Sue Weil
ARTIST STATEMENT
My designs are intentionally spare, often abstract, and minimalist in style and composition. Works may be simple, direct, emotional, sometimes fantastical, allowing space for each viewer to bring their own life experience to the piece. Beginning with a simple thumbnail sketch, this less-is-more approach allows the details to develop as artist and medium navigate the composition together.
Weaving attracts me for its simplicity: beginning with two opposing sets of threads twining together to create a whole, I’ve found my imagination is the only limitation. Working at the loom provides the opportunity to sit in stillness, allowing my hands to think.
ARTIST BIO
Sue Weil developed her design and tapestry skills over decades of personal explorations, enhanced by workshops. Creating with yarn and fiber as a young child, she was introduced to floor loom weaving while in college. Alongside her academic subjects, Weil took many studio arts classes in painting and sculpture. She graduated with honors from Harvard University, receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology. Following graduation, Weil continued weaving, creating her own line of designer clothing, then later turning her focus to weaving tapestry.
Weil’s tapestries are exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries and museums and appear in numerous private and public collections in the US and Europe. Weil’s pieces are included in recent books by Susan Iverson and Tommye Scanlin, both published by Schiffer Publishing. Additionally, her work is represented in numerous catalogs, including being featured on the cover of both “American Tapestry Biennial 14, 2023,” and “What’s Going on, An Exhibition of Contemporary Tapestry from Tapestry Weavers West, 2025.” Weil’s commission of two 5’ x 4’ woven panels, titled This Land I and This Land II, is on public view at Twelvemonth Burlingame.
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Graham Life is so precious. Through my art, I hope to convey my deep appreciation for the “life force” and I invite the viewer to share in the wonder I experience as an artist and protector of life in all forms. That “quickening,” that “life force” is a constant energy that surges through my veins and sparks my creativity. I am a creative; an artist, a dancer, a mother. I make art because I must. An interesting concept, an unusual form, or a sudden vision can steal me from my duties or awaken me from my dreams. My interests in preserving the environment and promoting social justice frequently drive the message of my artwork. My pieces often begin with a visceral response to an act of injustice or the destruction of our natural world and explode into social commentary. In the mid 1980’s, I passionately explored the ancient Japanese tradition of handmade paper. I was attracted to the use of natural fibers, water, and elements that promote fibrous interaction to ultimately produce a thing of beauty. Ten years later, I embraced the challenge of creating beauty and complexity from other materials that were raw and simple. This inspired me to explore a variety of media from transformed fabric and knotless netting, to repurposed, reclaimed, and reimagined materials. Then in 2009, life changes propelled me to become passionate about felting wool. As in making paper, felting wool transforms natural fibers through the use of water and fibrous interaction. By employing wet and dry techniques, laminating gauzy silks to the wool fibers, inlaying embellishments, and blending colored fleece, I create painterly fabrics, unique wall art, and exciting three-dimensional forms. As an Obstetrical nurse for four decades, I was entrusted with guiding women in the most awe-inspiring form of creation. Similar to assisiting the labor process, felting requires strength, calculation, patience, and a sensitive connection to the subtle transformation of the material. The fact that I am passionately attracted to the tactile, rhythmic, spiritual, water-dependent nature of my professions as a nurse and as an artist does not escape me.
