Susan Swihart: If Only

Susan Swihart: If Only by Aline SmithsonOctober 27, 2014

©Susan Swihart

Photographer Susan Swihart follows her successful project on twins, About Face, with a new self portrait project that examines motherhood and identity in If Only. It is an exploration of terrain that is not unfamiliar to most parents when the chaos of parenting and carpools and packing lunches takes over and the self is lost to routine and nurturing those in close proximity. Susan uses this project to consider who she is at a time where her identity is not up for consideration.

Susan was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts. Growing up in a busy multi-generational home, she often sought quiet places to create with found supplies. In Boston, she studied art, exploring graphic design, filmmaking and photography. She found her way into a career in advertising, overseeing creative teams, art buying and production.

Leaving her advertising career to start a family, she has now come back to photography. Susan has shown in galleries across the country, is a member of the Los Angeles Art Association, a 2014 Exhibition Award winner at LA Municipal Art Gallery’s Open Show, a two-time Critical Mass finalist and currently shows with the Verge Collective at the Duncan Miller Gallery in Santa Monica and Los Angeles. Next month, she will be showing with Verge at the Fotofever Photography Art Fair in Paris and in January at Photo LA.

“I find inspiration in the people around me, the way we live, life at home and adventures in the world with my family”.

©Susan Swihart

If Only

As a child, whenever family or company would visit, I would always ask to sit with the grown-ups rather than play with the other kids. I was allowed to stay because I was quiet and they were able to forget I was there. I was fascinated by each character, and with their stories and interactions. As the evening went on, it felt so privileged to see how their true selves emerged.

I’ve always been an observer. I take pictures to capture a small moment and translate my personal experience into a shared one. Documenting a place in time or a personal event. Sometimes I am a passive observer, like in my childhood home, other times I’m recording my own domestic landscape. I am a collector of memories and intend to capture everything I can. I do this so that I cannot forget, but also to share it with others, so they will remember too.

©Susan Swihart

IF ONLY is a personal narrative of self portrait work that explores the challenges of being a wife, mother, artist, daughter and friend in the middle of a crossroads, at the middle of my life, not quite sure who I am now or what direction I am heading. It’s a period that feels out of balance, a time where I struggle with the concept of aging and lost youth and the pursuit of having it all when I’m not really sure I want it. Often feeling that the person I thought I was has disappeared, replaced by familial needs and that slow and steady march through time as I shepherd my family forward. I am a participant observer in a life where I watch my children grow and take our place, while at the same time observe parents deteriorate. I’m lost somewhere in the middle with little room or time for personal growth or a clear understanding where I fit on the spectrum of my life. Not much time to reflect, but plenty of time to be wistful.

©Susan Swihart

This series allows me to slow down and examine the ying and yang of motherhood, married life, and career choices at a time where life feels like it is moving too quickly, yet some days creeping on. It’s that impermanence that I find unsettling as I accept that life is filled with highs and lows and long periods of mediocrity in between, and the inevitable fear that I could lose it all.