susan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

For me, being an artist is not a choice but who I am. I never imagined doing anything else. I studied art through high school and college culminating in an MFA in ceramic sculpture and painting. There were early art career successes with galleries and exhibits when an ensuing work life and moves from place to place, rendered ebbs and flows. My work was always art-related with years of teaching and my graphic design business. Compelled by my inner drive, I have a home studio where I no longer strive in a clock-ticking, dollar-value mercantile world but like a squirrel hunting for acorns, freely follow the zigs and zags of art-time. I don’t aim for happiness but for deep meaning. I embrace a journey that is unknown and challenging.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I consider myself a visual storyteller. My themes celebrate the beauty of our natural environment while warning of our existential threats. I address science denial, conspiracy theories, the staggering increase of gun violence, assaults on human rights including women’s reproductive choices, the global pandemic, and the threats to our US Democracy. My husband and I were evacuated twice from the wildfires here in Santa Rosa, CA where the inferno raged down the creek just 30 feet from our home. No one is immune to the dangers of climate change and our responsibility for it.

My need to create order out of chaos is tested in these hyper-chaotic times where I honor nature’s dichotomy in my art. The narrative continually leads me through a range of media including drawing, painting, and three-dimensional artworks. My constructed assemblages are dedicated to the use of recycled materials. Since fires, drought and hungry wildlife threaten my garden, I now populate it with totems and flowering pots I create in glazed clay. I embrace the challenges that turn ideas into the tangible.

It is important for me to engage the community in interactive events that raise awareness around energy consumption and over-consumerism. As a grant recipient from ArtSurround of Sonoma, I facilitated “Cast-Offs” Streamers, where the public was invited to incorporate the collected plastic and metal waste for their new artistic lives in the collaborative hands-on creative project. The “Cast-Offs” were festooned on tree branches in Petaluma, CA. I led the activity again at the Santa Rosa Children’s Museum where in November I will facilitate workshops where we will construct wall masks from recycled materials. These environmentally themed workshops are opportunities for young children to feel empowered. We have a duty to them…our legacy.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Environmental responsibility and social justice issues fuel my themes. My father, a hydraulics engineer taught me that our interactions with nature have consequences that we must try to predict. We have a responsibility to take care of our planet. I communicate these ideas through my art. Of course, my main drive is to make things and to see how they turn out! I love the process with its surprises and challenges.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Unless an artist is ultra-famous, like a Picasso, I don’t think non-artists nor non-artist supporters understand the importance of art for society. We artists are communicators and want an audience and conversation. I think we can be victims of the juried shows where we spend enormous amounts of time and money in application and may rarely be accepted. Yet, our entry fees support the show. To me, the work in juried shows is about the same quality as non-juried shows. I will list some of the best formats for me. Locally, Creative Sonoma works hard to bring artists and community together. I was fortunate to be one of 23 grant recipients of ArtSurround 2022-23. We were all paid and honored, as well are in an ongoing directory. In 2021, I was scheduled for a retrospective exhibit at the City of Santa Rosa Finley Community Center when the Covid quarantine went into place. Instead, an online exhibit showed samples of my work. The important global international exhibit site What’s Next for Earth is open to all artists that answer their bi-monthly call addressing environmental issues on Instagram. It follows the Post Carbon Institute’s “Think Resilience”, a free online course originating at Stanford University. I am fortunate to live 30 minutes from the Sonoma Community Center with its fabulous ceramics program that I utilize to do my clay work. It would be great if more community centers had resources for artists.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susan_bercu/
• Other: http://susanbercu.art https://www.lincolnstrangefates.com https://vimeo.com/301961143

Image Credits
Ken Smith Photography