Matthews tapped for ’19 T.F. Green exhibit



Narragansett Avenue artist Susan Matthews at her North Kingstown studio at the Mill at Shady Lea with a sculpture in the process. These are porcelain parts secured to a chicken-wire armature and then wrapped with yarn and covered with felt.

Narragansett Avenue artist Susan Matthews at her North Kingstown studio at the Mill at Shady Lea with a sculpture in the process. These are porcelain parts secured to a chicken-wire armature and then wrapped with yarn and covered with felt.

For art lovers who have not caught a glimpse of the thoughtprovoking sculptures and drawings of Susan Matthews, there’s plenty of opportunity as 2018 draws to a close.

Matthews, a resident of Narragansett Avenue, has work currently on display at three different galleries: the Jamestown Arts Center through Dec. 6, the main gallery at the University of Rhode Island Fine Arts Center in Kingston through Dec. 14, and Hera Gallery in Wakefield through Dec. 22.

In 2019, however, Matthews’ work will expand past Newport and Washington counties to reach an international audience. The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts last week announced she would be one of nine artists to present their work at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick.

“It is an exciting honor to have been chosen,” she said. “I am looking forward to taking on the challenge of attracting and holding the attention of such a large, yet distracted, audience.”

Matthews, who graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a master’s degree in ceramics, said she “combines intention with a large dose of intuition” when sculpting.

“I only have a vague, flexible concept at the outset,” she said.

First, Matthews creates the ceramic segments, firing them multiple times in order to create an ideal surface.

“I then experiment with these parts,” she said, “combining, covering and adding to them with rope, yarn and felt. Some pieces come together faster than others, but all the processes are pretty slow. Building, glazing, needle or wet felting, and knitting each take time. Hours and hours.”

As for her recent drawings, Matthews uses another unique approach by combining thread and watercolors. She paints an organic shape with watercolor, tilting the paper to create a gradient of light and dark areas. She then outlines the shape with a needle-pointed tracing tool that makes small, neat holes. Finally, she binds the shape using a needle and thread.

“It is a pretty simple, but effective process,” she said.

Matthews, who lives with her husband and two children, both students at Lawn School, also creates what she calls “toyls,” a series of toys and tools that she developed a few years ago.

“I was interested in the compelling shapes of tools as well as touch and the intimacy we have with our tools,” she said. “But the things I make are also silly and maybe purposeless, and so they are also toys.”

Like 39 other area artists, Matthews works primarily at her studio at the Shady Lea Mill in North Kingstown.

“It is a wonderful building, full of creative people and just far enough from the distractions of home,” she said.

As for her hometown, living on Conanicut Island provides the artist with inspiration on a daily basis.

“The people here in Jamestown, from the acquaintances I exchange waves with to my close friends, enrich my life daily,” she said. “The natural beauty here in Jamestown is extraordinary; it both sustains and inspires me.”

The airport’s art coordinator, Molly Dickinson, who also is involved with the Jamestown Arts Center, said she is looking forward to bringing Matthews’ work to Warwick.

“I’m very excited that Susan’s been selected to exhibit at the airport next year,” she said. “Her work is incredibly unique, blending various materials in unexpected ways.”

Finally, Luke Randall, the husband of the art center’s executive director, Lisa, also was chosen by the arts council to display his work at T.F. Green. The painter is a Saunderstown resident.

For neighbors interested in learning more about her work, Matthews will discuss the “Within and Without” exhibit at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Hera Gallery, 10 High St., Wakefield. Featuring five artists, the show explores the formal aesthetics within the relationships and polarities of life. Matthews takes a tactile and conceptual approach, using wool “drawings” to explore the internal and external forces within a being.