“Welcome to Studio Pause! I am Sushmita Mazumdar, artist, writer, and educator, and this is where I work and invite others to visit, learn, share their art, and celebrate the art and writing of others. I work across stories, book arts, and visual art, often mixing into it the community who collaborate, discuss, and respond to inform my creations.”

Born in India, Sushmita grew up in Bombay and got her BFA from Sir. J. J. Institute of Applied Art. She worked in advertising and design for almost 10 yrs before moving to the United States.

Art & Stories: In 2005, Sushmita quit her career as an art director and started exploring how to write stories about her childhood in India to show her American-born son how different yet wonderful lives can be. She folded paper to look like her grandmother’s house, wrapped a story about her father in his own handkerchief, and put a homework assignment inside a matchbox. She was amazed at all the different ways she could express herself and how much fun her son had with these unique storybooks!

In 2007 she launched Handmade Storybooks, her multi-cultural, inter-generational artists books. She also started teaching bookmaking and story writing at local museums, libraries, and schools. Her Handmade Storybooks have been sold at museums and art galleries in the region as well. Sushmita participated in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2010 in Washington DC in the Asian Pacific American Program, Local Lives Global Ties and her art has also been shown at The Art League Gallery, the Gallery at Convergence, and the Alexandria Black History Museum in Alexandria, VA; at the Crossroads Gallery in Goodwin House, Falls Church, VA; at Cassat’s in Arlington, VA., the National Building Museum, in DC and the Smithsonian’s Ripley Center. You can see more about Sushmita’s work at www.SushmitaMazumdar.com

Community: The idea of Studio PAUSE was born out of her first solo art show, Let’s Tell Our Tales! Everyday Stories as Artist’s Books and Collages – at the Popcorn Gallery, Glen Echo Park, MD, in Oct 2012. Sushmita is a graduate of Empowered Women International’s Entreprenurship Training For Success program (2008) and so she had invited the board to give them a tour of her show. Executive Director and Founder of EWI, Marga Fripp then asked her what she planned to do next. Sushmita shared how she was amazed at people’s response to her handmade books, collages, and mixed media artworks. Children and adults shared their stories with her and so many visitors wanted to learn to do what she did. Sushmita said that she would love to someday perhaps open a studio where people could see her work and explore creativity and build community as they learned from each other. Marga told Sushmita about their partnership with Kiva Zip, a micro loan organization, and encouraged Sushmita to be EWI’s first applicant. Studio Pause was open in Sept 2013!

MaryLouise (LouLou) Marino

“I have been a part of Studio PAUSE, a unique and intentional space in Arlington, VA, for the last ten years, and have had two solo shows of my artwork and participated in several of its group shows.”

In the past year, LouLou has been working closely with Sushmita as a project assistant, advisor, and contributor on various grants focused on community book projects, oral stories, and exhibits. She helped with the opening of a new Studio location on Columbia Pike, Arlington’s most ethnically diverse neighborhood, helping with Sushmita’s vision of making multicultural more visible to everyone by making time for creativity and celebrating community.

LouLou is an artist with a passion for expressive creativity, nature’s wisdom, and cultural understanding, working in fiber arts, nature gathering, mark-making, photography, and writing (check out her website here). From 2016-2021, she had a social enterprise, Indigo Lion Handmade, where she traveled annually to scout and curate a collection of distinctive, ethically sourced handmade textiles from Laos. Before that, she was the Director of Programs and Operations for Empowered Women International in Washington, DC from 2012-2015. In the mid-2000s, she was a Peace Corps Volunteer as a Community Developer in NGO Capacity Building in Romania and Uzbekistan, and later a Technical Training Consultant for Peace Corps Romania. Her assignment in Romania focused on working with a range of partners in cultural and rural heritage preservation. Earlier in her career, she worked for multiple design firms and taught design at the college level.

LouLou received her Master of Science in Organizational Management from the School for International Training in Vermont, Masters Coursework in Lettering Design from the Basel School of Design in Switzerland, her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and studied with calligraphers in New York, Switzerland, and Japan.

She lives with her sweet husband in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, VA, outside of Washington, DC.

Studio PAUSE artist-in-residence Dec 2023-June 24: Adam Henry

Adam Henry is a portrait artist, muralist, sculptor, and fabricator who views art as an accessible form of communication and way to connect with others. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Adam attended the Pratt Institute of Art and has continued his art practice over the last 25 years. His appreciation of all art forms has enabled him to develop a varied practice ranging from theater staging to album covers to portraits. Henry lives and works in Arlington, VA. Visit Adam’s website here.

For his residency, he will be creating The Animal Sculptures Project. Read more about it here.