Teach Us To Number Our Days - Catalog: Volume 1 by Susan Campbell

You can now order your own copy of Susan Campbell’s Catalog: Volume 1 of Teach Us To Number Our Days featuring 52 of her paintings created between 2017 and 2020.

Artist Statement

Between the years I taught in Wisconsin public schools, I was able to fulfill a dream

and go to art school. This really opened a door enabling me to give expression to experiences in life. So far, one of the experiences that has had great impact has been the death of my parents. Their passing moved me to the habit of reading obituaries--not in a maudlin way but as a way to appreciate how the authors tried to express the unique and genuine lives of the people they loved and lost. I started to pull out sentences and phrases that stood out, and put them, verbatim, on great heavyweight paper left over from art school, along with images these words inspired. I love the immediacy of working on paper and the feeling of sketchiness.

The resulting series I’ve called, “Teach Us to Number Our Days”, from Psalm 90:12; a commentary on the brevity of life. My hope is that these paintings would elicit a response that is personal and meaningful to the viewer • isn’t that the hope of every artist?