with a bachelor's degree in Spanish, also has a reputation as a visual
artist and as a musician.
Georgia Sutton draws from a wide spectrum of experiences. As a student, she studies a broad curriculum, including Spanish and political science.
And as a musician and visual artist, she ranges from Wichita, to Europe, to Latin America and back to Wichita.
Sutton began playing piano before the age of 10. “I didn’t really care at first, but then it kind of stuck,” she says. “Eventually I met other people who played music and started playing in bands.”
Her all-instrumental band, This Great October, earned a reputation for live shows with plaintive, soul-searching compositions such as “Mattress” and “In Love With The ’80s.” Recalling underground acts such as Tortoise, The Sea and Cake, and Canadian chamber-rock act Godspeed You! Black Emperor, TGO didn’t need words to express the emotions contained within its music.
The band incorporated slide shows and other visual elements into its gigs, and the members often played with their backs toward the audience. It hardly mattered. To see This Great October in the live arena was a treat for music lovers.
In its brief lifespan (roughly three years), TGO became one of Wichita’s most beloved and influential bands. But the group folded in early 2006, just as it released its first full-length album. Drummer Aaron Michael moved to New York to pursue a career in fashion, and guitarist Chris Mackie departed for the Big Apple, leaving Sutton and the rest of the band open for other pursuits.
She traveled with her father, chronicling her journeys with her camera. During her absence, close friends Zack Roach, Torin Andersen, Kody Ramsey and Matthew Wiseman formed another musical project and invited her to join as keyboardist. Owing a debt to early Pink Floyd and other early progressive rock bands, You’ll Be A Torso quickly established itself as one of Wichita’s most exciting live bands via compositions such as “Weimaraner Worcestshire,” “Bring Pluto Back” and “Noob Saibot.”
Her work with TGO captured the attention of Kirk Rundstrom, guitarist for Wichita’s alt-bluegrass outfit Split Lip Rayfield. A relentless recording and touring artist, Rundstrom asked Sutton to join his touring band. “It was a great learning experience. I got to meet a lot of great people through working with Kirk,” Sutton says.
Her membership in the band came at a time when Rundstrom was shifting his focus from acoustic, country-inflected rock ‘n’ roll to a sound more adventurous and complex, and she made key contributions as a keyboardist and vocalist to his final solo album, Imperfect Spirals, which he completed only days before his death in February 2007.
In late 2006 Sutton mounted a show of her photography, complete with photos captured on trips to Greece, Germany, Hungary and Italy as well as parts of Latin America, where her interest in the Spanish language proved an asset. She had become interested in Spanish while a student at Wichita’s North High. “There was a large Hispanic population at North,” she says, “I thought there was a real need to know how to speak Spanish.”
Her father, Johnny Sutton, a painter and photographer, was influential in her development as a visual artist. “When I was young he always had sketch pads, things to draw with,” she says. “He never really sat me down and told me what to do, but having him as an influence has been important. I probably wouldn’t do art without him.”
As her time at WSU draws to a close, she has no plans to head out for other climes. For her, Wichita is inviting, settling, the isolation of the Midwest offering — not limiting — her options. “One of the things I love about Wichita is that it’s inexpensive to live here. You can travel from here easily, and I don’t think that life would be as easy for me in places like New York or Chicago. You just don’t have the options to live and save money for travel like you do here.”
