Photography by KATIE McGEE
FIBER ARTIST SUZY HOKANSON goes with the flow.
As she entwines kaleidoscopic skeins of silk and wool onto her loom, she confesses she hasn’t used a pattern in decades, preferring to be pleasantly surprised by the freestyle design emerging from the threads.
“Water has always been an inspiration,” says the 75-year-old as she slides the wooden shuttle back and forth. “The way it moves and changes, how it carves patterns into the land, the reflections on it as the sun sets.”
From ripples in quiet lakes to the ocean’s gentle rhythm, her aquatic observations are as varied as her palette of yarn. After raising four children and teaching art near the babbling brooks of upstate New York, Hokanson and her husband, Bob — whom she calls “Doc” — retired to Savannah in 2008 to bask in the moss-draped majesty of Wilmington Island and stroll the beaches of Tybee Island.
Doc took a part-time job as a lifeguard while Hokanson delved into her dream of creating art. She had written about the weavers of the Bauhaus movement for her Masters thesis in art history and became enraptured by the fiber traditions of Japan, where she spent several weeks exploring the culture and landscapes on a Fulbright Memorial Fund Scholarship.
With a Japanese Saori loom and a smaller hand loom, Hokanson began developing her own style by following the ebb and drift of her materials and tools. She immersed herself in the local textile community, joining the Fiber Guild of the Savannahs (which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year) and dyeing her own yarns with indigo plants on Ossabaw and Daufuskie islands.
“Water has always been an inspiration. … I’m playing with pattern and texture and color all the time.” — Suzy Hokanson
“Now that I finally have time to explore my passion for working with fibers, I’m seeing the potential of what they can be,” she explains, her bare feet tapping the loom’s treadles in symphony with her busy hands.
Her projects range from small squares to larger banners that she incorporates into grand community projects, like her 2020 show at Sulfur Studios, where she asked friends to contribute found objects. The sand dollars and oyster shells people brought were easy to weave into her work; the baseballs and Doc’s lifeguard floaties, not so much.
“I think they were trying to challenge me, but I did it,” she says, laughing. “I’m playing with pattern and texture and color all the time.”
Each piece is unique and often breathtaking; visitors to the Jepson Center gift shop can gape at the massive tree she fashioned out of wire, wool, cotton and Spanish moss. Her creations are also on display at Sulfur Studios and Gallery 209 as well as her Instagram page @suzyhok.
Of course, water must always be moving or it will stagnate. Every summer the artist trades in the tides of Tybee to return north to Lake Champlain, where she and Doc keep a 36-foot sailboat that this year they’ll share with Kaz, their 9-month-old Sheepadoodle.
Hokanson will continue to create on board, following the flow of her inspiration.
“I guess life is like weaving,” she muses as the beaters of her loom pull and clack, the rhythm reminiscent of waves on the shore. “You build it one row at a time.”
