SUSAN FARRAR PARRISH grew up in south Georgia but has been a Raleigh artist for years. Susan Farrar Parrish has been a working artist and craftsman in the Raleigh area since the early 1980s. She graduated from Auburn University with a BFA in painting and design. In 2000, when she moved to Artspace, she left behind her home studio and her work of the prior 20 years – functional pottery. She then focused on one-of-a-kind, handbuilt ceramic art pieces. This evolution to focus on each piece was exciting for her and breathed new life into career.
In 2009 her artwork reached another inflection point, this time it was the culmination of several factors – her mother’s failing health, her own health issues and the failing health of the planet. Her concern about these difficult topics didn’t immediately show up in her work, they weighed her down. Soon enough, as she began to work through this with her art, everything changed. The result is her most exciting body of work, work which addresses these life events as well as other topical issues using found objects, concrete and metal (welding) along with other other mixed media.
