By Susan Aurinko
Susan in Wiesbaden Mirror
“Let’s start at the very beginning, the very best place to start…” Anyone familiar with the always delightful Sound of Music will know those words. Wise words, good counsel, and because most of you don’t know me, I’d like to tell you a few bits and pieces about me. I’ve been an artist most of my life, in one form or another, and frankly, I think it’s all the same – it’s all design whether interiors, graphics, clothing, furniture, photo styling, or photography. Without good design principals, beautiful composition, form, color, and texture, the end result will be lackluster at best, and possibly downright boring or unacceptable. With that criteria, I’ve always tried to make beautiful paintings, furniture, interiors, clothing, photography. All those items are on my checklist for whatever I create.
Thai scarves
In 1994, after more than a dozen years in interior design, I went back to school to learn photography properly, in a darkroom. I did two semesters at Harold Washington College, and then, because I’d fallen totally in love with photography, I went to Columbia College for another five semesters. I opened FLATFILEgalleries as a photography gallery in 2000 after having a solo show from which the Museum of Contemporary Photography purchased images for their permanent collection. I realized that most beginning photographers don’t have the kind of luck I had had and wanted to create a forum for them to show work and build solid CVs. The gallery was open for nine years to the day, during which I was able to continue my own work while “mothering” dozens of artists. I fulfilled my mission, and many of my artists have gone on to have wonderful careers. In 2009, I closed the gallery and leapt into my own work full time, traveling frequently to Europe and India, making street photography, and on each junket, I brought back textiles, particularly scarves – always my memento of choice while traveling. The scarves above are two I bought at the Jim Thompson House in Bangkok Thailand.
Self and Sabina, Budapest
At some point, I started thinking about expanding my photography to fashion, or more specifically, to accessories. I began conceiving of scarves and making images that would lend themselves particularly well to silk. I had a wonderful studio assistant, Sabina Cosic, whom I met when critiquing her Senior Seminar Final at Columbia. Sabina was game for anything, and when I suggested we take a trip to Europe so I could make work for the scarves, she was all in and even created something she called Susan and Sabina’s European Adventure – a full itinerary that included locations in five countries that I had envisioned creating scarves from. She booked all the hotels, trains, and flights like a wizard. (I still stay in some of those hotels today!) There was literally only one “misstep” but that’s another story for another column. We set off, and in ten days, shot in Dublin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and several cities in Bavaria, shooting in the daytime and traveling at night. The resulting images were the basis for my first LensFlair Editions scarves. While I buy and bring back scarves from almost every trip I make, wherever, from that great adventure, I only brought back images that would later become scarves. That trip was the beginning of a long, difficult project that took years to finally realize fully – it took until the early 2000s to find someone to print and sew the scarves to the level of quality that I wanted them to have.
Liz in Prague
The scarf above was created from images from that original trip, cleverly layered by my first collaborator, Federica Ghidelli, who took my very traditional Prague landmark scarf and layered it with one of my graffiti images to create the scarf called “Liz in Prague.” Below are the images she layered to create the above scarf.
The images that make up Liz in Prague Scarf
I hope I’ve enticed you and made you want to read more of my adventures on my own personal “Silk Roads”– next month I’ll be back with tales of my times in India and of the scarves I bought there over several trips! In the meantime, have a wonderful month and don’t forget to dream big and think creatively!
Prague Bed
Susan Aurinko
@susanaurinko (Instagram)
www.aurinkophoto.com
www.lensflaireditions.com
