Lifetime MMAG member, SUE WINKLER and her family will be presenting a retrospective of her work on Saturday, October 20, from 11 am to 2 pm. Sue and her husband, Ed Winkler (AKA her ‘assistant’—matting and framing her work and hanging many of her shows) will be at the show, so you can meet the artist or reconnect with her. They will show work including watercolors, acrylics, encaustic, assemblages and some of her sketched work as well.
Sue has been an active artist since the 1960s when she began her course work with the Famous Artist Course. She went on to graduate from the University of Michigan (BA) and Wayne State University (MEdu). She practiced as an art therapist until her retirement from private practice in 1995. Her love of art bridges both her personal and professional lives as she has been an active artist even in her various stays in rehab facilities, working in watercolor, encaustic and assemblage. She loves art in all its forms. She has been an active member of the American Watercolor Society, the Mid-Michigan Art Guild, and many other art associations over the years, serving as president of the Mid-Michigan Art Guild for several years. She showed her artwork in many group and solo shows.
Sue has been a life-long learner, continuing her art education through classes at Lansing Community College and Mott Community college, as well as through seminars, art clinics, correspondence and on-line courses. She participated in weekly art gatherings and critiques and continues to paint with her social circle of artist friends.
Artist Statement: “My background is in Art Psychotherapy and one day I realized that art was more important to me, so I enrolled in Lansing Community College where I earned a Certificate in Human Figure Studies and an Associate Degree in Fine Arts.”
“Several years ago, I tried working with encaustics before there were workshops or written materials about the process. I didn’t know how to fuse or make the medium, or colors but I loved the process of trying to melt crayons and paint with the melted wax. I took a couple of workshops at an encaustic factory in New York and have been experimenting with the process and subject matter.
Each of my assemblages tells a story about the human condition using found objects that have symbolic meaning. If something in a piece seems out of place or the composition seems off. It’s meant to be that way and will create a need in the viewer to change it. If an assemblage is of particular interest to a viewer or if the viewer spends more time trying to understand the piece, it may be that it touches their unconscious and may be of importance to them.
Some of the assemblages have a piece of mirror or reflective material that implies that this assemblage is of a universal nature. I use symbols from Egyptian, Roman, Greek and Indian history and mythology, then try to find and collect pieces of Americana to represent the symbols. How an idea for an assemblage comes to me, I have no real idea except someone may give me an article and I spend time thinking about it. An idea may appear suddenly, but it may take a year or more to collect the symbolic materials.”