November 14 – December 10, 1980
I grew up in a city. The cowboys I loved were two-dimensional Hollywood myths. The first time I went to the Rodeo as a 33 year old, it seemed as though the dream was real. Young sexy cowboys gambling with their bodies in a dangerous, theatrical, sport ritual. The camera managed to freeze some of the dream, appearing out of the camouflage of reality. Over time, getting to know some of the people behind the cowboy façade, I was thrilled, infuriated, puzzled, bored and touched by them. They were extraordinary and ordinary at the same time, and always a culture beyond my own.
Susan Felter grew up in the Bay Area, with a BA from UC Berkeley in Psychology and Art, and an MFA in Motion Pictures from UCLA. Her MFA thesis film, “Pescados Vivos,” won awards in short-film festivals in the 1970s. In 1980 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her photo project “Rodeo Work.”
After her next series, “Circus Work”, she became interested in digital photographic techniques. Her current projects are the digital series “Hunting and Gathering” and “Digital Thicket” as well as a short experimental films, and a video memoir of her mother, the painter June Felter.
Felter’s work has been exhibited and published in the U.S. and abroad for 40 years. It is included in museum and private collections, including SFMOMA. She taught Photography at Santa Clara University from 1983 to 2010, as Associate Professor of Art.