We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Suzanne Michele Chouteau. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Suzanne Michele below.
Suzanne Michele, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I am an artist who has been making prints since I was in kindergarten. The first techniques we learned at that time we’re simple potato stamps and monotypes. The next significant printmaking experiences came in my 9th grade art class where I was taught to carve battleship linoleum for a relief print. It was a terrible material for teenagers to use since it was super hard to carve and inevitably students would cut themselves with the Speedball burins! I’ve only a handful of times used that material again… Since I have had a choice I use safety-cut for my own work as well as for my students. In high school I was introduced to etching copper in a 11 parts water to one-part nitric acid bath. I immediately fell in love with etching which I would further pursue in college. In college I additionally learned lithography and serigraphy (screen-printing). By the time I finished college I realized that I wanted to go to graduate school to make more prints, draw constantly and study art history. At the time, the University of Iowa printmaking program required us to take life drawing every semester because they go hand-in-hand. To pay my way through graduate school where I earned both MA and MFA degrees, I worked as a graphic artist and illustrator at the University of Iowa Foundation. This was a huge educational experience that taught me so much about design and academia, just as and even sometimes more valuable than what I was learning in “school”. In my opinion, the most essential skills for being an artist/educator, for being a printmaker, draughtsman, art historian, graphic designer and illustrator are being a voracious observer, thoughtful reader, sensitive mark-maker, and someone who doesn’t expect or want results right away. I actually think it is good that things take time and I am glad I haven’t really desired to speed up my learning processes because I would have missed things along the way (including the mistakes). It took me 5 years to complete my MA and MFA when typically it was supposed to take 3 years. The obstacles that stood in the way of me learning more during graduate school were the handful of faculty who didn’t truly teach to everyone–there were a whole lot of things that I was not taught about relief printing, multi-color printing and such at the time because the faculty just didn’t teach it. Biggest takeaway about learning anything is that you will never learn it all in one program or school or job–you must become a constant learner and teacher for your own artistic development. The journey on the art path can be a long and rewarding one which is so exciting!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Suzanne Michele Chouteau. I am a wife and mother, an artist and a designer, a teacher and an advocate who is a citizen of the Shawnee Tribe. I bring passionate engagement to everything I do. I believe that artists of all kinds make the world a better place and our work can be a force for good, for healing, for peace and justice, and for LOVE. To learn more, please visit www.suzannemichelechouteau.com
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being a creative person, of being an artist is the joy I feel in the process of making, of preparing for a class or a matrix for printing, of continuously investigating and learning for the thing I want to do next… This joy in the making has been with me for as long as I can remember and I hope it will be with me until my last breath! The great artist Hokusai (who made some 10,000 artworks) on his deathbed apparently said ”If heaven will extend my life by ten more years…’ then, after a pause, ‘If heaven will afford me five more years of life, then I’ll manage to become a true artist.’ Even this great artist still wanted to make more work because he had still more to say! I think this is probably true of most artists right? There is so much possibility in creative endeavors and we are driven by our visions to bring them to life.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My goal or mission all along has been to make objects of beauty that tell a story, that reflect on society/history/the environment, that visually articulate my soul and my thoughts about life. My aesthetic of beauty drives me–giving me a sense of purpose. The great Shawnee Chief Tecumseh said: “Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.” Tecumseh’s “Way of Life” vision affirms the importance of creating beautiful things–we should all seek to make our lives beautiful, perfect and filled with LOVE. I desire viewers to consider my work for longer than a few seconds. I desire viewers to enjoy what they see and also to think more deeply about it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.suzannemichelechouteau.com