Artist, Writer & Creator of The Hermitess Papers
I make art and write because the world is peculiar, memory is unreliable, certainty is overrated, and being human requires more interpretation than anyone warned us about.
My work wanders through creativity, aging, belonging, uncertainty, home, and the stories we carry without always knowing we are carrying them. Curiosity leads. Close attention follows.
I am Suzanne Gibbs. I live and work in Portland, Oregon. I am also The Hermitess.
She observes, questions, notices what others may walk past, and returns to the studio and the page with fresh questions. She leaves room for mystery & magic.
Much of this work appears in The Hermitess Papers, published one installment at a time on Substack. Essays, poems, literary illustrations, and a touch of philosophical mischief.
My visual work includes hand- and machine-stitched textiles, works on paper, ink drawings, and investigations of memory and place. Sewing and near-daily knitting keep my hands in conversation with repetition, rhythm, repair, and time. In projects such as Fragments of Home, repeated marks, bits of thread, painted surfaces, and quiet gestures hold large stories, including some I do not yet know I am telling.
My perspective has been shaped by studies in design, communication, and studio art at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Portland, and Claremont Graduate University, along with a childhood spent partly in Mexico and Brazil.
To see available artwork, choose a series from Original Art in the menu above.
To read my current writing, visit The Hermitess Papers.