Sixty of you came back to the Richmond Center to hear Susan Moore talk about her work on Thursday (before the Dance Concert.) She did an excellent job giving us an overview of her work over the course of her career and revealed a lot about herself and her paintings and drawings. If you were one of the sixty who came to her talk please share your reactions to her work and to her as an artist. Many of the works she showed during her talk are on her website: http://susan-moore.com/ This post is limited to those who attended the talk. There will be another opportunity to participate in extra events – for credit – soon.
Direct Encounter With The Arts Spring 2011 
Before arriving to the presentation about Susan Moore’s work, I was some what skeptical about the type of person I would be seeing. For some reason I felt that Susan was going to be a little more rough around the edges then what I saw of her. I think this was because the series of her work that we saw, the main focus was the tattoos and I suppose I would have assumed that she also had tattoos. During the presentation I found that the series about the 2 faces next to each other, done in different color palates, very thought provoking. It got me thinking about how people can see people differently every time they look at them; even when looking at them in a picture. Susan tried to paint the two pictures exactly the same (but in different color palates), but in the end the two did not look identical. It was almost as if she found one thing each time she painted the face and she emphasized it the different paintings. The series also made me wonder if Susan was ever inspired by Andy Worhol’s silk screen portraits of Marilyn Monroe. Her series just reminded me of his work with the multiple portraits.
I really enjoyed Susan Moore’s presentation and also alot of her art work. The art work displayed in the Richmond Center was quite intriguing, so attending the presentation was only right. I love how she uses bright colors to interpret the actuality of the art work in real life. For example, when she was in the phase of drawing tattoos of different people, she used bright colors to ‘copy’ the exact design of the tattoo. I find it very fasinating that she can draw/paint art work so perfect to where it resembles a person or thing. I also enjoyed her life story and how she traveled to so many places and taught the concept of art. Her presentation was interesting, informational, and short, and would love to attend once more.
Seeing Susan Moore last week was worth the time. I saw a woman who was very patient and passionate about her work. Learning that it takes weeks for one layer of her paintings was insane. I would never have that much patience to be able to wait that long to finish one painting. It really amazed me how she could still finish every painting the way she wanted to when she first started working on it because it takes so long to finish one painting. I thought it was very cool how she analyzed tattoos as a work of art because some people do not. I do not agree with that, it takes all lot of skill to make a good tattoo. I was really interested with her artwork because I also am into tattoos and have a fascination with them just like she described she did. I agree with Susan when she says every tattoo has a story behind it. I have one tattoo and I got it when my grandfather died in memory of our friendship and my closeness to him. Most people, when they see my tattoo, say I’m just vain because I got my initials tattooed on my body but they do not know that my grandfather and I have the same ones and that is why I have it. I would have loved to pose and have my picture taken of my tattoo for her artwork because it would give me a chance to tell the story behind it like all of her subjects did before she photographed and painted them.
Susan Moore really got me thinking more of how a good artist goes about their work, rather than the work itself. I thought to myself, how would it be if I went up to complete strangers with tattoo’s and asked them to be a part of my art collection? They may be flattered, but some may be angered, thinking that I view them as some sort of freak show. Great art comes from those artists who ask questions. Since Susan came to the Richmond Center, I view a piece of art deeper than ever before. I try and think about what that artist may have gone through to get that piece of work done, aside from using a paintbrush or pencil. I learned from just hearing Susan speak, that one can appreciate art so much more if they really think about how or why it’s there.
I had a great time listing to Susan Moore speak. Not to simplify her work, but it was great how she could break down her whole career in about an hour. I really like how she went into detail about her influences with her different types of paintings. Whenever I see a painting I like I always wanna know the story behind it, so it was really cool for her to go into detail with a lot of her paintings. I also really enjoyed Susan’s paintings of faces because they seem to have so much emotion and expression behind them. Overall it was a great experience to her Susan explain her paintings, and I would really enjoy to listen to other speakers.
