Visual arts professor’s work focuses on children

Throughout her career, Susan Schmidt has always based her drawings on observation. Landscapes, factory buildings, textile machinery, and statues have been among her subjects.

However, when Schmidt, associate professor of visual arts at Holy Cross, became a mother, she shifted her observation to subjects that were psychologically closer to home.

For the last decade she has been creating artwork that draws upon the experiences of her immediate family. Specifically, she has focused her attention on the interactions between adults and children at family and community events and coming of age rituals.

Eighteen of Schmidt’s small-scaled prints based on these observations are on display in the exhibition titled Crossroads: Holy Cross’ Visual Arts Faculty and Staff, Part II, which runs through Dec. 19 in the Cantor Art Gallery. As part of the exhibition, Schmidt will give a gallery talk on Nov. 13 from noon to 1 p.m. Schmidt’s work can also be seen this month at Brickbottom Open Studios in Somerville.

Schmidt is a printmaker. Another form of drawing, printmaking involves the printing of multiples from one source, such as a copper plate. The prints in this exhibition use traditional etchings on copper and chine collé along with newer techniques.

“I like to experiment with the printmaking process, layering, recombining, and recycling images in different ways,” she says. “In the process of printmaking, one image goes through so many transformations and new ideas start to emerge. As multiples, prints offer many ways to improvise.”

Schmidt first photographs her children in social settings. Later, in the studio, she reworks the images. The camera, therefore, is just a tool — simply a means toward an end. Ultimately, she hopes her artwork allows viewers to see children from a different perspective than the mass media typically portrays.

“I think that our culture gives us some stock images of children,” she says. “You have the historical version of children as innocent and needing protection. And you have the contemporary version of children as consumers of products. I hope what my work does is to take those stereotypes and look a little further and find more subtlety in children’s lives.”

Despite her latest reinvention, Schmidt’s current focus on motherhood isn’t a far stretch from the work of her earlier years.

“In the 1970s, the feminist art movement really inspired me to become an artist,” she says. “One of the ideas of the feminist art movement was that exploring the home, domesticity and motherhood were finally considered valid subject matter for contemporary art. Work like stitching or quilting became acceptable as a fine art medium. Some of that validity of working with domestic subject matter stayed with me from my early student days.”

Being able to tackle some of those broad issues is one reason why Schmidt loves working at a Jesuit liberal arts college. She has worked at Holy Cross since 1987 and she teaches courses in printmaking, drawing and artists’ books.

“I like the ideas that are layered into a liberal arts education. I enjoy students that bring ideas from other majors. It’s a really rich experience,” she says. “And I also enjoy working with other faculty members and going to hear their talks. I think the students are serious here and they work hard. And they are willing to take an idea and push it through different stages and find a final visual form for it.”

Related Information:

* Press Release * Cantor Art Gallery