Susan Wickstrand

Susan Wick­strand is a tal­ented surfer/artist who cre­ates col­or­ful ocean-focused col­lages that com­bine pho­tog­ra­phy, arti­facts, and paint­ing. Her work is exhib­ited inter­na­tion­ally and has recently col­lab­o­rated with pho­tog­ra­pher Art Brewer on a series of paint­ings. We spoke with Susan to find out more.

What was your life like grow­ing up?
Pretty charmed in the sense that my par­ents are still mar­ried going on over 50 years and I lived in La Jolla. We’d spend time together going to the beach or tide pool­ing at Hos­pi­tals. Then, we’d have a pic­nic on the grassy area above Hos­pi­tals with my grand­mother, Grace. My favorite pas­time was col­lect­ing shells, crabs, rocks or hon­estly day­dream­ing up in the clouds try­ing to find as many shapes, things, pets, peo­ple as possible.

When did you get your first surf­board?
I’m embar­rassed to say. Hon­estly, not until six years ago when I started dat­ing my now hus­band, Kevin Roche, and we’d spend time going to 25th Street in Del Mar with our friends. I grew up watch­ing Peter King, Drew Lit­tle­more, David Eggers, PK and RK do their thing as surfers at Win­dansea, and it was fun. Lit­tle did I know how good they were at the time; I just thought that every­one nat­u­rally ripped.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
“Holy shit! This is fun!” One day last sum­mer, I had my friend Sam take me out with my goal to catch as many waves as pos­si­ble and to get my first per­fectly clean wave. Sam shad­owed me in the water, let­ting me know when to pad­dle and where to be, sac­ri­fic­ing her entire morn­ing to help me meet my goal. Well… suc­cess! I pad­dled as hard as I could when she said and down the face I went. So much fun!

Who did you look up to and admire when you were younger?
I really admired my Swedish grand­mother, Grace Wick­strand. She was fear­less, out­spo­ken, lov­ing, tal­ented, a mis­sion­ary, an amaz­ing cook and an artist. She used to live in Cal­cutta, India dur­ing the 1920’s. She also lived on a reser­va­tion as a mis­sion­ary with the Navajo Indi­ans teach­ing some rather mis­chie­vous boys. My grand­mother taught me to love strong, to fol­low your pas­sion and to care for the ones around you. Her steely core and faith that grounded her grounds me to this day. She was my “Amaz­ing Grace” and my daughter’s mid­dle name now.

How did you get involved in art?
On a whim. It was always the “easy A” class to take. I never really painted much grow­ing up—did things more with my imag­i­na­tion than paint. I was enrolled in the Entre­pre­neur­ial Pro­gram at USC doing well grade-wise and all, but I was mis­er­able. I felt like I was liv­ing a lie. Dur­ing the spring break of my sopho­more year, I had an epiphany that I wanted to become an artist. I announced it to my par­ents who said, “That’s great, but what have you painted?” I assured them that I just knew I could do it. They assured me with a tuition like USC that the four years of stu­dio work would be done in the two remain­ing ones in the bud­get. The Uni­ver­sity pur­chased one art­work a year from a promis­ing stu­dent, and after win­ning that honor and money for two con­sec­u­tive years, I start­ing think­ing, “Hmmm, maybe I can make money doing this.” I sold out my senior show and never looked back.

What is your process for cre­at­ing your art?
I think that all things are cre­ated twice. First, we con­ceive them in our mind’s eye. Some­thing sparks our imag­i­na­tion. Then… pop!… I have to cre­ate some­thing. Almost every­thing I cre­ate is first com­pleted in my mind’s eye, and I just fol­low the path to that place. It’s like a roadmap I fol­low in my brain. Even when I use pho­tos for ref­er­ence to oil paint­ings, I still put a twist on things and make it my own. Then, I’ll go back and refine the art­work to match it to what’s in my mind’s eye.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out and why?
Italy. I stud­ied there for a semes­ter abroad and chose Flo­rence. I had never been to Europe but I felt a strong pull to Italy to study pho­tog­ra­phy (with one of Ansel Adams’ assis­tants) and paint­ing with Syra­cuse University.

Who/what inspires you?
Truth and beauty in lyrics, pho­tog­ra­phy, film, peo­ple, archi­tec­ture and art­work. I’m a huge fan of painters April Gornik, Dar­ren Water­ston, Caio Fon­seca, Ger­hard Richter as well as pho­tog­ra­phers Peter Beard, Irv­ing Penn, Alfred Stei­glitz, Art Brewer, Jeff Divine and, of course, Kevin Roche. I’m a visual junkie.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
I think it would be “Never give up!”