I really enjoyed Susan Moore’s presentation, it was really cool to hear about and see majority of her paintings and drawings she has completed. I was also pretty interested in the way she went about getting people to pose for her, to see their unique tattoo designs, I like looking at peoples tattoos and I am intrigued about why they got the tattoo and the story behind their special artwork. Overall I also enjoyed hearing Susan Moore talk because I got to listen to the perspective from an actual artist with artwork in New York and Philadelphia so listening to her talk about how she goes about her life and her artwork was very interesting to me.
Her work was nothing I expected it to be. I thought it was exotic. That is a perfect word for it. To be so interested in Tattoos, you think she would want to design them or work in a tattoo parlor, but instead she wanted to draw a painting portraying these tattoos on people. The best part of the presentation was when she said she found random people on the street for her paintings. She didn’t know the story behind the tattoo or even know anything about the person. That is what made the paintings interesting to me is to try and figure out the story behind it. Lastly, she showed pictures of what was a scrap book like setting. It was ideas she had pulled from that to do her paintings with. All in all, I really enjoyed her presentation and I am glad i attended it to get the story behind her work.
Barrett Lee
Barrett.m.lee@wmich
When I first seen Susan Moore’s paintings, I really didnt think anything of them because I wasnt interested in her type of paintings. I knew that each of her paintnigs had a meaning to them but i just couldn’t figure it out. Now, since i have heard her talk about them, i really like them because every painting has a story behind it. Susan Moore is an amazing painter and seeing her in person and hearing her talk about how far she has come inspires me in my own way to find my passion in my life!
Susan Moore’s style of artwork is very unique and interesting. There aren’t any other artists that focus most of their artwork on body art that i know of other than Susan Moore. The way she draws the bodies of the people in her pictures in black and white and almost a little bit faded away just adds to how much the tattoos on the bodies stick out with their radiating color. The tattoos almost seemed to float off the page.
I agree with Justin when he says Susan Moore’s art work is something that he has seen very scarcely or as not seen at all. I enjoyed how she focused on one type of artwork for a long time then got bored and moved on to other types of art work. I again agree with Justin when he talks about the way she uses such bright colors on the tattoos and the bodies just a faint black and white outline. It made the tattoos really stand out and tell you exactly what the artist was looking at in the pictures. She took so much time and detail on every little aspect of the tattoos and every dimple or wrinkle on the models body. I enjoyed how she started out drawing very large portraits and then went to the small side by side pictures. I was actually very surprised at how laid back she was about her work. She seems very down to earth and humble about her popularity.
I thought Susan Moore was a very interesting artist. When I first saw her art work in the gallery I didn’t quite understand it, but when I went and heard her speak her art gained a lot more meaning. I couldn’t believe that she actually went out and found people with tatoos to pose for her. I think that made me see her art work in a whole different light. I liked her obsessiveness with tatoos and her reasoning for it. When I went to hear her speak she talked about how she like tatoos because they were art work drawn on the body. I never thought of tatoos like that and I think that made me like them a lot more. She almost made me want to go out and get a tatoo of my own.
I also really liked her other art work because it was different than anything I had ever seen before. She used colors that wouldn’t normally be there but she made it look like it would. The odd colors flowed together in ways I didn’t know was possible. When I was in high school I used to paint all the time so I thought it was interesting to see the different techniques she used.
Susan Moore’s style of was very unique and at the same time gave a familar sense of the well-constructed art we normally view. The fact that she picked random people off the street portrayed a very chaotic beginning to her works but using her amazing abilities ]to create order from the chaos.
Joining Susans talk at the Richmond Center was a great experience to be apart of..to actually see her art and hear about what inspirsed her to create the art was very interesting. i really enjoyed her personality and how deeply she shows her interest in her art work. What i found to be most interesting was to hear how tall the paintings can be.
i know stereotyping is awful, but i am guilty of placing one on susan moore. apologies.
for one, i expected susan moore to be this tattooed, retro, intoxicated-in-the-70s woman who thought the world is powered by the beatles and politics is for dummies.
