The Independent Study Program of YCS is proud to present Susan Poirier’s extraordinary installation, When Presence Becomes Memory, and her first one-person exhibition, October 3–November 15, at Art Cake in Studio 10. After years as a Critical Care Nurse, Susan and I came across one another, and she came to study with me and various mentors at the Yellow Chair Salon in all of its various iterations …No longer a student and now perhaps more of a teacher, this breathless installation, planned and conceived over the years, is that of a fully mature artist—conceptually rigorous and meticulously executed—with the touch and sensitivity for the light within … that discipline, that faith she had to own within herself in her other life as a Critical Care Nurse. How did she get here with NO formal “art” education? Quietly relentless (like the work itself) and voracious to learn—from every concept and artist she was exposed to. The lessons of Turrell, Corse, Hamilton, Rothko, Ryman, Laib, Hafif, Marden, and Marioni—she made their influences her own.I am not positing she is in any way “equal” to these masters of “light and form” (it’s way too early in her practice, and would be disingenuous and disqualifying of any credibility of my support and words to do so)—but somehow she has extended their languages and made them her own.I believe the answer to how she has accomplished it is in her touch … a voice that speaks for herself and to others who came before her.The touch of “critical care”—that sensitivity within the objects and materials Poirier has transformed—invites us to slow down and join in this sensitivity; one where light emerges from darkness, filled with hope and healing.Her work in this installation creates a beautiful, discreet, moving record of human touch. A devotional—reaching out for connection and reflection, to self and one another. To quote and paraphrase two great artists, Leonard Cohen and Lonnie Holley:While the phrase “where the light gets in” (famously from the Leonard Cohen lyric, “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”) is often used by Lonnie Holley to describe how he transforms deep life trauma into hopeful, illuminating art;When Presence Becomes Memory creates a memory. Poirier creates a space where the light gets in—her gift as an artist and to each of us.