Susan Aurand
Susan Aurand was born in the Midwest and received her M.A. in Art from the Ohio State University. She moved to the Northwest following graduate school to take a teaching position in art at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She served as tenured faculty there, teaching sculpture, ceramics, drawing, painting, art history and humanities until 2018.
As a faculty member at Evergreen, Susan team-taught with faculty members in many disciplines, including biology, ecology, geology, chemistry, philosophy, psychology and anthropology. These experiences deepened her knowledge of the natural world, and significantly informed her artworks over the years. Susan has worked in a variety of media, from sculpture and printmaking to painting. However, her images consistently reflect her passion for nature and her philosophical inquiry into symbols, metaphor, consciousness, and the nature of perception.
Artist Statements
Thickets and Tangles
As a kid, I loved to find secret places under shrubs and in thickets. Tangles of branches seem to collect energy and are sheltering; they are good places for making nests, which are hopeful things. I loved also to find and tie together small objects, as if to make talismans or dream nets, long before I learned what these were. The drawings also refer to the old game of Cat's Cradle, a game of making images appear and disappear by manipulating loops of string on one's fingers – a game that always seemed magical to me.
Ways of Rising Up
This series began several years ago, as photographs I took of amazing cloud formations on an extraordinary day high up in the Italian Dolomites. As I thought about what to do with them, they gradually became meditation pieces on the constant movement /transformation between earth and sky. Birds explode from hidden places into the vast openness overhead, the moisture of clouds cycles up and down, trees reach down into the earth and up into the heavens, and all things transform - light into matter and back into light.
Work in Permanent Collections
Washington State Arts Commission Art in Public Places Program
Washington State Arts Commission Portable Works Collection
University of Washington Library Book Arts Collection
City of Olympia Portable Works Collection
City of Seattle Portable Works Collection
Central Washington State University Collection
Washington State Arts Commission, Art in Public Places Program
Lincoln Elementary School, Olympia, WA
Providence St. Peter's Hospital, Olympia, WA
Grants, Awards and Fellowships
2010 Artist Residency, Centrum, Port Townsend, Washington
2008 Washington State Arts Commission, Art in Public Places Commission for Olympic Middle
School, Shelton, WA,
2006 Poster Commission, Olympia Arts Commission
Sponsored Research Grant, The Evergreen State College; Topic: "An Artist's
Book of Hours"
2005 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Grant, The Evergreen State College
2001 The Evergreen State College Fund for Innovation in Teaching Award
The Evergreen State College – Faculty Sponsored Research Grant; Topic: "Land, Water,
Lifting – New Paintings from the Landscape"
1992 Burlington Northern Award for Excellence in Teaching
1987 The Evergreen State College- Faculty Sponsored Research Grant; Topic: A
Sense of Place in Contemporary Painting and Photography
1985 Maryhill Museum of Art, Glendale, OR – Prize Award
Sponsored Research Grant, The Evergreen State College; Topic: The Semiotics of Art
and Contemporary French Painting (project done in Paris, France)
Lilly Foundation Grant for the Arts and Humanities
Solo Exhibitions
2012 Childhood's End Gallery, Olympia, WA (scheduled)
2012 Mt. Hood Community College (scheduled)
1988 Pierce College, Tacoma, WA
1987 Maude Kerns Art Center, Eugene, OR
1986 Marianne Partlow Gallery, Olympia, WA
1982 Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
Group Exhibitions
2011 Northwest Fine Arts Competition, Phinney Center Gallery, Seattle, WA
26 Feet of Art, The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, Olympia, WA
Arts of the Terrace Juried Show, Mountlake Terrace, WA
Childhood's End Gallery, Olympia, WA
ArtsWalk, Childhood's End Gallery, Olympia, WA
As a faculty member at Evergreen, Susan team-taught with faculty members in many disciplines, including biology, ecology, geology, chemistry, philosophy, psychology and anthropology. These experiences deepened her knowledge of the natural world, and significantly informed her artworks over the years. Susan has worked in a variety of media, from sculpture and printmaking to painting. However, her images consistently reflect her passion for nature and her philosophical inquiry into symbols, metaphor, consciousness, and the nature of perception.
Artist Statements
Thickets and Tangles
As a kid, I loved to find secret places under shrubs and in thickets. Tangles of branches seem to collect energy and are sheltering; they are good places for making nests, which are hopeful things. I loved also to find and tie together small objects, as if to make talismans or dream nets, long before I learned what these were. The drawings also refer to the old game of Cat's Cradle, a game of making images appear and disappear by manipulating loops of string on one's fingers – a game that always seemed magical to me.
Ways of Rising Up
This series began several years ago, as photographs I took of amazing cloud formations on an extraordinary day high up in the Italian Dolomites. As I thought about what to do with them, they gradually became meditation pieces on the constant movement /transformation between earth and sky. Birds explode from hidden places into the vast openness overhead, the moisture of clouds cycles up and down, trees reach down into the earth and up into the heavens, and all things transform - light into matter and back into light.
Work in Permanent Collections
Washington State Arts Commission Art in Public Places Program
Washington State Arts Commission Portable Works Collection
University of Washington Library Book Arts Collection
City of Olympia Portable Works Collection
City of Seattle Portable Works Collection
Central Washington State University Collection
Washington State Arts Commission, Art in Public Places Program
Lincoln Elementary School, Olympia, WA
Providence St. Peter's Hospital, Olympia, WA
Grants, Awards and Fellowships
2010 Artist Residency, Centrum, Port Townsend, Washington
2008 Washington State Arts Commission, Art in Public Places Commission for Olympic Middle
School, Shelton, WA,
2006 Poster Commission, Olympia Arts Commission
Sponsored Research Grant, The Evergreen State College; Topic: "An Artist's
Book of Hours"
2005 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Grant, The Evergreen State College
2001 The Evergreen State College Fund for Innovation in Teaching Award
The Evergreen State College – Faculty Sponsored Research Grant; Topic: "Land, Water,
Lifting – New Paintings from the Landscape"
1992 Burlington Northern Award for Excellence in Teaching
1987 The Evergreen State College- Faculty Sponsored Research Grant; Topic: A
Sense of Place in Contemporary Painting and Photography
1985 Maryhill Museum of Art, Glendale, OR – Prize Award
Sponsored Research Grant, The Evergreen State College; Topic: The Semiotics of Art
and Contemporary French Painting (project done in Paris, France)
Lilly Foundation Grant for the Arts and Humanities
Solo Exhibitions
2012 Childhood's End Gallery, Olympia, WA (scheduled)
2012 Mt. Hood Community College (scheduled)
1988 Pierce College, Tacoma, WA
1987 Maude Kerns Art Center, Eugene, OR
1986 Marianne Partlow Gallery, Olympia, WA
1982 Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
Group Exhibitions
2011 Northwest Fine Arts Competition, Phinney Center Gallery, Seattle, WA
26 Feet of Art, The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, Olympia, WA
Arts of the Terrace Juried Show, Mountlake Terrace, WA
Childhood's End Gallery, Olympia, WA
ArtsWalk, Childhood's End Gallery, Olympia, WA
