John Hensel PhotographyI DWELL IN IMPOSSIBILITY – With John Hensel Photography

Feast of Famine: October 25-December 1, 2019 The Phipps Center for the Arts 109 Locust St. Hudson, WI Gallery Hours daily 9 am-4:30 pm (Sunday noon-4:30 pm)
IT’S A CELEBRATION! COME JOIN ME! MEET MY SON JOHN, THE
PHOTOGRAPHER!

The opening reception and celebration is Friday, October 25, 6:30-8:30 pm. Put it on your calendar!

I am so pleased to share this with you. The collaborative suite of photographs, I DWELL IN IMPOSSIBILITY, that my son John and I worked on, is about to be exhibited in its entirety for the second time in roughly five years, and he is flying in from Boston to be at the opening!

About I Dwell in Impossibility

I dwell in Impossibility is a collaborative suite of photographs by Susan Hensel &  her son John Hensel.

I dwell in the creative impossible, choosing to depict the transgression of gender role interacting with age; to create a poetic representation of both diminishment and power, neither male nor female, impossibly pregnant…liminal in all possible ways.  Neither one nor the other, neither yin nor yang.

When collaborating, Susan sets the parameters of costume and objects to be manipulatedd and then allows the collaborator to direct the action.  Drawing on extensive study of African masquerade culture, she allows the objects and costumes to inhabit her will, allowing her aged, broken body to dance free in the spirit of the costume.

John Hensel Photography

John is a powerful artist and thinker in his own right. We have collaborated before and would more often, I suspect, if Boston weren’t so far away! The idea for this began many years ago while I was at a residency in Illinois. I wondered what it meant. when a woman wore a “power suit.” Time passed, I aged and I wondered what would. It means if a grey-haired woman, with a “pregnant belly” wore a “power suit?”. John is the founder of John Hensel Photography.

As luck would have it, I had shoulder surgery and John flew out to check up on me. We talked some more about the idea. He costumed me, I took my drugs and he directed me. The photoshoot brought out all kinds of dissonances concerning age, gender, and power.

It has been a very successful group of artworks. Portions of this suite have been exhibited all across the country. Do come and meet him and say “HI” to me as well. The reception and celebration are Friday, October 25, 6:30-8:30 pm.

In Other News

Feast or famine; Flood or drought. That is the way of the art world. You send out failing proposals, rejection after
rejection seemingly forever. And then the dam breaks. Then, you are overwhelmed with opportunities for exhibition. The studio is at “flood stage” right now!

TORUS INTERIOR

Is being exhibited at the Art League of Rhode Island, in One-Zero-One

HEATWAVE

is on exhibit at the Farmington Museum, in Farmington New Mexico

CASCADE is on exhibit at the St. Louis Art

Guild, as part of the Surface Design Association, shows.

HORIZON is featured in the Surface

Design Association Journal

SKEWED GEOMETRY is at Webster

University as part of the Surface Design Association festivities. And, by the time you see me again, I will be a “Certified Ricoma Technician.” But, please, do not try to hire me! I am taking an intensive course on maintaining and
repairing my new commercial embroidery machine! Hope to see you soon.