In normal (pre-Covid) times, Susan Goldstein creates intricate collages at home and photographs the western landscape on solo trips in Colorado, New Mexico and other parts of the Southwest. As I write this introduction in 2021, Susan stays busy sequestered in her home preparing artworks for the 2021 Month of Photography Denver. For information about her shows and other MoP events visit https://denvermop.org/event-calendar/.
This interview was recorded in December 2018 and updated early 2021. For space reasons it is condensed from the full transcript.
Susan Goldstein: from New American West. Courtesy of the artist.
RJ: Tell me about your background.
SG: I was born in 1950 in the middle of Indiana. I fled after high school, not really understanding why, but I knew I didn’t want to go to college in Indiana. I got accepted to Boulder; it was a mindless decision, but I was intrigued by the mountains. This was 1968. At the time, The University of Colorado offered what was called a distributive major, which allowed me to dabble in a variety of things. I became interested in photography. I didn’t pursue it seriously, but I took a couple of classes [with Alex Sweetman and] Charlie Roitz.
SG: Based on the fact that I did the distributive major I didn’t really have an education that was helping me get a job. I did a variety of things, including handing out sausage samples at Safeway. I got a job delivering Westword, the newspaper, which was, at that point, about a year old. I was scrounging, but the Westword people recognized that I was more than a delivery person and asked me to work in the office.
SG: I did give a little thought to getting a master’s degree but I didn’t pursue it. And in a lot of ways I’m really grateful that I didn’t because, as I had seemingly always done, I found my own path [and] decided I was going to pursue photography. The Arvada Center had a photography program and a darkroom that was available for rent. So, I made prints of some of the work and gave them to Patty Calhoun, the Westword editor. I said, “If there's ever an opportunity, I would really like to get an assignment or two.” I started getting assignments, and I learned by the seat of my pants.
Susan Goldstein: from New American West. Courtesy of the artist.
SG: At some point, maybe 1987, I became Westword's staff photographer. It was exciting. I went to the weekly planning/brainstorming meetings, learning about what the writers perceived to be important in the community. Because it was a weekly they didn't cover as many events as a daily would. I might occasionally have an assignment to go to something like a Ku Klux Klan rally, but I did that kind of work on my own, whether it was for the paper or not because it was important to me.
RJ: They had Ku Klux Klan meetings here?
SG: We did. In the 90s there was a huge resurgence of Klan activity. A man named Shawn Slater was the head. They had a rally at the State Capitol, and they had a picnic and demonstration in a park in Aurora and gathered at the municipal building on the mall in Boulder. There were counter-protestors and it was a really ugly time.
Susan Goldstein: from New American West. Courtesy of the artist.
RJ: What were your experiences like in general, in the 70s and 80s, as a woman, politically and in the art world?
SG: I was a woman in a male dominated world, not just the art world, and I was still very unformed. My political energy had been directed at equal rights for gay people, at least when I was in my early twenties. I started gravitating toward creative people in my early thirties before I decided I was going to attempt to expand my skills beyond photojournalism.
SG: At some point, around 1989, I knew I wanted to be an “artist,” but I really didn’t know what that meant. That’s when I started going to galleries. I missed the early years of the artist run co-ops, but that’s basically when I started paying attention to the art world. There was a little photo space in Pirate called 2/C, and Jim Robischon had a gallery on 17th Ave. He had a call for entry for photography and I had photographed this horrendous man—the Capitol Hill rapist—for Westword. The photo I made of him at the courthouse ended up in that show. And that was one of my early little successes, kind of venturing out of the newspaper world into the gallery world. [end of Part One]
Susan Goldstein: from New American West. Courtesy of the artist.
Continued in the next post. If you have resources to lend or simply have knowledge and ideas to share, please let me know via the comments section. Please Subscribe, and visit “ColoradoPhotoHistory” on Instagram or Facebook to view more images from the project.