Customer Reviews

Susan Seddon Boulet: A Retrospective

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Susan Seddon Boulet - A Retrospective, by Michael Babock, beautifully recounts the life of an internationally-known Bay Area artist, while a well-chosen selection of her paintings and sketches documents the many changes in her style, her use of new techniques and materials and, ultimately,her inner struggle with the concepts of life, death and resurrection as she courageously battles the cancer that ultimately claimed her life in April of 1997.

Boulet, whose body of work numbers in excess of 3,000 pieces painted from 1970 through 1996, began to draw and paint at a very early age. In the 1970's, after her husband died, she began to blossom as an artist, and her work in the 1980's and 90's reflects her growing confidence in her own very personal vision and style.

Boulet was a consummate master at painting multiple layers and levels of detail that only reveal themselves as one looks at a painting over and over again. From the painting "Dreams", with its rich panoply of animals, fishes, and architectural details, to Penelope, with its dark overlay of emotion and reflection, the body of work chosen by the writer to reflect Susan the "person" is a wonderful companion to the thoughtful prose of the text.

Pomegranate Press, the publisher of the Retrospective, allows the author full license to capture Susan fully, as artist, visionary, personal friend, humorist and story-teller. This book, with its emphasis on portraying Boulet's magical touch at bringing the mundane and the spritual into proximity as they relect the human condition as well as the universal "inner landscape", will inspire and comfort those who knew and loved her, and those who loved - and love- her work.

Those who have only seen reproductions of her work through the many calendars and notecards that have been available for years through Pomegranate Press, will be thrilled by the clear, color-accurate reproductions in this book. A "must have" for all the lovers of the magical paintings of Susan Boulet.

Having just received this book today I haven't had time to read it closely. All I can say in regards to my first look through this book though is "WOW!" I'd rate it far higher than a five-star if that were an option.

Having been a Susan Seddon Boulet fan for a few years, since discovering her calendars published by Pomegranate, I have eagerly awaited new books about her life and artwork. Out of all of them, which are all wonderful, this one is by far the best.

The book is a biography of Susan Seddon Boulet's life from her childhood to her death in 1997. It is much more than that, though. It is filled with full color pictures of her wonderful, fascinating artwork. It also includes excerpts from her journals and diaries and gives the reader a beautiful account of who she was.

Who was she? She is a visionary artist. Her artwork is dreamy and fairy-tale-like in many respects, but that doesn't mean it isn't bold and daring. Her artwork is something you have to experience to believe. It is powerful. It makes you want to know the mind, the person, the soul behind it. This book has it.

I've purchased several S.S.B. books in the past because I love her work, but I was frustrated with these books because they were exclusively picture books that revealed nothing about the artist herself or the life she was living.

I was also frustrated by their lack of artistic documentation found in the other S.S.B. books. I wanted to know so much more about Boulet and what inspired the images I was seeing (not to mention the dimensions and what -medium- and technique was being used to create them) and how they progressed over time.

This book -finally- provides all that, and then some. It's well written and beautifully printed with page after page of brilliantly colored and detailed pictures of Boulet's work.
This book ties these fantastic pictures of her work to the storyline of her life so that you can easily follow the progression and draw associations from what was going on in Boulet's life to what was going on with her art.

The reader gets to experience all the phases of Boulet's journey, watching her style and confidence unfold over the years, through her experiments with printmaking to the serendipitous ink spill that led to a crucial stylistic element emerging in her work.

The book never wavers, never flinches away from the reality of the story, even when it wanders into the sad and dark territory of Boulet's eventual decline from breast cancer.
The reader is allowed to explore with the artist the darker territory of the end of her life and view the transcendent imagery that manifested as a result.

There are a few small "irritations" that this book does indulge in, the prevalence for discussing pieces wildly out of order for example, or the fact that Susan's son was mentioned once or twice and then utterly forgotten as a major element in her life (even though she wrote extensively about how important motherhood was to her as a theme). But overall, I have to say that these idiosyncrasies are easy to forgive in light of the richness of the overall feast.

Everyone to whom I've shown this book, who is at all a fan of S.S.B's, has purchased their own copy and I can't leave it out on the table without people snatching it up and poring over it - I think that says it all.

i love her. i have never been so mesmerized by
an artist before. sure georgia o'keeffe, and more
but susan just because my favorite artist in the
past 4 yrs. i have several tattoos from the
goddess cards on my arms, which are connected.
i hope someone else writes a book about her
life, etc. ...

I've always loved the work of Susan--I was enchanted with her animal drawings and as an artist I was curious to learn more about how she created her works. This book was more than I could have hoped for. The book covers Susan's life and her influences it also shows her progression as an artist as well as the influences that helped shape her art.

If you are a fan of Susan's work then this is a must have book for your collection, you won't be disappointed.

I gave this to my Love who is a fervent fan of Susan, and she just adores the book. It is a beautiful and comprehensive collection of her work worthy of any collection of fine art books.

I really cherish this book. Not only does it give a detailed account of how each artwork was created but it also talks about what was going on in Susan's life around the time she did the artwork. I definitely feel that I got to know Susan a little through this book. It is a retelling of her life through her beautiful pictures. I'd also like to add that I very much liked the varied selection of her works in this book. You really do get a rounded view of her artwork and how it progressed over time.

Her artwork is just amazing and so genuine. I like that the book goes into more detail about her life, which illuminates her artwork. If you're a fan of her art and want to know more, this is the book.

some of the most beautiful and powerful spiritual paintings i've come across. the imagery feels like meaningful dreams unfolding the subconscious tenderly unto canvas. i have some of her other works too and they are all treasured. some works have been cut out from the books framed and hung on my walls.

This book is an exquisite retrospective. Those who love Susan's work will not be disappointed and those who have not met Susan through her work will apprciate the beauty of the book. The pictures are wonderful and the writing is a lovely, and complete, tribute to Susan and her work.