Then, after the first few minutes listening to her, i realised that she is this phenomenal artist who has a story to tell; not about her but about the people that surround her – her friends, and the people that pass her by everyday. This eventually led her to showcasing ‘art within art.’
When she went through the slideshow, she showed us the ‘metamorphosis’ of her work, and how she has evolved as an artist, it leaves me at wonder – truly blessed to see her and hear her point of view!
I really enjoyed the opportunity to listen to Susan Moore talk about her works and her paintings. After I listened to her I understood what she was telling us from the paintings and I enjoyed her work more. I agree with yasser in the point that it is really amassing to know that she was panting real people that she did not even know. What was surprising is that she did not want to draw any one she new. I wanted to ask her the reason that she did not want to draw people that she knew from her family and her friends after she finish talking but unfortunately I forgot and I didn’t remember until now when I was preparing to write this comment. I would really like meting the other artists that participated with their panting in the gallery so I can understand their paintings more.
The Susan Moore talk was very cool. I have never been to anything like that before so I kind of didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been in class when we’ve had guests, but for her to come here and give a talk all about herself and her work was amazing. She had so many ideas and was so creative. I loved how personal she got. I was just expecting this boring lecture type of talk where this artist just talked about things that I as a non art student has no idea about, but I was able to follow along easily and was able to take an interest in what she was saying. It was nice to see some of her “bad” work as well as her more famous pieces. Her showing us some things that didn’t work out lets her be more relatable. It shows that even though she’s a famous artist she can create things that don’t necessarily work out. I liked that she included things about her family and shared her reasons for why she didn’t want to use them in her work. She said that she already knows them, so she didn’t want to use them.. that threw me off because when I think of doing something I think of being more comfortable doing something that I am familiar with and something that I know and it was shocking that she specifically didn’t want to use them because of that very same fact. She has so many amazing pieces its easy to see why she is so loved as an artist. Her tattoo work was probably the most interesting. Mainly because it’s so detailed and there are so many lines. I also enjoyed her side by side work when she painted the same thing twice to see how similar she would be. It’s such a cool idea because it could show how well you did either time. At first glance they looked pretty identical, but once I started to compare while she was speaking I noticed that they were actually very different. Just small details like shading or slight eye shape or shadow on the teeth, different things like that began to stick out to me as looking different. I also loved that she put that part at the end of things that she liked and things that inspired her. It let us not only observe her work but it allowed us to get to know her deeper, and see what types of things that inspires her which in turn allows us to get to know her work better and understand it more. Her talk really taught me more about art and artists and it was very enjoyable.
..( that last one sent on accedent)..
…She seemed to have simple, but very well thought out emotion describing her pictures. When I first saw her work at the Richmond center, it was not my favorite to look at; however, after she showed us more of the tattoo drawings, it kind of grew on me, and I actually enjoyed looking at all the different tattoos she had found on people from around the country. Overall, the presentation was enjoyable, and I’m glad I decided to go.
I was really happy I attended her presentation. It was a very unique experience to hear the actual artist talk about her own work rather than the another person explaining what the work means.
Im very pleased to have had the opportunity to meet Mrs. Susan Moore. She’s an artist that have develpoed so much over time and that makes me appreciate her art. The fact that she was infactuated with the tattoos in her art work was very interesting. Being that tattoos are a form of art it was very good for me to see so many different forms of art combined into her pieces. I embrace the human body. I feel as though the human body is amazing and i thought it was good to see in her art the differences amongst us. I had a few pieces that stood out to me overall. I loved the pieces that Susan used the oil paint. I appreciate Susan Moore coming in and explaining to us the meanings in her art.
