from Reedsville Elementary School — Reedsville, Wisconsin

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Biography

Fiber artist and arts educator, Susan Buss, particularly enjoys assisting others to discover and develop their own unique creative voice while continuing to express her own. Susan incorporates traditional needlework techniques, screen printing, dyeing, and weaving in contemporary, conceptual, and unexpected ways. By using these methods of fiber arts that historically were considered “women’s work” in new and non-traditional ways, she gives them personal and intimate value that commands respect.
Susan’s artwork includes virgin, salvaged, and reclaimed woolens and linens, other natural and synthetic fibers, and hand-dyed yarns to use with weaving techniques or other fiber art and sculptural processes. She uses language, visuals, and verbal to express her often tongue-in-cheek humor. Susan has also created loom-woven wall hangings that express her gifted use of color. She is in the midst of a series of works based on the meditation of recovery, using embroidery and weaving, she is exploring a conversation based on raw emotion and healing. Susan is often found conflicted with many ideals of contradiction, which often offers fertile ground for her creativity. Susan also creates functional handwoven textiles: rugs, scarves, shawls, or lap/baby blankets with an intentional use of color and woven pattern.
Susan was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, and was raised on a rural dairy farm. She studied fine art at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee and earned a degree in Fine Arts Fibers. She photographed the farmstead, documenting the transitions of time using the photographs as content and inspiration in her work. She creates woven landscapes inspired by Wisconsin’s diverse terrain.
She uses traditional sewing, weaving, basketry, and book-making techniques that can be both practical skills in life as well as her artistic expression. Susan has a desire to balance her solo studio time working on her artwork with her family and her time mentoring and sharing her skills with her students. Susan has taught children and adults and one of the most important skills in teaching is her unlimited patience. She has created a peaceful respite for her students, allowing them to follow their own interests as she guides them through the creative process, where every mistake is looked upon as either a good learning opportunity or a chance to develop creative problem-solving skills. She has taught weaving, color theory, and shared fiber arts in adult enrichment courses.
Buss currently lives in Two Rivers, WI, during the school year, where she teaches art to all grade levels (3K, and K-6) at Reedsville Elementary School in Reedsville, WI. In the summer Susan frequents the family’s summer home on Little Moon Lake near Land O Lakes, WI.

Personal Art Gallery