lee mis laVios

A grouping of twenty Coin Cunts is in Mexico City for their international debut in the exhibition lee mis laVios. This clever show title is a play on words meaning 'read my lips' with the capital letter 'V' symbolizing the vulva/vagina.

The exhibition, lee mis laVios, chooses to undress the vagina from its prejudices, fetishes and desires, aiming for the acceptance of its sexual naturalization.

Throughout traditional art history the vagina has been systematically excluded, its representations either fade under a translucent veil or are replaced by a sexless pubis. This absence of detail has transformed it into an obscene and indiscreet symbol.

The gesture of symbolizing the vagina becomes an excuse to avoid it. Masculine gaze has constructed a specific imagery around it, based on simultaneous desire-censorship and summing it up through fertility symbols, objects of desire or immoral impurities. Its materialization is either morbid or symbolic. Indeed, vaginas have lost their right to (re)present themselves.

Lee mis laVios unveils the vagina from its prejudices in order to confront it as it is. By analyzing its allegorical connections we deconstruct the structure that surrounds it.

Read my lips: a vagina is more than anything, a vagina. It does not require any validation by dignifying it through symbols. The vagina exists as it is, dignified and worthy of its being. Now it's time to make this evident. 

lee mis laVios

31 de Marzo - 14 de Abril

Ex Iglesia de Corpus Christi

Mexico City, Mexico

Participating artists include Jamie Martinez, Maisie Cousins, Suzanna Scott, Rosa Borras, Sara Lorusso and Los Ninxs.

Playing With Scissors

Thought I'd share a few images of my Bound Scissors out in the wild. Playing with scissors is a safe activity as long as they're bound and stitched up tight! I'm pleased that this interactive piece has now been exhibited in three venues, a year ago in Touch: Interactive Craft, this past January in Material As Medium, and this weekend as part of Play, an all media exhibition at the SAA Collective in Springfield, Illinois. 

The exhibition Play was juried by Bob Dixon, an ceramicist and retired professor from Benedictine University. Play is the spontaneous, unstructured time found to foster creativity and problem-solving skills. As we grow up we tend to trivialize play and relegate it to childhood, but it’s an important element of life at any age. The exhibit features work not only about play in the traditional sense, but also the idea of being in the moment, of inspiring wonder, of invoking your natural curiosity. The viewers are encouraged to interact and play with many of the pieces on exhibit.

PLAY: All Media Exhibition

SAA Collective / H.D. Smith Gallery / Springfield, IL

March 10 - 31, 2017 

Opening reception March 11 / 5:30 - 7:30 pm

Participating artists: Bruce Alves, Lex Archibald, Piety Choi, Betsy Dollar, Lauren Feret, Cathy Ganschinietz, John Hayes, Tessa Martinez, Corrin Smithson McWhirter, Beth Rodgers, Suzanna Scott

Thank you to all of you who've shared your images of Bound Scissors via social media. #boundscissorproject

 

Image by Adele Stuckey

Image by Leslie Mounaime

Image by Katie Riggs

Image by Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts

Image by Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts

Red Coin Cunts

A fresh bouquet of Coin Cunts for the upcoming Valentine season--made with love especially for all you nasty women! This new print features the reds and purples found in my larger collection of inverted coin purses. Women around the world are fighting back and speaking out in multitudes to challenge the rise of misogynist, racist, and ignorant rhetoric that is dominating the cycle of our lives. Your purchase of this print will support my work and a portion of the proceeds will go to the local chapter of the National Organization for Women who sponsored the Women's March I participated in this past weekend.

Encaustic Sculpture

 

Tangents, aluminum foil, plaster, encaustic, leather harness

During the second half of last year I spent a good deal of time experimenting with encaustic paint on three dimensional surfaces. Out of this process two finished works emerged and I've finally gotten around to photographing them for the website. This Spring I'll set up my window box fan to expel those pesky wax fumes and get to work on some more of these encaustic sculptures.

