NOV. 30 - Early Sunday morning, artist Susan McCaslin and her husband, designer George Corsillo, arrived at the Parkville Art Gallery in Hartford to prepare for a new installation. 

The couple has worked together for decades as both artists and collaborators, and installation days have become a natural part of their life.

McCaslin has been immersed in art since childhood. She credits her grandmother, who dyed wool and painted china in the 1920s, as one of her earliest inspirations. 

In boarding school, art was encouraged as part of becoming a well rounded student, which opened McCaslin to the idea of creative work as a lifelong practice.

After encouragement from her family, particularly relatives who had pursued art professionally, McCaslin enrolled at Pratt Institute in New York City, and she graduated in 1972. 

After several years living in multiple boroughs, her husband’s graphic design career eventually took them to California before they returned to New York to raise their family. 

During her pregnancy, McCaslin began creating dolls influenced by Indigenous Kachina figures and elements of Mexican culture that she encountered there. 

She later taught young students how to make “diary dolls,” which contain layers of hidden messages within them.

Today, McCaslin teaches at both Albertus Magnus College and Fairfield University. 

She has taught artists across a wide range of ages, skill levels, and disciplines, building a teaching philosophy centered on exploration rather than perfection.

Teaching is only one part of her practice. McCaslin works with linoleum and woodcuts, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, monotypes, and graphic design. 

She and Corsillo run a design company, Design Monsters. They have helped develop branding for local breweries, including Weisse Beer by East Rock Brewing Co., as well as bookplates for the New Haven Institute Library’s annual fundraiser. Corsillo has also created album covers for major artists including Dolly Parton and Yoko Ono.

McCaslin’s latest installation at Parkville Art Gallery brings together memory, newsprint, and the regional folklore of the Old Leatherman, a mysterious 19th century wanderer known for traveling a 365 mile loop through Connecticut and New York. 

For this installation, McCaslin created objects such as rocks, sticks, logs, and leather coats entirely from newspapers, cardboard, and paper mâché.

McCaslin also traces part of her inspiration to childhood memories of hanging sheets with her grandmother. As they dried in the sun, the fabric would stiffen, a sensation she now associates with the hardened newspaper strips she uses in this installation. 

She dyes the newspaper with black ink, obscuring most of the printed words to prevent headlines from dominating the work’s meaning.

Although some text remains faintly visible, she did not want political narratives to overwhelm this particular piece as her emphasis was prticularly on emotion and atmosphere. 

Still, McCaslin acknowledges that politics and art are never fully separate. She has created political work in the past, and sees emotional expression as a powerful part of how artists respond to their surroundings.

McCaslin describes the theme of this installation as an exploration of enclosure and safety, a feeling many people search for during moments of uncertainty in the world.