Birthday Girl: A Show in Honor of Susan Klahr

Birthday Girl: A Show in Honor of Susan Klahr
 
On the occasion of her birthday and the summer solstice—the longest day of the year—a celebratory exhibition of the work of Susan Klahr (6/21/1943-1/1/2010) will be held. It is fitting that her birthday was also the longest day of the year, the day of the most light: She was known to her family and friends and to her fellow artists and students for her giving and her openness, for her love and light. She was a giver of light, through her art and her painting and through her life and example to others.
 
Through events such as these—by sharing her art and her passion—we can keep the strength of her life’s work bright and alive.
 
Selected Biography:
 
Born June 21, 1943, Susan grew up in the Bronx (Crotona Park and Boston Road), New York.
 
She went to public school at the Art and Design High School in Manhattan, graduated BFA at City College of New York, and attended Art Students League classes in NYC. She moved to Cape Breton, Canada where she worked on fabric collage, wall-hangings, and clothing with her husband David Klahr. Susan was awarded the first Master of Fine Arts degree at UTEP (along with our friend David Fleet). She taught hundreds of art students at UTEP, where she was an instructor in painting and other classes in the art department. She had solo and group exhibits in Long Island, Cape Breton, Halifax, Toronto, Santa Fe, Cincinnati, Dallas, Tucson, as well as in her adopted home of El Paso.
 
She lived her art in the broadest sense, through the private lessons she gave, through her choices of food and how she spent her time, her love for her family.

Cancer stole her (as it stole her own mother when Susan was just 15 years old) as she was entering such a beautifully creative, technically polished and productive period.
 
Fuck cancer! Long life to you, Sue!
 
Thoughts from David her husband:
 
She was a great mother and wife. She stayed up all night for Isabella’s birth—Everyone loved her—Was that her goal? She was my best friend and everything to me. She made life interesting—Always doing something—She respected my opinion—Was she beyond selfishness? What got her? Was she a genius? Was it stuff that pleased the eye? Was she beautiful? What is beauty? More questions than answers. A show at the Glasbox will be a fitting tribute on what would be her 69th birthday.
 
6-9 p.m. June 21 @ Glasbox, 1500 Texas (Cotton and Texas)
 
Music by Aisling & Arlo, love by family and friends.