i like this section it was very helpful more than other sections, because i understand why the artist draw this picture, also what is her massage for people. Susan Moore great artist. she has great personality. she talked about every things her back ground and her jobs. she answer the important question for me. why she focusing in human body
This section was helpful, I enjoy it because it was interesting to meet artists and know about her works. She surprised me when she said I am obsessed with tattoos; I would like to know why she obsessed with it I think tattoo is
nasty. I really enjoyed hearing about her stories behind her art work and the way. It was a good Opportunity
I realy enjoyed miss Susan Moor art talk at Richmond Center, everthing was emzing her personlity, she was so Quiet, kind and very easy woman to know, she let me to get to the art world when she start talking about the art, and her backgrond, her way for chosing the paces, what kind of art she likes, what kind of tools she used and, all that Elements,and informtion help me to know who is susan Moor, I like the way she focusing in the tottas in the human bodys, becaues i blive that kind of art worth to explain, and let many people to know the human bodys somthing so hard to darwing and not esay to do, althought that Susan did it so good and her works was outstanding work, that mean she is so emzing artist,
I love tattoos in the same way that Susan does. I like the artistic expression put on the body. My only issue is that with the body as a canvas, there are rarely any do-overs. The thing is, I really want a tattoo. In fact, I want a few, but I can barely commit to relationship let alone a life long tattoo. Im not one for commitment, and I never have been. I wish I was like these people in her paintings who know what they want, and where they want it. These tattoos are works of art, and many times very beautiful. But, they last forever, and I really feel like I would never be able to make up my mind. I wonder if Susan would mind creating a panting of me with tattoos on it so I can see what I would look like.
With having Susan Moore come in and talk was great. When we initially went to the Richmond Center she was my favorite artists. The fact that she is able to take something simplistic, such as a tattoo and turn it into the center of a painting. As she was explaining her work, it took me by surprise how long she worked on just the tattoo art. She started from drawing 5×7 figures and went from there. To me my favorite painting was the Pheonix, and during her presentation she explained that that was one of her favorites as well. Even with many of her face and body paintings she gives each painting a certain look, to which it looks very texturized. The fact that she takes much of her paintings and doesn’t give them a necassary meaning, but there is still a simplistic reason to why she chose what to paint.
I really enjoyed going to listen to Susan Moore. I loved her work when we wen’t to see it at the Richmond Center so i was excited that she was the artist we got to hear. All of her work that she showed us was amazing. I liked that she talked about some stuff outside her to like her history and her family because it make things more personal and eaiser to listen to. I love how she focus on the body or the face alone without backgrounds or anything like that. I really enjoyed learning about her process of how she gets to a painting. From how she got the idea to what canvas and paint she used. I had no idea what went into a single painting. It is indreadable that she has all these ideas and how she narrows it down to one and all the pre-stuff she does like the mini drawing to get to what she was to into make into a large painting. Then all the weeks and weeks of of work that goes into the one painting is increadable. And on top of that she works on multiple paintings at a time. Over all I loved the experice and thinnk that she is an incredible artist.
I totally agree with Katie. After I heard Susan’s speech I felt I understood her paintings much better. last week, I was looking at Susan Moore’s paintings as some pretty paintings but without any feelings or meanings involved. Meanwhile, that I actually know who Susan Moore is and some of hear interests, I look at her painting trying to feel and think more. In addition, the fact that the paintings are real people made the paintings more interesting and valuable to me. Also, I thing that I got an Idea how the artists, in general, think and change their direction when they start a work and how each individual work has story for its own. It was really a pleasure to see Susan talking about herself and her works.
Susan Moore did an excellent presentation of her work, use with acrylic and paint sticks. She lectured with a history of her concepts, meaning of work, desire for portraits. She pointed out many of her drawings are of face or body, but rarely are they combined. She showed a composite of a piece in which is drawn of three different people’s body sections. She was looking for the right width of a man’s back with muscle tone. The man’s back with a tattoo was too skinny to draw, and another individual’s hands are needed for the right look in the piece to satisfy her composite.
