Sarah Kusa, Artist

 

Hello and welcome to the 47th 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! This time I interviewed the super talented and unique Sarah Kusa. I have been following what she does for many years and I always take something new from her art whenever I see one of her shows. It always leads to a discussion which I think is a real achievement. Her answers were really great and I think you will agree! Thanks for reading and try to catch Sarah's show at Catherine G. Murphy Gallery! (Artist photo by Rebecca Slater / Other photos from the Instagram I run with my Dad: @artworldexploration / Artist Instagram: @ kusasa / Artist website: www.sarahkusa.com) 

Jackson: What inspired you to become an artist? Was it early in life?

Sarah: As a kid I was constantly creating: drawings, elaborate habitats for stuffed animals, outdoor forts, and clothing. I grew up seeing my father use tools to make things, and our home was full of my grandmother's quilts and embroidery work, so I was keenly aware of what was possible to make by hand. At my first elementary school, my art teacher would borrow taxidermy mounts from the university museums for us to observe and draw. Art hooked me early on.

In high school I took art classes, but I chose not to go to art school for a variety of reasons. I studied journalism and mass communication in college instead and went to work in advertising. A few years in, I took a screen printing class at Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis. After years of working exclusively with the computer, it was my gateway back into hands-on artwork. I knew I needed a career shift and started a small business printing fabric and making decor goods for the home. Over time I was more invested in creating than in selling mass quantities of product, so I let the business fade and followed my curiosity into art. That was when I started going down the deep, dark rabbit hole of sculpture and installation. I have always been interested in physical spaces, so I think that is why I gravitated to 3D. I never really set out to be a professional artist, but somewhere along the way I decided to follow my art for as long as I could sustain it. There are definitely easier career paths, but like many artists, I am one of those people who continue to pursue art because it meets one of my most basic needs.  

 

Jackson: Do you consider your art sculptural or conceptual? Both? What type of response do you hope for?  

Sarah: I work in 3D for the most part, but not exclusively. Sometimes my work is more sculptural in nature, and sometimes it is more like three-dimensional drawing, when the process is fairly immediate and gestural. Early on my work was often about making an object either to see what it felt like to make or what it did in space. Now there is almost always a set of questions I am working with when I start new work in the studio. I'm often thinking about some aspect of human vulnerability or how a particular material mirrors the body. I typically have something in mind from my own life experience, but I'm unlikely to share specifics because I want the finished work to be broader than me. I try to present my art in a way that is open enough for others to have their own sensory experience and make connections to their own lives. My hope is for people to come away from my work with a fresh perspective, a sense of shared humanity, and/or a sense of empathy for others. 

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Sarah: This is a surprisingly tough question. If I could choose two (I realize I'm cheating), it would be Louise Bourgeois (who died in 2010) and Ursula Von Rydingsvard (who is 80 years old and still at work). Bourgeois was not one of the first artists I was drawn to, but the longer I have been an artist, the more I come back to the breadth and emotional power of her work. Von Rydingsvard is a contemporary sculptor making amazing large-scale work from wood and metal. If you can track down the recent documentary about her called Into Her Own, it is so good. Both artists are powerful examples of female sculptors with long careers that I deeply admire.