Rachel Schmidt

Rachel Schmidt

Rachel E. SchmidtFollow

Academic Level at Time of Creation

Senior

Date of Creation

Winter 12-7-2016

Artist Statement

My BFA show, titled Spider’s Lace, is based around a set of rules and values that each person has to learn individually from wholly different life experiences. I conduct interviews with friends and family to pinpoint a lesson both me and the subject of the interview have learned and combine the separate experiences into one story. Because the story exists in a place beyond any one human character, they become animal fables. What better way to understand ourselves than stepping back far enough to see ourselves as beasts?

The show is meant to be an experience that gives the viewer a sense of discovery as they move through these fables via illustrative prints, sculpture installations and performances. Design elements are incorporated to give the show a cohesiveness by unifying the different stylistic aspects of the separate works with a common branding scheme. A mobile website accompanies the works of the show, identifying each story and installation with a unique icon that links to a webpage where the viewer can hear the story with both my voice and that of the person interviewed to make the story. The true unifying feature of the show is the audio- the spoken story is familiar and personal, thus comfortable enough to be learned.

Creating the fables around personified animal characters makes them universally familiar and understood. The media and style of each print installation is entirely dependent on the myth. The prints range from black and white linoleum cuts, to soft and colorful lithographs, and the installation are anywhere from massive fabric books, to little wooden boxes. For my prints I’m looking at artists like Joanna Mueller, who uses animal and ancient North American myth symbolism to achieve a narrative-like effect.

Description

Design, Print-based Installations,

Rachel Schmidt

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