It is a wonderful display of art that she brought in her portfolio slide show to exhibit her lecture. Her explanation of tattoo drawing to be a desire of her expressional pieces since trying to use other skin studies (skin diseases) of humans never brought any desire with artistic inspiration. She has no tattoos, but showed other family members to wear them for fashion. Susan Moore’s work leads one to believe she would be a person to display the artistic design of tattoo skin. She admires the work of others too carry it over into a paper skin exhibition.
As a person with no artistic talent in drawing I love her work! It was truly an honor to sit there and have her share her world with us. At first i thought she was some weird woman that just sits around painting, but she is a beautiful individual that I have much respect for. I took great interest in her drawing “Dragon” because any artist would take a small waist woman instead of a heavy-set woman. It genius the way she draws the tattoos as if its Photoshop or like it doesn’t belong on the skin but on a different sheet of paper. Another thing that was really neat was how she emphasized all the eyes in her face paintings, she put such hard and cold expressions that it was like if two holes were cut where they eyes should be and a real human was standing there seeing with theirs.
I really enjoyed seeing the evolution of Susan’s work. I really liked seeing the transition from faces, to bodies, and now doing both. I think my favorite of here pieces was the most recent works. The double portraits were insanely fascinating, her different uses of color and light to paint the same picture really caught my attention. Overall i was very glad i went to the show. I always enjoy hearing artists talk about their work, and learning about their inspirations and ideas.
I really enjoyed Susan Moore coming to talk and explain her work with us. It gave better explanation and meaning to many of the paintings and drawings that were shown. Its amazing to see how great and detailed her work is. The colors and shading she uses makes the paintings look as realistic as a real person. I also like how passionate she is about her work. You can really tell that she loves her job just by the way she talks and explain different things. For her to just stop random people with tattoos on the street and ask for them to come to her studio and pose for her is also amazing. That also shows you how passionate she is. Of all the paintings and drawings that she showed us, I like the tattoo paintings the most. Tattoos really mean a lot. An image or quote that you have permanently put on your body have to be meaningful to you in some way. Also the fact that none of the faces where on the bodies of the tattooed paintings really give the image a mysterious look and feel. I really enjoyed Susan more and would be glad to see her when and if she ever comes back!
Attending this was really cool because we got to see inside an artist’s life and what makes her “tick.” It was really funny to hear how obssessed with tattoos she was but I can understand why. She described it as a way to draw on your body and as an artist that’s exactly what your doing but only on paper. So seeing artwork on a body is a new way to paint something. I really enjoyed seeing all of her paintings and why she drew them. I noticed that even her daughters are good artists. I wish I had her genes!! It was also really cool to see Susan as a real person not just a famous artist, it made everything seem so much more realistic so it was nice to see that she was a normal human being just like you and me. It was really funny to hear about her going up to random people and asking them to call her to come pose for her. She seemed to have a very good sense of humor which was enlighting to see.
I pretty much enjoyed the talk with Susan Moore, i felt that i understood more about her work than i previously did. the most amazing thing i learned was that she used random people off the street to create her art work. she is truly amazing.
The talk with Susan Moore about her paintings was very informational and I’m glad that i went. I agree with Yaser in that i feel like i understand some of her work better. Some of her work still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me but it’s her artwork and her way to express herself so who says it has to make sense to anybody else other than her. I’m also amazed that she used random people that she didn’t know along with family and friends to create most of her artwork. I thought that she probably just used pictures and added other elements to them to create the effect she wanted. Like with the tattoo pieces, I thought that she just put those tattoos on the bodies but she told us that they mostly actually on the bodies that she was using. There was only one painting that she placed a tattoo on someone that didn’t actually have that tattoo. I loved the fact that she showed us the face tattoos that she tried and decided was a bad idea. I feel that most famous artists would not show or admit to things like that. I was also impressed with how long she said it took for each painting that she showed. I never really thought about how long it takes to complete a piece like that since i don’t know a whole lot about art. I didn’t realize that you had to paint the picture in layers starting with low values like black and working your way up to high values leaving weeks in between to dry. I just thought you could change the color like you would do as a child and just continue on. I also love the idea of the double images that she’s working on now. Paint an image twice in two different ways and then compare and contrast them.
