Susan Groce, Printmaker (take 1)

Long ago, on a college campus far to the south-southeast of where I am now, I was enrolled in a printmaking class. It was in that class that I first became aware of the person and artwork of one Susan Groce. Our paths did not cross much at all, but I could see that she had something in her artwork that would serve her well and take her far.

Just shy of a week ago I was on YouTube, looking for a version of Jim Croce’s “I Got a Name” that included lyrics. I found it and was listening with pleasure, (“Oh–MOVING me down the highway–check”) when the long gaze at his last name sparked the recollection of Susan of the quite similar last name. I then wondered what became of her, and soon I found out: She’d bloomed as an artist, exhibiting internationally in at least three continents, and had become a full professor and department chair at the University of Maine at Orono. WOW! That’s a career in the visual arts beyond the dreams of just about all of us aspirants.

More on Susan, and a triple-acrostic poem (SUSAN/PRINTMAKER/GROCE) will follow in a soon-subsequent post. Meanwhile, here is a study of the good Professor playing Celtic fiddle, surrounded by thumbnailesque images from her notebook and from electron microscopy. Stay tuned…