My name is Susi Lopera. My full name is Susana, but my mom only calls me that when she’s angry, and the name Susana sounds terrifying when said in a Spanish accent by my infuriated mom, so I prefer Susi. I was born in Medellín, Colombia, but for most of my life I’ve felt like a pin-ball, bouncing around from Colombia, to New Orleans, back to Colombia, back to New Orleans, then to Dallas, then San Antonio and now Los Angeles.
My life as a pin-ball made me a bit odd and extremely introverted. I like wearing mismatched socks and enjoy talking to myself in British and French accents. My oddness has opened doors for me and I was lucky enough to be awarded a full-tuition scholarship to USC. Now I’m about to graduate as a double major studying creative writing and ceramics.
It was terrifying to me to choose such creative majors. My parents were extremely supportive, but for some reason I had the idea in my head that pursuing creative subjects would lead to a selfish and meaningless life. But one day in my freshman year of college I decided that an artistic path was the one for me. That deciding moment occurred when I was showering in the public bathroom in my dorm. There was hair on the wall from some girl who’d showered before me and I found myself drawing birds and eyes using a stranger’s hair. It was during that bizarre, disconcerting situation that I realized that, for better or for worse, I needed to pursue majors that would allow me to release my creative itches and cravings. I turned to ceramics and creative writing.
Now I write and make ceramic sculptures because I feel I have to. I’ve been struggling through a dark intense period of depression and it’s been writing and creating silly cups and sculptures for other people that has given me the momentum to keep going. I feel like I’m at an identity crisis point in my life, so I can’t confidently call myself an artist or a poet. I feel like I’m just pretending, but making my surreal sculptures and writing my confessional poems are the activities that make my life a life, and not a monotonous painful mess. I’m so touched and grateful to be acknowledged and recognized for my art and creativity.
I’m extremely grateful to my parents and my professors, especially Molly Bendall, Anna Journey, Alice Gambrell, and Karen Koblitz, my ceramics teacher. These magnificent individuals provided the contradictory forces of ego-pruning and confidence-boosting that I needed to channel my creative itches into something more than hair drawings on a shower wall.