Leppek said, “I also love the idea of the double images that she’s working on now. Paint an image twice in two different ways and then compare and contrast them.”
I liked it too. When Susan Moore presented those slides to us I allowed my focus to dart between the two images. The effect was strange and interesting. Each face seemed to say something different, but I couldn’t tell you what exactly. Weird.
Also, when Moore mentioned implied narratives, this kind of opened up my perspective on her work and other works of art. We had already learned about implied lines, but learning about implied narratives really helps my vocabulary for talking about art.
The whole idea of Susan Moore picking random people off the street to create her art work was simply phenomenal. If someone asked for me to come in and take pictures of my tattoos would be very interesting. When looking at the ideas that she had behind her work I could not believe how great of a personality and intelligent background that she had. I thought the most interesting part of the presentation was when she said she didn’t have any tattoos and just liked the whole idea of them. It was a great privilege to get to meet such an amazing artist.
I also think it’s so awesome she used random people on the streets to use as models for her pieces. I thought it was interesting to hear that Susan is so indecisive that she wouldn’t be able to get a tattoo herself because she wouldn’t be able to make choices about what or where it would go! You would think someone with such an artistic talent would be able to have SOMETHING out there somewhere she would want put on her body because she is so interested in body artwork. I had no idea that creating some of her paintings could take so long to complete them! I never really thought about how much work an artist really puts into their pieces. I’m glad I attended the talk because she was such so personable and had a great sense of humor. Some of my favorite pictures she showed us were ones where she had her work area showing, there is so much going on in such small spaces it’s amazing how much detail and planning goes into her art!
I really enjoyed listening to Susan Moore talk about her works. To be honest, I was skeptical about whether or not I would enjoy this experience or not and decided to go based mostly on the extra credit. I was very pleasantly surprised to find myself glad that I attended this event last night. In my imagination, I had conjured up an image of an eccentric woman who was so deeply invested in the arts that I would not be able to connect on any level to her. In actuality, Susan Moore seemed like a regular person with a good sense of humor who happened to have an artistic talent. It was refreshing for me to hear her talk about her inspirations for her work with tattoos and bodies because I feel like I spend so much time in my education analyzing and trying to find a deeper meaning to things that it gets rather exhausting. In regards to many of her paintings, it seemed like Susan Moore just simply liked what she was doing as opposed to creating a grandiose work with several hidden meanings behind it. For me, this was a breath of fresh air because it allowed me to stop analyzing her art (because that is what I have been taught to do up to this point) and step back and just enjoy it for what it is.
Going into Susan Moore’s overview of her paintings, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I think I had a different image in my mind of what I portrayed her to be. When she was talking about her life, and the story behind her paintings, I felt like I had more of a connection to the artwork than I did the first time I saw it. I felt like since I could see who she was, what her life was like, and what she was feeling about the paintings she liked, (and didn’t), it helped make it all seem more real. Also from the fact that she picked real-life people to model her paintings after! I was interested to see how her taste changed in how she wanted to paint, and also interesting how she sticks to working with people alone, without a backdrop. Overall, I thought that being able to listen to Susan Moore gave me the opportunity to look at her paintings in a more deeper sort of way. I really enjoyed listening to her speak and to be able to hear the story of her life, and her paintings.
I thought that Susan Moore did an amazing job speaking today! i really enjoyed hearing about her stories behind all her art work and the way she went about creating her works of art. I thought it was funny how Susan actually found people off the streets with tattoos to paint. Overall I really enjoyed listening to her talk about her work today!!