KATE SCHUTZ
CAAF Residency st[art]@Art Central, October – November 2010
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
January 2008, as the clock struck twelve on New Year’s Eve, it hit me that I graduated from art school a long eight years earlier. I realized that for nearly a decade, I had been all talk and little action: dreaming about devoting my life to painting but never taking the plunge. In a vow to be a working artist by 2010, I left my full-time job in museum education (what I call my “other life”) this October. Currently, I work three days per week as a part-time contract and spend the rest of the week in my home studio making art. In October 2010 my contract will be up and I would like to fulfill my promise to myself and commit to painting full-time. In doing so, I will begin with six weeks at st[art] at Art Central to develop the confidence and work ethic I will need. I miss other artists and miss the camaraderie of a shared work environment. Although fortunate to have a home studio, the ceilings are very short, the walls very small and I share it with my office. I would like to start a new series or two; the practicality of having a devoted space to see all the work at once is very appealing.
The reality of painting for income is that I often take commissioned pieces to pay the bills. I look forward to an opportunity where I can make work just for me and experiment with some new ideas. Therefore, one series I am considering is based on photographs of children with their birthday cakes circa 1950’s-80’s. The other I am calling “The Linoleum Temple” and it would be a series of still life images from my kitchen. Both reference nostalgia and domesticity; two common themes that I get excited about but rarely get to explore when doing commissioned pieces.