Merletti/Lace, Spello, Italy, 2012





These drawings on Abaca paper were produced in the summer of 2012. I recreated and animated the images by drawing each individual stitch. This detailed and time consuming process is a conceptual reference to the labor that went into the production of the original handmade pieces. The stitches become a sort of text/typography encoded with meaning and therefore signified the production of knowledge and culture. My process continued and I explored the ideas of text in the patterns, isolating individual or specific types of stitches to see exactly how much information was needed to maintain the intent and design of the piece. I also explored the idea of lace making and the fact that it was knowledge, culture and craft passed on from one woman to another, mother to daughter. I imagined that a younger woman might switch from the color black I initially was drawing with to a more contemporary color. I chose fuschia to represent this transition of information.

(exerpted from the upcoming catalogue for the exhibition Susan Harbage Page. Lo Strappo della Storia / Conversations with Lace.)
You may click on the images below for a larger image.


Merletti No. 28, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 26, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 23, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 29, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 30A, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 27, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 25, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 24, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 30, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 31, 16 x 20 inches
Merletti No. 10, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 12, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 11, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 14, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 16, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 15, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 19, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 18, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 17, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 20, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 21, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 22, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 9, 11 x 14 inches
Merletti No. 4, 8 x 10 inches
Merletti No. 8, 8 x 10 inches
Peacock Doilie, 8.5 x 5.5 feet, CutTyvek
Additional Images upon request.

Congrats to Ana Martinez for her new publication. She includes my work in Chapter 14 Relics, Artifacts, and Bones: Activating Migrancy's Traces Through Performance.

Link to the Book is here. 

https://www.routledge.com/Puppet-and-Spirit-Ritual-Religion-and-Performing-Objects-Volume-II-Contemporary-Branchings-Secular-Benedictions-Activated-Energies-Uncanny-Faiths/Orenstein-Cusack/p/book/9780367713799?srsltid=AfmBOopkns5VJkGs_3s6pRYiU17jbVE2DrfDTwSIE60jfMR14Arcdx5L

..........................

Thanks to Ana for highlighting this important subject.

SHIFTS - 2022

Shifts - A conceptual series of photographic self-portraits thinking about bordering and bodies.

The painting is gouache on old maps I found at a flea market in Italy. I took the maps apart and rearranged them into this borderline.....blue references water for me in this work and the black interrupted line the traditional marking on a map for a border or division of some sort. I have also been thinking recently about "The Commons" and how that historically existed.

Close to Home (November 19, 2024 – March 23, 2025) is a celebration of CAM’s collection featuring works by artists with a connection to our state, our region, and our home. Join us as we explore images of people and places that evoke the varied spirit of our community. Hidden treasures join beloved familiar works in a showcase of artistic voices, a collective search for the meaning of home.

Bridging Borders, July 17, 2023, Spello, Italy

We spoke on the phone and did some planning but Tamara Soldan and I had only one day in person before our performative collaboration to finalize what we were going to do. We gathered voices from friends and colleagues talking about borders in their lives prior to coming together. 

I wanted to know what people thought about borders and what exactly the word border meant to them.

Congrats to the McColl Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was so fortunate to have many ties to the McColl Center through a residency, exhibitions, and leading/teaching workshops through the Innovation Institute. It is a place of community, dialogue and a commons for the arts.

Standing Performance (2005-2023)

Standing on a very narrow history of patriarchal art that many of us grew up on. 

This collection of H.W. Janson's "A History of Art" books is the last thing left in my office before I retire. Coincidentally, my office was previously a women’s dorm room at UNC. I used to use these books in a performance designed to deconstruct art history on the first day of my Women and Gender in Contemporary Art Course.

Susan Harbage Page Wednesday, November 8th, at 7 pm EDT on Zoom Join us for a dynamic and exploratory conversation with Susan Harbage Page as she shares more than 15 years of meditations and explorations on the U.S.-Mexican border. As a socially engaged citizen Susan Harbage Page uses a variety of media including photography, performative interventions, sculpture, video, works on paper, and more.

New Exhibition Catalogue out. Published for the exhibition Susan Harbage Page: Embodied Cartography in Terretorial Disputesat Davidson College fall 2022. The exhibition was curated by Director of Davidson College Art Galleries, Lia Newman and includes essays by Ana L.
Contact Info
Contact Info
susanharbagepage@gmail.com
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