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
To be bru­tally hon­est, for a time I thought that a divorce some time ago was going to be my biggest fail­ure in life. Divorce really sucks, espe­cially when you’re an over­sen­si­tive like myself. Hav­ing par­ents that are still hap­pily mar­ried can be a lot to live up to. How­ever, after putting the pieces back together, I learned that I am much stronger than I had ever thought I was and far more resilient. If at that defin­ing moment, I had not cho­sen to pur­sue my deep-seeded dreams of hav­ing a fam­ily and pur­su­ing my art, that would have been my biggest regret.

What are you most proud of?
Our daugh­ter, Chloe Grace. She’ll be the best col­lab­o­ra­tive piece of art that I’ve ever had the honor to help cre­ate. She’s a char­ac­ter; she’s strong and inde­pen­dent already! This is my most impor­tant role in my lifetime—being her mom. I want to get it right or much else won’t mat­ter. She and
I will most def­i­nitely enjoy surf­ing together with “Daddy”.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Surf­ing has always been in the back­ground of my life in one way or another. I have always been an avid fan and now I am a hum­ble stu­dent. I think since I’m mar­ried to an avid surfer, surf pho­tog­ra­pher and we live in Encini­tas, surf­ing is more in the fore­ground now. More of my art­work is now influ­enced by it than ever before. Surf­ing has been seep­ing in through the col­lages and some of the oil paint­ings. I think the notion of surf­ing has changed my life for the bet­ter and con­nected me with such amaz­ing friends, new friends, other artists, pho­tog­ra­phers and places to travel.

There is such ele­gance and beauty in the sport when it’s done well that it can stop you in your tracks. That sequence from Thomas Campbell’s Sprout of the “ladies that glide” kills me. I don’t think I started adding India Ink to my col­lages until I saw the art­work images for the movie Sprout. It def­i­nitely influ­enced me and I hope to meet Mr. Thomas Camp­bell some­day. My hats off to Belinda Baggs, Mon­ica Rose, Ash­ley, Mau­reen and Kas­sia Meador for mak­ing it look like all ladies were meant to walk on the water. Sim­ply gorgeous.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
My faith, fam­ily, friends, art and the ocean… in that order.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
Young gun film­maker, Cyrus Sutton—so tal­ented and inven­tive. Local rip­per Ryan Burch. Have you ever seen Ryan Burch surf in per­son? Sim­ply unbe­liev­able. Also, watch­ing Kelly Slater take a wave at Alli­ga­tors on the North Shore (with no one else out) just con­nect one wave after the other like a mad­man was pretty mind-blowing. I still get a thrill watch­ing our local heroes, like Machado and Tudor, surf out at Cardiff Reef.

What is your favorite board? Your favorite surf spot?
My favorite board is my 7’11″ fun board. My favorite spot Bar­neys because I’m just a green­horn and the sandy bot­tom is a softer land­ing for my 42 year old ass.

What’s your favorite meal?
Sam the Cook­ing Guy’s “Kate’s Mom’s Salmon”. It’s a mirin/ginger mari­nade for salmon that’s out of this world. That with lemon­grass rice and roasted aspara­gus, or steamed arti­chokes with curry, is my favorite.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
One would shud­der. Let’s just take one day—like today after paint­ing for five hours. We had Fugazi, Gold­frapp, Zep­pelin, Beck, Tom Petty, Band of Horses, Dr. Dre., The Racon­teurs, The Roots & Cody Chest­nutt, and wind­ing it down with some Anya Marina, Tris­tan Pret­ty­man and Bob Marley.

What causes or orga­ni­za­tions do you sup­port?
San Diego Coast­keeper, San Diego Surfrider, Scripps Can­cer Cen­ter and Carla Mann’s Bright Future Foun­da­tion (which pro­vides col­lege schol­ar­ships for at-risk youth). Envi­ron­ment, health and edu­ca­tion are always wor­thy causes for our family.

What are you most grate­ful for?
This amaz­ing gift called life—may I do it justice.

What’s next Susan Wickstrand-Roche?
Lots of art shows! With our daugh­ter now in preschool, I feel like I’m just get­ting warmed up again, ready to kick it up a notch. Lots of work left in me to cre­ate. Next up, “Blue Realm” group show on Sat. May 15th. I’m ready to show the town I grew up in, for the first time really, what I can do. I’ve painted for over 20 years, but I’m just get­ting started.

All images are copy­right, Susan Wick­strand. Find out more about Susan here. Infor­ma­tion about the Blue Realm group show is here.