Susan Lowdermilk • Eugene, OR





Susan Lowdermilk Eadem mutata resurgo. Though transformed I will arise unchanged. Limited Edition Artist Book $425 The title is a quote by 17th century Swiss mathematician, Jakob Bernoulli. The images, diagrams and equations reference the inherent nature of fractal geometry through the continual appearance of the logarithmic spiral. Lithography, collagraph, woodcut and powdered pigment on Stonehenge and Somerset papers. 11.5 inches x 15 inches. 2010.


Susan Lowdermilk A Ritual to Read to Each Other Text by William Stafford Limited Edition Artist Book 12 x 15 inches $375 This book was created in reaction against the US/Iraq and Afghanistan war. The two-dimensional woodcut image that makes up the tunnel structure was originally titled, “Peace Inside the Noise” and was meant to stand on it own. As a tunnel book, I feel the piece visually and conceptually supports Stafford’s message in his poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”—A plea for reliance on community and cooperation for peace and harmony. A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William Stafford If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail, but if one wanders the circus won't find the park, I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact. And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider-- lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark. For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear: the darkness around us is deep. Tunnel Book with three panel wrap around cover. 12 x 15 inches. “A Ritual to Read to Each Other" poem copyright © 1998 by the Estate of William Stafford. Reprinted from The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems with the permission of Greywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Text set in Gill Sans Condensed, printed from polymer plates at lone goose press, Eugene, Oregon. Woodcut image printed on Zerkall Niddegen paper by Susan Lowdermilk. Edition of 25. 2007. To purchase this work please contact Laura at 23 Sandy Gallery.


Susan Lowdermilk Power Play Limited Edition Artist Book $200 Power Play is structured as a Jacob’s Ladder toy. The game Rock, Paper, Scissors inspired the imagery for the book, printed from original woodblocks in grey and black, with open ended slip cover. "Through my creative practice as a printmaker and a book artist, I represent inanimate objects and abstract marks as visual metaphors or allegories. I explore tenuous qualities of human interaction, struggles and experience. I explore the use of simple, forms such as 'X' and 'O,' symbolic for 'hugs and kisses' or 'tic-tac-toe.' I'm informed by familiar leisure games like 'Rock, Paper, Scissors,' to reference interpersonal communication." 4 x 4 inches closed. Edition of 35. 2002.


Susan Lowdermilk XO On What Might have Been Our Anniversary Limited Edition Artist Book $400 I met Jeanine Hathaway in 2004 at a show of my prints in downtown Eugene, Oregon. She was writing poetry while on sabbatical leave from teaching at Wichita State University in Kansas. It turned out that she was also my neighbor, renting a room down the street and we became friends. Jeanine was inspired by my woodcut diptych titled, “Remembering, Forgetting,” and wrote the poem, “XO, On what might have been our anniversary.” I created my artist’s book, inspired by her poem, printed from the woodblocks I crested for “Remembering, Forgetting,” thus completing our circle of creativity and inspiration. Text is ink jet printed on organdy fabric using an Epson C88. 6 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ x 3/4″, 2007. To purchase this work please contact Laura at 23 Sandy Gallery. XO On what might have been our anniversary How our desires signed off, stringing along kisses and hugs. Once a game, an alphabet for two boxed in pens, our characters tick-tacked onto a lattice. I’d x you out. You’d hold your place. We crossed ourselves, carved the zero of a face in bank accounts, park benches, sand. Like hope in deep midwinter, no valentine survives on frosted windshields, sugar hearts. XO can disappear, a change not like weather but when, like a woodcut, the inked vows erode from relief to vague and slurred impressions. Even kissing cost us breath, the tight squeeze, breadth. In grading, lists, the X means wrong and done. More than binary, O means failed, perfect. Jeanine Hathaway

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Artist Biography

As a printmaker and book artist, I primarily work in relief media such as woodcut and wood engraving. I teach art and applied design courses at Lane Community College in Eugene Oregon. My work appears in many public collections including the Getty Museum, the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library and is represented in galleries throughout the United States.

I explore mark and impression as visual and conceptual ideas through my work in print media and artist’s books. I strive to express the tenuous qualities of the human experience and human interaction through my representation of objects and mark as visual metaphors. I invite the viewer to overlay their own personal metaphors and narratives as they experience my work.

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Susan Lowdermilk • Eugene, OR

Artist Biography