Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Moss.
Hi Susan, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I was born an artist. At age two, I was coloring with crayons for hours, It’s the only thing I really wanted to do. My Mother taught me about color. I challenged her advice at times, showing her color combinations she hadn’t thought of.
At the University of Nevada, I majored in Art and Psychology, My instructor in drawing, Don Kerr, encouraged me to keep drawing, My instructor in Psychology, Dr. James B, Nichols obtained a grant for me to study any area in psychology I was interested in, He had just taught a class in Suicide, I picked that subject and together we established a Suicide Prevention Call-in Center in Reno in 1966 that is still in operation today over 50 years later.
50 years is a long time also to be a full-time Studio Artist, I established my own Studio practice in 1971 in a rented storefront on York Blvd.
My first series of paintings were very large spray “Cylinder” paintings up to ten foot tall. My first shows of these paintings came in 1973 at a gallery on La Cienega, Gallery 707, that showed women artists and at the Brand Library Art Center in Glendale, California, The group show included Gwen Murrell, Gloria Kisch, Diana Hobson, Martha Alf, and Virginia Gray, These women became my friends. Both shows were reviewed in the “L, A, Times”, one good review and one not so good of the same work, a month apart! Henry Seldis gave me the good review, William Wilson gave me the not so hot review.
Most of the work sold, Tamara Thomas began buying the paintings for banks.
A fire in my rented studio caused by neighbors had me pulling the paintings out, fifty of them, at six in the morning and showing them on the sidewalk! The firemen said not to go in, but I said I had to rescue my paintings! I had just returned from England and France on a visit and had a nightmare in which I was directed to return home directly, I am a bit psychic like most artists! A woman came running from across the street and offered me her space in an old thrift store now a woman’s artists building, I stayed there temporarily for seven years as the landlord did not the want the responsibility of my paintings when he restored the building.
I had to give up spraying paint because I became ill with bronchitis, Masks, painting outdoors did not solve the problem.
I began to stain acrylic using watered down paint. These led me to the “Soft-Hard-Edge paintings, Lonny Gans found them to be saleable to corporations who liked the clean, taped off shapes, But I got bored with them.
I began to experiment with Rhoplex, the base for all acrylics. It is milky like white glue, but you can thicken it up, I used bakery spatulas, kitchen spatulas, and cake decorating tubes of different widths and thickened the paint with marble dust, Lonny Gans introduced my work to David B. Findlay Jr, who had a magnificent gallery on Madison Avenue uptown.
He drove up to my Studio on York Blvd and showed me HIS portfolio! I had to laugh internally, is this for real? He showed me photos of his gallery and some of the artists he represented. Then he said, “What do you think?”
I said I would think about it. He should call me tomorrow!
I had my first show in New York at his gallery on Madison Avenue in 1977, I was just thirty-two years old. The paintings were the Rhoplex and acrylic, very dimensional and textured, Findlay also showed my crayon drawings. The show sold out except for one painting. Lisa Dennison who was Director of the Guggenheim Museum came with her Mother and they bought “Blue Branches” (for Van Gogh) a seven-foot painting. She offered me a show at the Guggenheim!
The biggest galleries in New York became interested, Emmerich and Knoedler, I felt, however, at age 32, I was too young and the work was just developing to take advantage of these wonderful opportunities. Maybe when I’m 60, I’ll be ready, I reluctantly thought.
I was in a relationship with a troubled fellow. One night I looked up at the night sky and knew what I had to do, I wanted to do a series of paintings for my Grandparents, Edith and Richard Hecht, who died a miserable and painful death in the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany. They succumbed to starvation and Typhus after a two years of incarceration for being Jewish. My series of paintings would be called “Black Forest” and there would be seventeen paintings and many studies and drawings. Lonny Gans inherited Nick Wilder’s gallery space when he moved to New York to become an artist himself instead of a Dealer. She put the show-up, staying up most of the night.
The show was a huge success. David S. Rubin reviewed with for “Arts” magazine. Busloads of people came to view it, My patron, Robert A. Rowan, bought several and they ended up in collections around the world such as Switzerland, “House and Garden” magazine photographed Frank Yablans home where he had “Black Forest XII” and a Picasso! Since then, they have continued to be published in the Getty’s “L. A. Rising” and Yale University Press “Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization”.
