30sec film artists Vol.40 – Susan Avishai

“There was a previous life to all this fabric”

Susan Avishai : My creative life began the night my father’s ballpoint pen dropped from his pocket as he bent over to tuck me in. I was two years old, the sheet my canvas, and the experience heady. Growing up in Montreal in the 1950’s, I had the great good fortune to spend Saturday mornings making art with Arthur Lismer at the Musee des Beaux Arts. Few teachers taught joy as he did. At eighteen I was footloose at the Academie Julien in Paris, drawing the nude model while sitting on the same benches once warmed by the back-ends of Gauguin and Rodin, deciding that yes, I was inexorably hooked. Nothing seemed to compare with the magic and power of making life appear on a sheet of paper.
susanavishai.net

360 Art Experience – Inside Susan Avishai’s Studio and Her Art Works by FILMARTIST