Sue Latta is one cool artist. She graduated from our Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program at BSU a few years ago, and in addition to having a busy exhibition calendar and teaching art, she’s been conducting a number of most excellent art workshops.

From the series "Works of Fiction" in her most recent exhibition at the Visual Arts Collective in Boise. In her own words, "This body of work incorporates the photographic image along with various sculptural and recycled materials to create 3-dimensional tableaus.

I am very proud that Sue earned her MFA in our program; she makes art that has a critical relevance to it, is very intriguing and quite beautiful. There is a visceral mystery to her art that only unfolds after spending time with it, almost as if it’s speaking to the intuitive part of your perceptions. There is a also a very intellectual aspect that is very thoughtful and poetic. Go to her site and see for yourself, or better yet, see her art in person the next time she’s having an exhibition.

Sue has been conducting a number of workshops here in Boise at The Sculpture Studio, where her website states, “The Sculpture Studio is a place for learning. We are here to fill the need in our community for a process oriented, skills based education for every level of artist, from the lifelong sculptor to the art curious, and we make it fun!

I’d have to agree with this; I’m a very advanced artist, yet had a LOT of fun and learned some very cool skills about resin casting. I brought my 15-year old son with me and he loved it too. There were six other people at the workshop with various degrees of expertise and I think I can speak for all of us in that we certainly learned what we’d hoped and did indeed have fun.

My little Olympus rangefinder about to be submerged in the molding material. And you wondered why my cameras sometimes look kind of beat up. This is what happens when when cameras go astray...

Yep, that's my camera submerged in there.

My son T'naa getting ready to take his mold apart. Notice his taped up shirt? If you get any of the chemicals on your clothes, it solidifies and breaks. He covered up two holes with the tape.

Sue showing T'naa how to get his resin piece out of the mold.

Sue helping me add just a touch of blue to the resin.

I'm doing a bit of hand jive to add good mojo to the resin.

There was some resin left over from my second piece and it solidified before we could use it up. Oops.

This is a solid. It would look cool on the edge of our table.

The teenage critic gives it a thumbs up.

One of the reasons I took Sue's workshop was because I wanted to make one of my cameras look like ice for a photograph I'm working on.

The bottom of the resin camera is cut off  so that it’ll have the appearance of melting into a puddle. In reality it was a happy accident. I didn’t mix enough of the resin, so the mold was only partially filled, but due to a modicum of synchronicity, it’ll be most efficacious for my stratagem. In other words, due to a bit of hand jive and luck, it’ll work nicely.

Sue Latta, thank you for a great workshop! She has her workshops often throughout the year and are most highly recommended! She has a Kid’s Art Workshop and an Intro to Welding Workshop coming up in June.

Story Copyright Larry McNeil, 2011, All Rights Reserved.