Again health problems prohibited my work with acrylic and its base Rhoplex, I had a lump in my throat, diagnosed at UCLA as borderline Cancer. I had to give up this amazing material even when Rowan said he would buy everything I did with Rhoplex! It took me a year to get well, a year I spent developing and enlarging my sketchbook crayon drawings.
I got rid of the lump naturally without the operation my doctor suggested if I didn’t get rid of it in a year.
At the end of the year, I was offered a show at the prestigious Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York. They showed 30 drawings starting with sketchbook size to the large drawings and a whole glassed-in room, electric with energy of gestural crayon markings, They sold five and I was able to rent a car and tour the East and up into Canada, visiting Niagra Falls without a honeymoon!
When I came back to Los Angeles, I wanted to switch to oil paint, but every medium in the art store including turpentine was too full of fumes for me, I have to paint! Doing research, I finally found a company in Canada, Omega Nutrition, that would make me organic cold-pressed linseed oil, Brice Marden also told me about Orange Terpenes which is made from orange rinds and thins paint better than turpentine. It has a lovely smell, no fumes!
I now use these mediums, some I make, to do large-scale oil paintings which I will show at BG Gallery in October in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station, I will also show very large-scale crayon drawings I did during the Pandemic.
My work has now 545 Collectors around the world, I have also written three books that are published and available on health: “Keep Your Breasts! Preventing Breast Cancer the Natural Way” “Survive Cancer!” and the new “COVID-19: A Natural Approach” written with scientist Dan Marquez. Also one thriller, “The Accident Stager”, My books are translated and I have traveled around the world with them, speaking for the BBC in Glasgow, Scotland and traveling to Germany and Holland where my books are translated.
I also show my drawings and paintings at Quidley and Co, in Naples, Florida and have 12 works on Jason McCoy’s New York Gallery website, I will be doing a retrospective show at Laguna Art’s new huge space in Mission Viejo in November.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Trauma is my middle name! I have been through so much trauma and problems, if I wasn’t such a health nut, I would be crippled or dead by now, I’ve been through three studio fires! But I never lost a painting due to the extreme efficiency of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Financial problems have dogged me off and on throughout the fifty years. At one point, I was on food stamps. As the artist and friend Craig Kauffman pointed out, “Being an artist is Feast or Famine”.
I was hit by a car as a pedestrian, I was flown about 30 feet in the air! It took a year to get well.
I was diagnosed with breast and uterine cancer, I got well naturally and wrote two books about how I did it.
I caught COVID, but fortunately I was writing a book about it with scientist Dan Marquez and got well using the information in the book in only two days!
My home got badly infested with rat mites, I adopted a cat named Burnie who quickly and efficiently told the rats where to go! But the rat-mites stayed. Cleaning every morning is a necessity. Now I can sleep!
It’s all worth it as I can still paint and draw full time!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have been a full-time artist/author for fifty years, I’m most proud of the paintings and drawings I have done that have ended up in 545 collections including five Museums: LACMA, Skirball Center, Laguna Art Museum, Buck Art Museum, UC Irvine, and Lilley Museum at the University of Nevada.
My books are published in several languages and all can be found on Amazon or book stores like Barnes and Noble.
They are “Keep Your Breasts! Preventing Breast Cancer the Natural Way”, “Survive Cancer!” “The Accident Stager”, and the new “COVID-19: A NATURAL APPROUCH”.
I have traveled the world with my books and art, I’ve shown my art on Madison Avenue and Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, New York, I showed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artist’s Gallery for 31 years.
I love Naples, Florida where I showed my Art and visited just before the Pandemic at Quidley and Co.
Scotland is beautiful and I got to visit when I lectured for the BBC in Glasgow.
I got to see the apartment building where my mother grew up in Berlin, Germany when my book, “Keep Your Breasts!” was translated into German and Dutch.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
The Art Spirit as Robert Henri wrote, is what keeps me going. With all the trauma and health problems I have been through, doing my Art is my salvation and my savior. Sharing my Art in my shows around the globe (even Italy) is wonderfully rewarding.
People tell me my books have saved their life!
Pricing:
- Books are $19,95-$38,50
- Art is $1500,-$30,000,
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.susanhmoss.com
- Youtube: Have videos on U-tube
Image Credits:
Photo of artist Susan Moss with her painting by photographer Volker Corell.
