Posts

Surfacing: An update on my life.

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  As life spins along, sometimes peacefully, sometimes beyond our control, I am now in a phase of readjusting to living and creating without my life partner, my husband, artist Richard Rudnicki. Richard died suddenly on November 4th, 2019.  In the more than two years that followed his death, I worked predominately on completing his graphic novel, Dusty Dreams and Troubled Waters , written by Brian Bowman, and in curating a show of his work, Richard Rudnicki: Reflections on Life , at ArtsPlace Gallery in Annapolis Royal.  https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2251430 https://artsplaceexhibits.weebly.com/richard-rudnicki.html This does not mean that I did not work in my own studio, but grief and the adjustment to life alone did take its toll.
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The Barrens, Mt. Uniacke, acrylic on canvas, 4' x 4' The parklands of the Mount Uniacke Estate include trails through Acadian forest, wetlands and the barrens.  The trails wind through woodlands, sometimes with deep undergrowth.  However, along the Barrens Trail the woods are dominated by red spruce.  The survivors reach above the unsuccessful fallen trees whose trunks and branches create a pattern of white bones across the forest floor.
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installation shot of "Woodlands" at Gallery Page and Strange    Visual Viewpoints: Tooke invites viewers to Woodlands show the Chronicle Herald, Arts and Life, September 18, 2013 - 5:41pm  BY ELISSA BARNARD ARTS REPORTER I have been to Hemlock Ravine, but I have never seen it the way  Halifax artist  Susan Tooke does. Her woods teem in colour and line in a cheerful and exciting new  show, Woodlands,  at Gallery Page  and Strange at 1869 Granville St.  in Halifax until Sept. 27. The side of each wood panel is painted in the acrylic colour — red,  or teal, or royal  blue or green —  that will dominate the background  of each image.  With eye-popping colour, outlines and a visceral  energy in her lines and abstracted  forms, Tooke  continues to create  an exalted experience of the land that she first  introduced in her  show,  Transformation, two years ...
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Back to elm street studio. Summer has lots of distractions.  It is a time for gathering ideas, working in the garden, traveling, hiking, socializing.   Ideas from Shannon Falls, BC have stuck with me... Here is the latest work from the studio.
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Three years of hard work have come down to this!  Working with these wonderful artists has been my pleasure.   Motion Activated: an interactive installation   Saint Mary's University Art Gallery through July 28th created by  Lukas Pearse:interactive composer and multimedia designer  Véronique MacKenzie: dancer/choreographer/initial concept  Susan Tooke, visual artist, video and animation curated by Robin Metcalfe The following are stills/video from the installation.         
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I had the great pleasure and opportunity to work with the poetry of George Elliott Clarke earlier this year. Lasso the Wind: Aurélia's Verses and Other Poems will be out this fall.  Here are several illustrations... a bit of a preview!
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On March 25, my father, George Harold Tooke died.  I haven't posted since then, but have continued to create.  Here is a photo of my father and mother, Esther Van Schoick at their home in Colombia shortly after they married in 1944.  Mom was an operating room nurse and Dad an accountant.  I miss them both every day.