User:MattUsedRally/sandbox

Miriam Eric Suzanne
Miriam Eric Suzanne is an author, performer, musician, designer, web developer, speaker, and consultant — a co-founder of OddBird, member of Teacup Gorilla, and avid open-source contributor. Miriam is the author of Riding SideSaddle* (a hybrid novel) and The Post-Obsolete Book (a performance website), co-author of Jump Start Sass (a tech book) and 10 Myths on the Proper Application of Beauty Products (a play), and creator for the open-source Accoutrement, Susy, and True Sass toolkits.

Notable Exhibitions and Projects
Miriam Suzanne has found success in her career as a co-founder of Grapefruit Lab, a performance laboratory which serves as an artistic laboratory for making "art without assumptions – art that humanizes and entertains and challenges and brings you into conversation." Another notable collaboration done with a group known as Teacup Gorilla comprising of Daniel Eisenstat, Sondra Eby, Miriam Suzanne, and Josselyn Cool who can be described by "dark indie soundscapes with evocative poetry". She is also responsible for creating open source materials such as Susy, True, and other popular open source tools.

Artistic Concepts and Creative Process
Miriam Suzanne, in an interview with Susan Froyd, details some of her previous work including her time spent collaborating with the local creative community. She states that her muse is: "I take inspiration from all over: a band that I hear, an article I read, the people around me. If I’m stuck, I sometimes look to myths and other old stories for a familiar structure to explore and dissect." In another interview conducted by Chris Coyier on CSS-Tricks.com, Suzanne shares her belief that with art and even coding that "You also have to trust that users want to be surprised, and that’s not something they can ever tell you how to accomplish."

Transgender Activist Controversy
Miriam Suzanne identifies as transgender. Because of this, there is the transphobic belief that transgender individuals do not deserve rights. In an interview with 9News, she states that you must be an activist. Otherwise, people with not acknowledge transgender people as human beings. Luckily, Suzanne believes there is hope if people take the time to ask questions and reach out to them.

In Relation with Contemporary Art History
Some common wants for consumers of media is the want of a product to be fast, easy to understand, and cheap. Miriam Suzanne's work plays with the idea of innovation and experimentation. She sees some of her work and life experiences as gradual, not contained in a particular window of time. She takes what she learns in one area and applies it to the next project on the horizon. This is very much in line to contemporary art history, where the product is not the main focus for artists. Rather, it is the process, the problem solving phases in an artists career is where much of the creativity and much of what the end product comes from in the end. This practice of artistic synthesis becomes important especially when you are involved in being a web developer, artist, speaker, author, musician, and playwright.