Public Animas Ceremony Part 5b(5): Art. Let It In. (And Celebrate the Artists: Susan Perrin)

Continued lessons from the Public Animas Ceremony: An Invitation to Passion.

Susan. Mother, Artist, Educator, Organizer, etc.
But It's what I cannot put to words that really matters.

If The Vision is true, it will find the right people. Celebrate them.

With great regularity I come across fundraisers, auctions, art shows, etc. featuring varied artworks where there is no mention of the artist contributor as a person. A name, yes. Maybe it is the animist in me, but when I experience art, it usually makes me want to know more about the artist. I think the humans behind the art should be celebrated as much as their work. So, in an effort to do so, we created laminated biographies to accompany each of the bowls that were created for this ceremony. Since the bowls were auctioned off as part of the don't-let-your-ceremony-bankrupt-you strategy, each person who took home a bowl also took home something to help them "know" the artist better. It's all about relationship.

For the next few entries, I will be including the biographies of our artists in an effort to further celebrate them & express our gratitude. Also included are the statements they provided (if provided) about their piece for the Animas Ceremony: An Invitation to Passion.


Susan Shaftan Perrin: Mother, Artist, Educator, Organizer for Our Whole Protogrove, ADF
UrthArts Center of Nature, Creativity and Spirit

Susan Shaftan Perrin is a multi-media artist working primarily in ceramics, making functional art pottery. She also writes, paints canvases and murals, photographs and creates mixed media sculpture. Susan earned her BA in Creative Expression from Empire State College and studied traditional pottery in Japan.

Susan has a special fondness for using a low-fired porcelain clay. With this, she hand builds her ceramic creations, decorating them with a watercolor and crayon technique and finishing them with metallic glaze on the exterior. Inspired by nature, her work is beautiful to look at, hold and use.

Susan founded and directed the O Roe Electric Art Space in Hoboken, NJ (described by the New York Times as a “unique cultural institution”). In cooperation with her husband she established UrthArts Center, a nature and arts school in Samsonville, NY, which has provided 10 years of small classes and intergenerational art workshops. She has taught art to children of all ages for more than 25 years and believes in the simple joys of color.

Artbowls by Susan Perrin.

Susan is also Director of Balanced Consulting, a financial consulting firm in New York where she directs positive growth by supporting the needs and abilities of small businesses, schools, non-profits, and other organizations.
Susan is currently Grove Organizer for Our Whole Protogrove in Samsonville, New York. As sacred storyteller, she maintains the grove’s website, our Whole Grove. In this very intimate, deeply spiritual virtual journal, Susan has chronicled seven years of rituals and memories, as well as the sadness and hilarity of life, family and worship.

To learn more about UrthArts Center, please visit: http://www.urtharts.com 

To see more of Susan Perrin’s ceramic creations, visit her Artbowls Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/Artbowls

“Passion for flowers, summer of love” a/k/a “flowers and hands and sky”
by Susan Perrin.

Multi-Media: Wood, raw pigments mixed with linseed oil and copal varnish, shellac 

About this piece:

Painting about passion and painting as passion. Art as gifts, sacred bowls for sharing.

I love colors and flowers most of all.

If The Vision is true, it will find the right people. Celebrate them.