Susan Lordi Marker received an MFA with honors from the University of Kansas, Lawrence. Her fiber work has won awards in the United States and internationally, including Best of Show in the exhibition Muse of the Millennium, Seattle Nordic Heritage Museum; Second Prize in Fiberart International, Pittsburgh, PA; and International Judge’s Choice Award in International Textile Design Competition, Tokyo, Japan. Her work has been published in art journals and museum exhibition catalogs. A monograph of her work, Portfolio Collection: Susan Lordi Marker was published by Telos Art Publishing in 2003. She is one of 10 U.S. artists featured in the Telos book Art Textiles: USA. Susan has served on the fiber faculty of both the Kansas City Art Institute and the University of Kansas. She has been a visiting artist at Haystack, Maine, Penland, North Carolina, and other university art schools around the country.
In 2000, Susan created Willow Tree®, a line of hand-carved figurative sculpture for the gift industry, distributed and sold worldwide. Through the reach of her sculptural and her fiber art, Susan communicates a message of the importance of integration of the arts as well as environmental conservation to a wide audience. She is involved in cultural, arts, and conservation organizations in the Kansas City community and beyond.
Susan has created specific ‘cause’ pieces to benefit children's’ hospitals in Kansas City, Canada, and England; the Susan G. Komen Foundation; and Care for Children in China. In 2005, the alumni association of University of Missouri-Columbia awarded her the Outstanding Achievement and Meritorious Service Citation.
Susan maintains her studio in the Crossroads Arts District of Kansas City, Missouri.
Biography
Born 1954, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania
Awards
2005 Citation of Merit Award for Outstanding Achievement and Meritorious Service, presented by University of Missouri-Columbia Alumni Association
1990,’91,’92,’93 Graduate Merit and Research Scholarship Awards, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
1974 InterFuture Study Travel Scholarship Award, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri
Education
1993 Master of Fine Arts, with honors, University of Kansas, Lawrence
1976 Bachelor of Science, cum laude, University of Missouri, Columbia
“Somewhere in Missouri is a stretch of prairie owned by Susan Lordi Marker. There the artist is carefully and lovingly restoring the prairie grasses that once were the glory of the plains. With her passion for nature and natural forms, Lordi Marker is assisting in the rebirth of a complex ecosystem that we are finally beginning to understand and value. This land, where the artist spends time whenever possible, is not only a place to center her mind and soul, but a metaphor for the theme of continuity, regeneration and the cycle of life at the core of all her work.”
-Hildreth York, Ph.D, Art History
Professor Emerita, Rutgers University
Author, Portfolio Collection, Susan Lordi Marker
© Telos Art Publishing, 2003