Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Sully.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
When I moved to Charleston in 1999 to reconnect with my Southern roots, I was spellbound by the beauty and mystery of the city’s architecture. I’ve always been fascinated by Southern architecture–beginning as a child strolling the sidewalks of my mother’s hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia, and feasting my eyes on the white-columned mansions lining the street. They were grand, but they were also a little bit on the time-worn side with tilting porches and sun-blistered paint, but that made me love them all the more. In Charleston, there were so many more such houses and some in a style I came to know was called the Single House, particular to this locale. Just as when I was young, I wasn’t satisfied just to look at them from the sidewalk. I wanted to come inside, meet their owners, and learn their stories. Before long, I found myself doing just that, aided by a few native Charlestonians who appreciated my desire to learn more about their city’s architecture. This process led to the creation of my first book about Southern architecture and design, Charleston Style: Past and Present, published by the renowned international style publisher Rizzoli International Publications. Thanks to the appeal of Charleston and perhaps also to my particular take on it, in which I combined historic house museums, grand homes, bohemian ones, and residences where the owners had introduced a modern perspective, the book sold out its first printing within weeks. My career was launched, and since then, I have written ten books about Southern regional style and photographed seven of them. After studying Savannah, New Orleans, Florida, Southern cottages, and the subject of Southern charm and Southern hospitality, I have returned to my favorite subject, Charleston. My new book, The Allure of Charleston: Houses, Rooms, and Gardens, was born out of curiosity. After having been away for a couple of years, I returned to Charleston and found myself spell-bound once again. I asked myself, why does Charleston possess such enduring allure? What are the individual elements that combine in such a special way to make this a place like any other. I tried to answer that question, studying the architectural and interior design language of Charleston, identifying specific components, looking at the houses where they first found expression, and then exploring ways people are bringing them up to date. I started thinking about the difference between a dead language, which ceases to be spoken and to grow at a certain point in time, and living languages that continue to be spoken and to evolve and to expand as times change. Charleston speaks such a language and I believe it always will.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
If any author tells you that it’s been a smooth road, either they’re lying or they are extraordinarily lucky. It took a lot of convincing for me to get Rizzoli to publish a book by an unknown author about a city she wasn’t an expert in. But I was dogged about it for a year, finally donning my best navy and white polka-dotted dress and straw hat and waltzing into their New York offices to charm them into saying yes. They did, and soon after Charleston Style was published, I got a two-book deal to focus on Savannah and the Mediterranean-style houses of Florida. During that time, I became dissatisfied with working with the photographers Rizzoli hired. I found myself wanting the whole creative process and product to be my own (plus, I didn’t like being man-splained to and hit on). I’m not the most technologically astute person and I was intimidated by all the equipment required to shoot architecture and interiors. The field was very male-dominated at the time and I wanted to learn from a woman’s perspective. I found a female photographer who was willing to shoot side-by-side with me for my New Orleans book and I literally learned photography in the field. I didn’t have the time or the money to go back to school. From there, I started shooting my own books and did two very challenging ones that required traveling all over the South with my heavy equipment, without the help of an assistant (books like these rarely pay enough for assistants or even travel for that matter). The work was hard but very rewarding and my first two solo photography projects, The Southern Cosmopolitan and The Southern Cottage are two favorites of mine. Fast forward five years and digital photography became the medium everyone was using and that publishers wanted. Once again, I had to get over my technophobia and learn to shoot digitally. I’m totally self-taught in that arena. I also had to learn how to use Photoshop. I hated to give up my film cameras and I was sure that digital could never capture the subtlety and depth of film, but I was wrong. I now love the shots I take with my Nikon and the magic that can be done in Photoshop. There is an ease to working digitally that allows me to relax into the environments I’m shooting and feel connected with my surroundings. I hope my readers can experience this when they look through the pages of my books.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I write books about architecture and design, primarily in the South, and take the photographs that illustrate them. I’m interested in the particularities of individual regions in the South–the how and why of their different styles and atmospheres. I’m known for bringing a very human perspective to the topic–not limited solely to an academic, architectural historian’s point of view. While I do like to offer insights into the various periods and styles of architecture, I’m just as interested, if not more, in the social history of a place. How did the character of a specific place evolve and how did that shape its architecture. I think of a house as a vessel that holds the stories both of certain places and times and also of the people who have lived in them. I have described myself as an architectural medium: houses talk, I listen, and then I tell their stories. I am proud that I have established a very individual voice in this field and I think it’s what makes my books a success. You can read them on several levels and be touched both intellectually and emotionally. I love that I was able to become the photographer of my books as well because as they say, a picture speaks a thousand words.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I am definitely a risk-taker. I think anyone launching a field in the creative arts is a risk-taker because our society discourages people from entering the arts. It’s not seen as a practical career choice. Also, there’s no clear road map for creative careers as there are for professions like accounting or medicine or the law. You have to chart your own map. For my first ten years out of college, I tried to take the safe route, using my writing skills in a career in fund-raising for the arts. But at some point, I stopped and asked, why am I raising money so others can achieve their creative vision? I have a creative vision and I want to achieve it. It was a big risk when I quit my job as a fund-raiser and began working in earnest towards becoming a writer. The transition took about a year, which isn’t really all that long. I was ready! Each time I started a new book in a city or state I was not all that familiar with, I took a risk. Would I be able to create the network and find the houses I needed to make a great book? Once, I took a break from the South and wrote a book about Morocco, where I knew only one person. I worked on widening my network and remember flying into Casa Blanca, buying a local cell phone, and cold-calling people in my rusty French. It was an incredible adventure and the book was a big success. Deciding to become a photographer was a big risk. I had no training and wasn’t comfortable with all that equipment. When I would show up on the site for the shoot with all my equipment and no assistant, I had to make the shoot a success. You can’t always go back if you don’t get it right the first time. I’ve been exploring Portugal recently as a location for future work, and again, I started out with one contact, built a network during Covid, traveled there last September when there was a break in the Covid epidemic, and travelled around to three cities, meeting architects and interior designers and taking scouting shots. I could only say Please and Thank You in Portuguese and was constantly getting lost. I’ve been studying Portuguese now for seven months and plan to go back and see if anyone can understand me trying to say something more complicated. I think I would be a much calmer person if I didn’t always push myself like this, but I follow my heart and my creative vision, and when that involves risk, I don’t hesitate.
Pricing:
- The Allure of Charleston $55/book
Contact Info:
- Website: susansully.com
- Instagram: susan.sully
- Facebook: susansully1
Image Credits
Susan Sully
