ARTIST STATEMENT
I am an artist utilizing a variety of media and methods, making work from the human experience and our part in the natural and built worlds. Utilizing natural, found, and purchased materials, I create works and facilitate events and interventions that address themes of connection with and participation in Nature, the arts and sciences, agriculture, and each other. I have a multimedia approach for these works including a variety of clay bodies, casting in metal, site specific works made with found or recycled materials, and relational opportunities.
Historically, my works were born out of conversations with farmers, growing my own food and raising urban hens, to reading about issues related to our contemporary food systems, which has often centered on the lore, imagery, and beauty of all things corn. My social practice works throughout my career, were born out of my recreation therapy practice, not knowing there was such a category in art making. Healing and engagement in an era that makes those two things a challenge have been my aim. Hosting a Mending a Life event whereby I invite fellow humans to embark on a personal mending project, collectively, and guiding conversations about our own journeys of mending self and our communities are a more recent iteration of the arts, practicality, and engaging others. I may also be found in my clay studio making sculptural objects based on crops, the human form, and more. My hand-building skills afford the ability to make functional or sculptural works that fulfill a fundamental human need to make, unapologetically.
Making these works and hosting relational works, as I move from my home studio to a shared space for clay at Ripple Studios, to a residency, to indoor and outdoor settings, are fulfilling on a variety of levels. Simply, I make works that I wish existed. I do these things to please my own sense of self and need for a creative outlet. Sometimes I make the personal universal. I adhere to the Fluxus philosophy “The distinguishing factors between art and life are irrelevant.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born and raised Wisconsin – in a 130 yr old+stone house. Schwalbe came from a family of 9 children– most, comfortable using their hands. Chicago resident for 38 years. Schwalbe completed a BFA with a sculpture concentration at UW Milwaukee in 1983. Took additional classes at Artist Bookworks, Columbia College for the Book and Paper Arts, Lillstreet Art Center, and Chicago Industrial Arts and Design Center. Schwalbe’s capability to work part time as a Recreation Therapist/Consultant, in 1998, following graduate coursework in Recreation Therapy, aided in her ability to create a more solid art practice.
Schwalbe is a maker of objects including mixed media, sculpture, found objects, bronze & iron, installation & site specific works, and a deep social practice, all centered around issues and aesthetics related to food systems, water, agriculture, reuse, connection, and being human. Schwalbe also has a created a varied social practice aspect to her work, long before she was aware of the term. These works were and are born out of the need and comfort with engaging people, and understood (now) as an overlap with her recreation therapy practice.
Schwalbe has Haptic Studios at home and a shared studio at Ripple Studios, though she believes art happens where the artist is. She teaches a class in the Summer at Lillstreet called The Art of Food – the class evolves every year based on a theme related to food, art,and connection.
Schwalbe adheres to the Fluxus philosophy: “The distinction between Art and Life is irrelevant.”
© Catherine Schwalbe