Convolution, epoxy resin, plaster, encaustic, artificial sinew, fabric, chain, fishing weight

 

Shafts & Glands

An evolution of glandular shapes and biomorphic shafts, this family of Fiber Forms has been reproducing, and I've added several new ones to the website. 

I am thinking of the intricate web in/of our reproductive bodies and throughout the natural world. A tangle of coital life, I explore the animate and inanimate alike--whether ovaries, stamens, mammary glands or ancient fertility fetishes, modern sex toys and contraceptive devices. 

Through these forms I seek to meld the visual pleasures of knots and knobs with the endless labyrinth of time and sensual memory through repetitive twisting, wrapping and stitching. 

Read more about the process of creating these Fiber Forms.

We've Moved

Cocooned sculpture waiting to be loaded onto the moving truck.

Our family has moved from Springfield, Missouri. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of packing, cleaning, and unpacking. Not to mention the better half of a day spent at the DMV getting our driver's licenses and most importantly registering to vote! Patrick is joining the Department of Economics & Finance at Louisiana Tech University this Fall--thus the reason for our relocation. We are excited to get acquainted with our new city of Ruston, Louisiana--aka The Peach City.

My two favorite movers. Lizzie was a trooper & earned her triple-allowance.

 

Boxes piled in my new studio. Now it's time to get back to making!

Fiber Options

Cheese Box of Vulvas by Susan Hensel and Plexus by Suzanna Scott

I'm pleased to share that one of my fiber pieces, Plexus, is included in the exhibition Fiber Options: Material Explorations at the Maryland Federation of the Arts Circle Gallery. The show is comprised of seventy-two works using fiber in varied range of material and application. It is a wonderful collection of contemporary fiber works.

Fiber Options: Material Explorations

MFA Circle Gallery

Annapolis, Maryland

July 14 - August 6

Opening Reception: July 24th, 3-5 pm

 

Getting To Quiet by Laurie LeBreton

From hand-knit pieces felted into sculptural monuments to video monitors shrouded in hooded sweatshirts, the options in fiber are limitless. Combining an array of materials, both traditional and unexpected, with historic to digital techniques, the artists of Fiber Options: Material Exploration exhibit artistry, innovation, and emotion. Precisely pieced quilts, meticulously knotted vessels, and delicately dyed silks are a few examples of the supreme skill and dexterity employed over countless hours by these artists. Oftentimes, several skills appear in a singular piece: stitched still lifes on hand-dyed cotton or fabric and thread encased in encaustic, all demonstrate supreme artistry.

Innovation commingles with tradition in a quilt deliberately severed into quadrants or sweetly stitched flowers paired with a expertly embroidered dead cockroach. Several artists reinvent conventional notions of fiber art by including unexpected materials. Typewriter ribbon and VHS cassette tape replace wool and linen in woven constructions. Fiber is no longer precious with roofing nails driven into silk and sticks set afire dangerously near hand-painted ropes. Technological advances provide artists with the ability to print on fabrics and digitize embroidery, opening up new options in the world of fiber.

Beyond the tangible, emotion and character can be observed in the stab of the needle, throw of the weaving shuttle, submersion of fabric into dye, and sometimes, sorrow and devastation literally spill forth onto the floor. Steadfast resolve surfaces in a hyper-realistic embroidered black eye while vulnerability lingers in a threadbare cloth. Clothing carries deep-rooted symbolism—a hooded sweatshirt, a bridal veil, a Hijab—and immediately conjure a range of emotions and viewpoints.

Fiber speaks to us in so many ways. It can be intricately detailed or all encompassing, traditionally constructed or surprisingly innovative, intimately displayed or globally outspoken. The options in fiber are endless.

Susanna Fields-Kuehl, juror

Big Flower by Lisa Marie Barber

Coin Cunt Print

The 'Coin Cunt' project began innocently last summer when I was playing around with an old coin purse. I flipped it inside out, and saw a vaginal form emerge from my playful pinching and tucking. Using a needle and thread I stitched it into place. As I thought about it, I found so much association between the little pocket-like forms and the inferred suggestions that these new objects brought to mind.

