While she is best known for her sculptures made of “woven” borosilicate glass rods, Susan Plum works in many media, including drawing, painting, photography, and performance. Plum’s “Árbol de la Vida” series of digital prints was constructed from images of the Mexican fireworks known as castillos, shot in San Miguel de Allende between 2002 and 2009, which are layered with photographs of her flameworked glass sculptures. The equal-armed cross, Plum explains, is an ancient and universal image of the cosmos reduced to its simplest terms: two intersecting lines making four points of direction. The fifth point is the central axis, the Tree of Life, which is also called the Cosmic Tree or the World Tree.1 The image may be exhibited as a print or projected onto a wall.
Detail of Árbol de la Vida I (Tree of Life I) Susan Plum (American, b. 1944) United States, Houston, Texas, 2010, printed in 2014 Digital print H. 118 cm, W. 117 cm CMGL 141808
As in all of Plum’s work, the element of light is primary. The light gives the work a spiritual or extradimensional aspect, while the tree grounds the image and is the vehicle through which light is transmitted. Plum says: “It is written in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Maya, that the First Father, Hunab Ku, erected the World Tree so that light could spread through the earth. The Tree has four directions and functions as a generator of space, time, and evolution of consciousness. Many spiritual traditions speak of the Tree of Life as bringing light from the heavens with its branches, and spreading it throughout the earth with its roots.”
Árbol de la Vida I (Tree of Life I) Susan Plum (American, b. 1944) United States, Houston, Texas, 2010, printed in 2014 Digital print H. 118 cm, W. 117 cm CMGL 141808
Plum’s glass work can be seen in Oldknow (38), pp. 172–173; and Catherine D. Anspon, Texas Artists Today, Seattle: Marquand Books, 2010, p. 221. Watch an example of her performance work and see her website for more information.
—Tina Oldknow, senior curator of modern and contemporary glass
1. Quotations are from Susan Plum, artist statement, 2010.
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