Sushmita Mazumdar
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 she moved to the United States.
Art & Stories: In 2005, she 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 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 was 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! …. – 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. She would want to someday perhaps open a studio where they could 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!