I began sharing the 'Coin Cunts' on social media and am amazed at the feedback it has provided. With a simple alteration these ubiquitous objects became evocative and their appeal provocative when I dubbed them 'Coin Cunts'. Aside from the chuckles, I've found that others can see in this project our assumed cultural associations of money and women, prostitution, female genital mutilation, suppression of women, gender equality, body image ideals, equal pay and the list continues to grow.

Ever since the 'Coin Cunt' images began making their rounds on social media I've had to turn down numerous purchase requests. My goal with this project is to grow the collection until I have a large installation of 100 or more. In order finance the rest of this project and give you an opportunity to enjoy this image on a daily basis I'm offering a limited edition of 25 pigment prints on my website.

A video posted by Suzanna Scott (@suzanna_scott) on May 24, 2016 at 7:55am PDT

Quicksand

Josh Stone, SV#3B, 2015, HD Video.

Another venue for a second grouping of my Coin Cunts presented itself this month: QUICKSAND, a pop-up exhibit at the New Art Center in Newton, MA, features work that disrupts expectation by erasing, covering, and fracturing the human form, asking broader questions about the spectrum of cultural visibility. Through the lens of a fragmentary experience, the body becomes an allusion, goes missing, or is present as a mere impression. The figure on view here is unstable, like quicksand, and contends with the boundaries of identity, territory, and the negation of the body through technology. 

Quicksand

April 29 - May 8, 2016

A MassArt Production at The New Art Center, Newton MA

Reception: Friday April 29th, 6pm-8pm

Featured artists include Salome Asega, Casey Ausman, Bashezo, AK Burns, Carlos Jimenez Cahua, Caleb Cole, Furen Dai, Allison M. Disher, Janet Loren Hill, Pope L., Curtis Mann, Susan Metrican, Alyssa Minahan, Landon Newton, Diana Jean Puglisi, John Robert Roy, Suzanna Scott, Corinne Spencer, Josh Stone, Triiibe, Xtina Wang, Xu Wang, Joe Zane

The exhibit has been organized by the Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s Graduate Seminar in Curatorial Practice class taught by Dina Deitsch.

The Female Complex

My Coin Cunt collection has taken on a life of its own thanks to the wonders of social media. I've been invited by artist, Kristin Mahan to participate in The Female Complex at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where these twenty-eight fiber pieces will be making their debut. The vaginal shaped works are sculpted from inside-out coin purses.

Feminism is nothing new-it has been around for more than a century-so why is it still so important to this day? As society progresses and the older waves of feminism accomplish much of what they set out to do, problems that were always there but never dealt with have begun to rise to the surface. "The Female Complex" will present the multiplicity of the emerging wave of feminism through contemporary art. Each of the 12 artists presented uses personal experiences to inform their work, which allows the work to be honest. The wide variety of mediums and subject matter in this exhibition will form a dialogue that reflects the diversity of issues placed under the umbrella of this developing feminist movement. 

Kristin Mahan, curator

Participating artists include Samantha Aasen, Brooke Denton, Jeanne Donegan, Tessa Edgren, Lisa Guevara, Sheree Haynie, Katie Hovencamp, Kayla Linden, Roberta Malkin, Sidney Mullis, Claudia Rose, and Suzanna Scott. 

The Female Complex

Curated by Kristin Mahan

MEDICI Gallery / Richards Hall

Monday, April 18

Closing Reception April 22 / 5-7 pm

New Work

Scions, aluminum, plaster, resin, metal coating, wax

Glandular shapes clustered together in various mediums. Hanging and protruding from an old paint grate and leather bandolier my observation of the drop form continues. New work on my website this week.

Festooned, metal grate, paint, vinyl, wool, beads

Residue, leather, artificial sinew, encaustic wax
 

Women In The Arts

My sculpture, Raw Guts, will be included in the 23rd annual Women in the Arts show highlighting the work of sixteen talented women artists. In conjunction with Women’s History Month at the University of Missouri, the Craft Studio presents this exhibit as a tribute to women, past, present, and future whose artistic creations are often overlooked and forgotten.

