Petersburg resident Suzanne Fuqua has been creative her whole life. But she only recently started to think of herself as an artist. Now the 70-year-old painter has her first solo show. KFSK’s Hannah Flor went to the artist’s reception at the Clausen Memorial Museum on December 1, and has this story.
Suzanne Fuqua started to paint about half a dozen years ago. At first, it was just a creative outlet, like all the other artistic things she’d done in her life.
But now, Fuqua has nearly 50 pieces hanging throughout the museum.
She said the show is her first official declaration that she is an artist. But her daughter Jane Fuqua said she’s considered her mother an artist for forever.
“I think most of us have you know, but she didn’t allow herself to settle into that until so recently,” she said. “Now look at what came of that.”
The show is titled Before, After, and In Between. That’s in reference to Fuqua’s decades-long journey of artistic exploration. She said at first, she just “dibble-dabbled.” Once she started to paint more regularly, she came to the realization that she was a practicing artist. Since then, she said, she paints with more intention. But it was after committing to a solo show more than a year ago that she began to paint in earnest.
Longtime friend and fellow artist Pia Reilly helped her hang the show at the museum. She said that there are always things hidden in Fuqua’s paintings.
“You know, when you first look at it, it’s like, ‘oh, yeah, look how beautiful that is.’ And then you start to look a little bit closer. And you find all these little quirky things in there,” she said.
Six-year-old Vance Smith was looking at a landscape called Where The North Wind Meets the Sea – yes, that is a Frozen reference – with his parents. He was finding all sorts of things.
“Like two eyes right there and like a nose,” said Vance. “And a hedgehog!”
It’s the hidden things that made Erin Kandoll fall in love with her favorite piece.
“I was initially drawn to the anatomical heart, there’s this beautiful like white light coming out of it,” she said. “But as I investigated further, it was like, the very last thing I noticed on the page to the left of the heart is this just kind of shadow self, just this peak of the thing that lurks within everyone.”
I visited the artist’s cozy basement studio a few days before the show. She said at first she wasn’t sure she needed to have an art show. She thought that she could be content just painting. But then she realized sharing her work opens up more possibilities for inspiration.
Fuqua:
“Whenever there’s an interaction with one of my paintings – and it can run the gamut, someone really not liking it, or I’ve had a few people tell me some different feelings or this, I’ve was thinking this – that’s pay dirt, you know, that’s like, ‘Yes!’ whether it’s good or bad or in between. Someone has a reaction to your painting, when you can ask for more, you know, that’s so cool. So you need to show it. So that’s the show. And I’m recognizing it’s a big step. It’s developing its growth.”
Flor:
“I’m curious about your process of painting. When you start painting, do you know what – do you have a vision for the painting, and you know what you want it to look like in the end? Or does the painting kind of evolve as you go along, as you’re painting?”
Fuqua:
“So I have two different approaches. One is what I call my ‘beachcombing painting,’ and that is, I have no idea. I try to clear my mind and put color down. I tend to run in general patterns I found out, but I like the full spectrum. But I’ll put color down in a random sort of way. I tried to just let myself go and mush it around or spread it this way or that way. And then I look at the painting. And in the variations of the color or the paint, I’ll see something. And I start with that and paint that element. And then it just starts feeding off that and yeah, becomes the painting. And I have a whole series I’ll be hanging that I call the Dreamscape Series, they were all like that. And then a lot of the other ones in the show are very much like that. And then I also sometimes have a vision, like I want to paint something – ferns – or I have an idea, or I’ve seen a photograph. And I really liked the way these two crows looked in this photograph. So I’m gonna use them in a painting. And I’ve – a lot of local people, I’ve used their photographs – Brian Paust, Malena, Marvin, Karen Dillman – just a photo that I’ll see. I have one in the show that’s with kingfishers in it. And I knew I wanted to paint kingfishers and I wasn’t sure what the vista would be. But I did want the kingfishers to be real. And I can’t wait to do a painting where maybe I don’t do that. You know, maybe it’s just splash of color. Anyway, I don’t know where I want to go, I just want to keep trying.”
On opening night, the paintings were selling. Pia Reilly first saw the piece she eventually bought when she was helping Fuqua get ready for the show.
“Right away, it struck something within me, because it’s so much, Suzanne, and it’s so much Southeast Alaska,” she said. “There’s these kind of trees that have so much moss on them that they become sculptures, kind of. And then you know, you look out at the light – and that’s kind of how life is, you know, you just – when you’re in the dark sometimes, and there’s hope, there’s hope there.”
Fuqua and Reilly have a joint show planned at the Juneau gallery, Annie Kaill’s, sometime in 2025.
You can see Before, After and In Between at the Clausen Memorial Museum through Wednesday, December 13th. The museum is open Monday through Friday from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. and from noon until 5 p.m. on Saturdays. It’s located on the corner of 2nd and Fram Streets.
