Sharon Butler visits the studio of painter Suzanne Joelson.

Butler notes that: "Although she works abstractly, Joelson is fiercely interested in politics and current events, and the daily agitation prompted by the news informs her work. We had a long conversation about the aesthetic choices artists make, and how those choices can be rooted in matters well outside the history of painting. She showed me one series on paper that references newspapers, and her use of Islamic patterning quietly but clearly reflects her ongoing concern about the dire political challenges of the Middle East… Process has independent meaning for Joelson: how she creates images and objects is as important as they are."