A Return to the Muses of Greece By Suzanne Fournier The following article is a shortened version of a much longer piece which appeared recently in Ceramics: Art and Perception No. 80 and is reprinted in its current form with permission of the author. ‘The English poet and literary critic Matthew Arnold observed a century ago that virtually all of the major cornerstones of our culture, from law to medicine, science and religion, to the arts and architecture, derived ultimately from the ancient Greeks. For Suzy Birstein, a Vancouver-based ceramic artist, a return to Moon lights up the night..., by Suzy Birstein. Greece in her recent work as both a creator and facilitator of art, represents a full-circle return to the spiritual inspiration for her chosen calling as an artist. Tt was in Greece as a 20-year-old student that Birstein’s artistic muses first tapped her on the shoulder. Luxuriating in the magnificent Greek islands of Corfu and Crete, absorbed in the ancient art and architecture on offer, Birstein felt in touch with freedom, creativity and passion for new experience (see PGBC Newsletter, April 2009: www.bcpotters. com/newsletters/200904PGBCNewslett er.pdf). Since her graduation in 1980 from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design with an Honours diploma in ceramics, Birstein has gone on to create a wide and diverse body of handbuilt pottery, ranging from functional tableware to a series called Portrait Masks and large double-sided Duet busts replete with multicultural motifs. She embraces such diverse influences as Picasso, Modigliani, Frida Kahlo and Beatrice Wood to Busby Berkeley and Carmen Miranda. ‘The cultural icons that recur in her sculpture include the busy many-handed Indian gods, Venetian-style masks and now, the ‘classic Greek-influenced Birstein columns and busts, all created to the ever-present outpouring of music ranging from tango, opera, blues and jazz, from Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter to Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen, Birstein communicates through the faces and figures that dominate her art, driven by a stream-of-consciousness drawing and painting technique that draws on widely-disparate cultural themes. “Within a single statue, there can be a Chinese warrior, an Egyptian god and a cancan dancer,” notes Birstein. When she says, “I long to merge the power of Nefertiti with the spirit of Carmen Miranda” Birstein is speaking literally and descriptively. Her ceramic sculptures blend “archetypal icons that embrace the power of ancient and contemporary world cultures” with the with SUZY BIRSTEIN where Mama Mia was filmed! popular culture of music, film and dance that she has embraced since childhood. In her work, all of those influences and themes somehow combine harmoniously, brought together by the brilliance and subtlety of the way she wields colour on earthenware slabs and coils with fired and cold surfaces, combining multiple glazes, underglazes, pencils, black line, lustres, acrylics and patinas on bisqued surfaces and the rich textures she achieves with stamped, figured and embossed wet surfaces. To Birstein, who invariably wears a brightly jewelled bindi on her forehead in the midst of her cascading, multicoloured Greco/African style braids, all of the artistic reflections of her life are about honouring the diverse fabric and social harmony in the Canadian culture in which she lives and works, It is in her latest body of work that virtually all of Birstein’s artistic influences and inspirations came together. In a typical synchronicity, she was on her way to a tap dance class when she saw Greek columns in a shop window and instantly saw how they could be combined with her own sculpture to form life-size figures. “A voice inside cried, ‘Columns. Nine Greek columns for the nine Greek muses,” says Birstein. The series had actually already begun with a muse that called on the personas of King Tut and Ganesha, the first in a new direction Birstein had begun toward large clay sculptures, which barely fit inside her home-studio kiln. The torso and head of the Ganesha figure survived but the base, upon loading, broke into thousands of pieces. Spotting an elephant column that day in the shop window, Birstein could visualize her Ganesha perched atop it. She envisioned eight more sculptures that would incorporate Greek columns as foundations. “Each ceramic character would be inspired by its found column,” Birstein decided, “and I would glaze, paint, patina the ceramic and Continued on Page 11, Melding cultures r as Se Potters Guild of BC Newsletter « July/August 2040 10