Susan Baker has been making art on the Outer Cape since she was a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in 1969. Her work is always on view at the Susan Baker Memorial Museum, a gallery in the front of her North Truro house, where she lives with her husband, poet Keith Althaus. She’s an adventurous maker and easily moves between painting, sculpture, printmaking, sign painting, and drawing. In her artwork, she animates everyday scenes with vibrant color, deadpan humor, and an eye that notices curious details. —Abraham Storer
Q: When did you make this painting of the parking lot behind the Veterans Memorial School in Provincetown?
This was in my early days of doing landscape painting. It was likely the early ’90s. I was very close to Mary Hackett, and she told me about painting in the car in the wintertime.
Q: What was that like?
I loved painting in the car. I could listen to the radio, and it was warm, and nobody ever bothered me. I didn’t like it when people would come and bother me when I painted outside.
I would go out in the morning as soon as it got light because I’m a real early riser, and I would paint a painting. I would start with a fast drawing and then figure out a way to go from there. They all took me exactly two hours. I would start at six and I’d be out of there around eight and then paint in my studio for three or four hours.
The paintings from the car are all small, because I would put them on the steering wheel and just have a little palette. I don’t do that anymore, because I wanted to do bigger paintings.
Q: Was your car a mess from painting in it?
Yeah. I did many paintings, and then we had to sell the car. I had to go all over the car with a thing of paint the same color as the interior of the car and cover all the spots.
Q: What materials were you using?
The paintings from the car are all acrylic. I started putting frames on them made from snow fencing. I got a lot of this fencing in the winter. I would sneak out to the beaches, and the snow fencing would be falling apart. I really like the way they look on these little rough paintings.
Q: How do you choose your subjects?
I used to walk from my house near Salty Market in North Truro up to the Highland Lighthouse, so I did a lot of paintings of views along that way: Salty Market and the lighthouse and scenes of the woods. That walk was five miles. Then I got too old, so I decided to walk from the market toward the bay. I started doing paintings of that area.
Q. What attracted you to this view of the parking lot?
I wanted to do something different, so I went with this scene of the water towers. I had this stored upstairs for a really long time, but last summer a guy liked it, so I pulled it down.
