Jennifer Samet interviews painter Susanna Coffey. 

Asked about the variety of subject matter in her work Coffey comments: "I am just moving through the range of genres – still life, figuration, and landscape… Most artists follow their work wherever it leads. They follow their muse or their duende… I’m like the most traditional person in the world, and I am really interested in the genres! I like that connection to the past that the traditional genres provide. People are moving away from tradition and the weight of history, and I’d rather bear that weight and feel it. Even though everything has been done, it hasn’t been done by me. And particularly for women artists, it is not a very long tradition. The culture in the United States is also not that old. So I don’t want to throw it off; I want to get engaged with history, and fight with it, and compete with it."