SUSAN MURAR A JOURNEY OF MIND AND SOUL

One of Canada’s leading sculptors continues to live for, with and through her art

- Bryn Gladding, New Hamburg, Ont.

It has been about 25 years since I met and first photographed the work of a senior Canadian sculptor by the name of Susan Murar. At the time, she was producing many small sculptures featuring the salamander in different landscapes, faces in plaster on driftwood, and various themes of close connection to the earth and its seasons.

While working on a personal project of artist portraits more recently, I looked her up somewhat expecting to see more of the same work in her home studio in southwestern Ontario. I was surprised to discover large monumental sculptures filling the rooms from floor to ceiling, eight feet tall and encompassing every last inch of her apartment, where she also lived with her two cats, Arthur and Gweniviere.

She invited me in cordially and suggested a place to stand, every room being dominated by these monumental pieces, and then gave me a tour, which commenced by her telling me that each large piece in this non-commissioned work took two years to create and no preliminary drawings had been made. She simply started with an idea and allowed the clay to speak. This method has been recorded by countless artists over the centuries, as attested to by Canadian art and world history.

In her younger years, Murar reminisced, she was an artist working in the solitary environment of her studio, the stream of thoughts running through her mind were sometimes negative and unforgiving. She believes maturity in art comes from experiences; the more positive one’s thoughts become, the more helpful they are when studying three-dimensional forms in clay resting on an armature; as the “clay waits” for the sculptor’s hands to mould it, the sculptor envisions a partnership, a mutual co-creation happening, the sculptor and sculptor’s “muse” as she describes it.