Susan Lapp
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I strive not to create the exactness of nature or the human form, but to paint its essence. Imagine art, music, and words as powerful tools to express the deepest wounds, speak the language of love, or describe the divine planet Earth.
Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, by two artists/violinists, I grew up surrounded by the arts. I fell asleep on the church pews, hearing J.S. Bach’s cantatas with a chamber orchestra while my parents performed. Original paintings by my father and mother hung on the walls of my home. I hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a specialization in flute performance from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. My 40-year music career has spanned solo, studio, chamber, and orchestral work, as well as serving as a church music director, choir member, and composer for sacred and secular music. As a child, I spent weekends and summers on a small lake in the Quebec Laurentian mountains, naturally absorbing, doing, seeing, hearing and being with nature. As an adult, my time in the wilderness each summer — paddling remote rivers or climbing mountains, absorbing the energy of the land, and taking time alone to reflect and contemplate — is the inspiration for new art. My art infuses motion with emotion until all becomes a painted story. I feel I am an Alchemist — transforming paint, movement, and mark-making into tangible feelings of the human spirit. Art that you connect with has the power to restore, inspire and lift the heart.
I am currently querying my memoir, Fighting for Memory: A Daughter’s Reckoning with the Montreal Experiments. I have been an advocate for this history since 2018, when I learned of my mother’s unwitting involvement of Before the full extent of MKUltra subproject #68, known as the Montreal Experiments. She never knew that her suffering at the Allan Memorial Institute had been part of brainwashing experiments during the Cold War. I am her living memory. Every family story I preserved, each document I transcribed, every public presentation I will give about the Montreal Experiments carries forward the voice she never had the chance to use. Contact me for further information if you are interested in having me speak to your book club or organization.
If you are interested in learning more, see the link below for a 1/2-hour interview on Art on the Trail with Joanne. (Rogers TV.) This explores the history of the Montreal Experiments and my mother’s treatment, and also shows how art helped me find joy during the years of discovery.
https://rogerstv.com/guelph/show/on-the-art-trail-with-joanne?video=3930f8b0-9e15-4c8a-9398-881ef558a7de
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