Susan Webster - Inspired Artist, Dedicated Volunteer

NextStep volunteer Susan Webster is an example of someone who is working within her community to help fulfill NextStep's mission, extending the organization's reach into a different part of Hancock County.

A visual artist, Susan has taught workshops at retreats, maintained a studio, served on the Maine Arts Commission, and has lead a community outreach program at the renowned Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

She joined NextStep about eight years ago, when she found an ad looking for volunteers to sign up for a hotline training. The ad came at the perfect time, for in the past Susan had been very active with the Healthy Island Project in Deer Isle, and she missed volunteering. NextStep was the perfect fit for her caring heart, creative nature, and passion for the cause of domestic violence prevention and assistance.

"My first real exposure to this issue was when I worked at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, one of my very first jobs. I worked as an artist in residence and had a studio in an empty cell! For ten years I helped women who were incarcerated there. By interacting with them and hearing their stories, I got the sense of the issue and the magnitude of it. At the time, violence committed by the incarcerated against their partners was called "crimes of passion." Now, I recognize that these inmates were victims of domestic violence. They were victims of abuse who fought back and were paying the price for fighting violence with more violence."

Through working with NextStep, Susan has become able to recognize the subtleties of power and control in the behavior of others. She is now comfortable speaking out when she sees injustice and she openly discusses what NextStep is about whenever she has the chance, describing the mission in the simplest of terms. She has also begun to embody that mission in her artwork.  You can see her most recent large scale installation piece "I Hear Something Coming” at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, ME in the “Biennial 2020”exhibit (through May 2, 2021).

Susan has also recently joined NextStep’s Volunteer Education and Outreach Committee and completed her second helpline training.