Susan Brand
Maker Monday - March 2026
About the Artist
Name: Susan Brand
Medium: printmaking, painting, illustration
Years creating: A Lifetime
SCAA Member since: 2023
Based in: Providence, RI
Instagram: susanbrandart
Website: susanbrand.com
Click an image to view portfolio slideshow
This month we’re excited to feature printmaker, painter, and illustrator Susan Brand — an award-winning artist whose work is in collections in New York State Museum in Albany, the Salmagundi Club in New York, and various corporations.
After moving to Providence in 2023, Susan quickly become a member of SCAA and exhibits with us regularly. Her work is known for portraying subjects with brevity and acuity, expressing connotative visual language. Some of her prints are impressively larger-than-life, and her paintings demonstrate her mastery of brushwork and color. - SCAA
Where are you from, and what do you make?
I’m originally from El Paso, TX, in the desert Southwest. After attending art school in California, I moved to New York City and had a 40-year career in animation and film. After many visits to Rhode Island, I moved to Providence in 2023.
I make paintings and prints, and I am also a natural science illustrator. Lately, I’ve dipped back into collage and assemblage. I love trying new media and techniques.
How long have you been seriously pursuing art?
My entire life. I can’t remember a time that I didn’t think of myself as an artist.
What inspires you to create?
Everything from sunlight raking across cherry blossoms to a strange vocabulary word. I keep sketchbooks, notes, and boxes of fabric and collage material, and try to make sense of all the sparks.
Which artist outside of your chosen medium has had the most impact on your art? What do they do, and in what way do they influence you?
Laurie Anderson. I went to a retrospective of her work in Los Angeles in 1983. Besides the music she is most known for, she creates interactive aural and sculptural works and installations. Seeing a woman artist who was following her own muse–and finding success at a time when it was still very rare–was inspiring. It gave me the courage to forge my own path.
Is there a work of art that has changed your life or how you view the world in some way?
In that same Laurie Anderson exhibition, there was a piece called Handphone Table. It was a wooden table with carved indentations where you put your elbows then place your hands over your ears. You would then hear a sound piece that was transmitted from the table to your ears through your hands. It opened up so many possibilities about what art was and what it could do, and that interaction was a key aspect to art.
As a member of SCAA, what do you like most about us?
I like the diversity of the art in all the exhibits. It’s like a joyful conversation.
Tell us a joke.
The inventor of the carousel and the inventor of the Ferris Wheel never met. They traveled in different circles.