September 1 2019: ROWLAND, Susan Scott

 

Susan Scott Rowland

Susan Scott Rowland, an artist who channeled an irrepressible exuberance through her work as a painter, printmaker and ceramicist, has died at the age of 79. Rowland worked in New York for most of four decades, creating large, abstract expressionist canvasses and, later, ceramic pottery and sculpture with rough edges and whimsical animal forms. 

Rowland was born in 1940, daughter of Catherine Buff Scott and Robert Walter Scott. She graduated from the Ethel Walker School and Vassar College. In 1961 she married Dr. George B. “Robin’’ Rowland.  Her husband became a public health doctor when they moved to the Navajo reservation in Arizona with their two young children.  

But her restless personality and creative drive did not allow her to settle for long in one place. In 1967 she moved to New York City with her children. There, she studied at the Arts Students League and embarked in earnest on her artistic career even as the landscape of the Navajo reservation left a lasting imprint on her aesthetic sensibility.

 In 1974 she moved west again to a rural community north of Santa Fe, N.M.  She finally had space of her own in which to paint, and a rugged landscape to serve for inspiration.  

“Painting every day shows loss is not forever, that horses won’t turn against their riders, that bombers will not darken the sky,’’ she wrote around that time, in personal studio notes that were described in a 2013 show catalog about her work.

She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1976.  Three years later, she returned to New York  where she met and married her second husband, Charles P. “Tony’’ Sifton, a Federal judge in the US District Court in Brooklyn.  After their marriage, Rowland’s life became more settled, and her work shifted into a whole new gear: she discovered printmaking and ceramics.

 After the terrorist attacks of 2001, Rowland was inspired to pull the first new weeds growing near Ground Zero in spring of 2002 and press them onto inked plates to make monoprints.

“I wanted to print the first plants that showed up, the weeds, the volunteers,’’ Rowland was quoted as saying in a column by New York Times garden and environment writer Anne Raver.

Later, she became a trustee of the non-profit Brooklyn Arts Council; the family intends to continue selling Rowland’s work to benefit the council financially.

Susan loved art, gardening, music, and a succession of Rottweilers, most of whom were named Carla after the Good Dog Carl books.

In addition to her children Christopher, of Washington DC, and Alix, of Durango, Colo., she is survived by three Sifton stepsons, Sam; Toby; and John, and two half brothers, Sam “Spike’’ Richey, and Robert W. Scott Jr.  She also leaves five grandchildren and four step-grandchildren.  Her two other half brothers John “Jack” Richey and John Scott, pre-deceased her.

Memorial service arrangements have not yet been made. Donations may be made in Rowland’s name to the Brooklyn Arts Council.