“Like Living in a Memory Bottle”

When I registered for the Art Against the Flow summit in 2018 I had the opportunity to register for a Chicago Collections Crawl the day before as well but I passed for a couple of reasons – additional cost, the fact that only conference attendees could register so I’d be by myself, and a fear that the collectors would be rich and snooty and I would feel intimidated. Then a woman I met at the summit who had gone on the crawl was raving about Susann Craig and her collection and said if I ever got a chance to go on another tour I should do it. So when Intuit offered a virtual tour of two collections including Susann’s to members recently I signed right up. I was glad to find that Susann’s collection is amazing and that she is not intimidating at all. Her apartment is overflowing with folk art and outsider art. As she pointed out some of the pieces, she uttered the line “…like living in a memory bottle” and said she feels a connection to and has a story for each piece in her collection. And I thought that’s exactly how I feel about living in my home with my more modest collections!

Unfortunately we only got to see a tiny part of her collection and now I definitely want to see more. I found these photos online and I also found out her home is featured in a book called “A Home of Her Own” by Nancy Hiller which I’ve ordered. I also saw that Susann has given quite a few home tours in the past so I’m hoping I’ll have a chance to go on one in the future.