JoanS

Life
Science

Art should console people for living. If it doesn't cheer us up, then why look at it. It should make us feel good about life, or at least make us think about the big questions . . . Dorothea Tanning

Artist Statement:

My sculpture reflects my interest in the interaction of space and form, inside and outside, body and spirit, and the nexus of science, technology, and art. As a former dancer I am drawn to the nuance of gesture and the ability of the body to communicate through subtle changes of position. As a writer who reports on the results of contemporary scientific research I am fascinated by the endless complexity of relationships in the natural world. As a lover of mythology and the stories and art of indigenous people throughout the world I see a continuous process of — human, plant, animal — and elemental forces — earth, air, sky, and water.

My process is derived in part from the pottery traditions of the Hopi and Navaho people. I work primarily in terra cotta, because it is "the earth itself." I hand build the sculptural forms, coiling and smoothing in traditional ways, but guiding the walls in non-traditional directions. I finish the pieces with multiple washes of oil paint, building subtle layers of color as the pigment is absorbed into the body of the fired clay. Although my starting point is often a live model, I generally work with only a single body part or portion of the torso and allow the growing sculpture to transform, turning inward, changing direction, elongating, or contracting, to follow the inner logic of its own creation.

— Joan Schwartz

Self-portraits: (from left) Dad, Sonia, Martha, Isadora
collage
11" x 17"  2004

My recent collages are a departure from the terra cotta sculpture I have been doing for many years. They are inspired by the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, a zen buddhist teacher, as well as a trip I made to Vietnam last year. Both drew me to an exploration of my ancestors, biological, spiritual, and cultural. The collages incorporate images of my ancestors, images I associate with them, and joss paper — the paper that buddhists in Vietnam and other countries burn to honor the memory of their ancestors. The paper that forms the base is handmade Vietnamese paper. Each collage also has images of my hand or foot, because, as Thich Nhat Han says, I carry my ancesters in every cell of my body. This is also why I call these collages "self-portraits" — in depicting my ancestors, I depict myself; in picturing myself, my ancestors are unavoidably pictured as well.

---

My work for Open Studios — at Allandale Farm, called Family Tree, is a continuation of this exploration. As I worked with the idea of ancestors, I discovered that there were ancestors everywhere I looked. All of the hundreds of millions of people who have shaped the person I am at this moment in time — not only those I have known, or whose DNA I share — but those whose ideas I have read, images I have seen, textures I have felt, dances I have danced, music I have heard, food I have eaten. The web of life is truly all encompassing. Family Tree is my attempt to begin to embody this realization .

My sitting pieces grow directly out of my experience of sitting with images suggested by Thich Naht Hanh — mountain/solid, here/now, arrived/home.

Here/Now
oil on terra cotta
30" x 30" x 24" 2002
(Collection of Earthdance)

Visit my studio . . .
Feet of Clay . . . 21 Station Street, Brookline
Call 617.277.3424 or e-mail for an appointment.

I am a member of "Studios Without Walls,"
see us at Newbury College Art Gallery and Brookline Open Studios 2003.