The artists of this exhibition have, like all good artists, made what they know. Their experiences, methods, and styles are diverse and lovely. Georgia O’Keeffe wrote, “I find that I have painted my life, things happening in my life – without knowing it.” I am encouraged and impressed that the women showing work here have dealt boldly with the imagery of their lives.

-Hannah Reeves, Juror

Women In The Arts 2016

Monday, February 29th – Friday, March 25th

Reception: Thursday, March 3rd, 4 pm– 6pm

Fiber Forms

A collection of fiber forms has been slowly evolving in my studio. The core of each one is made using a common household material--aluminum foil. Once the skeleton is constructed I wrap it with layer upon layer of fabric, lace and string. These bound layers are pinned into place until I'm satisfied with its shape, color and texture. During the tedious process of stitching I let go of time and enjoy the meditative process of slowly marking the surface with stitches and securing the layers of each cocoon. On a few of the pieces I've sculpted glandular caps out of resin. After they are finished with a brass metal coating these accents add visual contrast to the stitched surface. So far I've completed thirteen of these intimate fiber forms and I invite you to take a peek.

New Sculpture

Top: Reticulum, metal object & gut
Bottom left: Tumescence, aluminum, plaster, resin, encaustic
Bottom right: Doublet, metal object & gut

I've completed a trio of new sculpture this month. Two of them employ the use of gut--my latest material obsession. The third is a pair of hanging pieces. They are built with an armature of aluminum and plaster then sculpted with resin. Layer upon layer of encaustic paint was fused onto the surface resulting in a luscious but subtle mix of color and texture impossible to capture in an image. Using encaustics on three-dimensional forms is something I will continue to explore.

Gut Reaction

For the past couple months I've been experimenting with a new material--pig intestines. No I didn't harvest the guts of a pig. I bought them from a butcher where they are used as sausage casings. I received them relatively clean and packed in a salt brine. They do have a distinct scent but not a bad as I expected. The first day I played with them I didn't rinse them well enough and my attempts dried with a crusty layer of salt. Now I rinse and double rinse. When I run water through them they balloon and display their fibrous membrane--an exquisite lace pattern.

When the gut is wet it is a bit stretchy and adheres to itself. Pieces can be cut and layered, overlapping slightly to create a bond. When fully dry the gut becomes translucent. It has a skin-like quality which is what attracted me to it in the first place. My curiosity was sparked when I came across an image online of native Alaskan art using seal and pig intestines. Digging around some more I found the work of fiber artist, Pat Hickman--that's when I knew I had to try this material.

Through trial and much error I've been exploring the possibilities of gut. I've layered, molded, stitched, knotted and wound it into and onto various forms. Small studies are laying about the studio--some will be pitched and others pursued.

Instincts

Instincts, aluminum, plaster, resin, metal coating, patina, wax 
 

This grouping of draped, nipple pieces are an extension of my fascination with the drop form. The bell-like breasts are more mammalian than human and more fetish than flesh--like an ancient rattle or tool of sorts. I try not to think of these associations when working. The forms began intuitively by twisting aluminum foil into a rough armature. After a layer of plaster they kinda looked like bent q-tips. Haha. I have more of these forms waiting but finished up this first group of four so I could see where they were going. Not sure how I would exhibit them, hanging individually or tied together as a bundle? There are many possibilities here.

 

My Website

I'm excited to announce that my website is live! You can visit suzannascott.com to view my new work and browse archives of previous work. Any feedback you can offer would be much appreciated. I promise you'll earn karma points for notifying me of typos, browsing glitches, etc. Thank you for looking.

Raw Beginnings

Sometimes I arrive at the end stage of a piece and grieve its raw beginnings. The initial sketch of a form is a pure thing. There are no layers invested in its being. It is a skeleton without flesh. Tactile with its lumps and bulges I wonder if I should embrace its incompleteness and let it live as is. Only I can see its fleshy future.

A video posted by Suzanna Scott (@suzanna_scott)