The Simplicity of Making Art with fine art bookbinder Susie Shipman

James Navé here. Twice 5 Miles Radio welcomes fine art bookbinder Susie Shipman to the microphone. In this insightful interview titled The Simplicity of Making Art, Susie rolls out a bunch of terrific reflections on how you can go about engaging your artistic process in ways that will reward you. Susie started her creative journey in Western North Carolina at Penland School of Craft in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Since Penland School of Craft is one of the best of its kind, Susie's skills as a bookbinder have allowed her to earn an excellent living making beautiful handmade leather journals that will endure for centuries. So, how does Suzi make artifacts that will endure all that time? In this interview, she addresses that question by talking about the notion of simplicity, listening, and focus as currency for making art. Of course, the simplicity of making art is a rather complicated proposition, even though keeping it simple is at the heart of the idea. Susie and I discuss that contrast in this interview. We use Julia Cameron's book The Artist Way to frame our discussion around simplicity and complexity. When I first got to know Susie on some Zoom calls a few months ago, I was drawn into her thinking because she had spent the Covid period immersed in Julia Cameron's work around the phenomenology of creativity. Unlike some who scan the material and claim they understand it, Susie worked with Julia Cameron's material from a literary point of view which included slow readings and long reflections. I've been facilitating Artist's Way Creativity workshops since 1995. So, I have a background along the lines of creativity. My knowledge allowed me to appreciate Susie's deep dive approach to The Artist's Way. Since Suzi comes at creativity from a holistic rather than a theoretical point of view, she has a fresh personalized interpretation you will enjoy. This show, as you know, is called Twice 5 Miles. When you listen to this conversation, you will quickly realize that Susie has gone far more than twice 5 miles in her life as creative who cooperates with the nature of creative things. Now, on with the show . . .