Next Up: Spring Pop-Up Art Market April 20th 11am-5pm

Grace Schumann

Keeping Myself Busy

Embroidered cotton

Artist Statment:

Through my work I hope to tell some kind of story. I did a lot of musical theatre growing up, so I draw from the bright, colorful journeys that music can take you through and try to embody that in a physical object. I’m interested in textile arts, mixed media work, found object and repurposed materials, and finely detailed but still coherent surface work. Ultimately, I want to make objects people love and have those objects love them back. I’m still in the exploratory phase of finding and defining my work, but I guess in a sense I always will be.

COVID-19 has drastically affected my work because I don’t have access to my main medium. It’s hard to do ceramics when I don’t have access to a wheel, glazes, or a kiln, since I can’t be at my school, and the ceramics studios around me are mostly closed. It’s forced me to step away from clay and work with other media; because of the materials I have, that’s mostly been textiles. Having my version of “normal” taken away has also given me more emotional fodder for my work, so all of my quarantined work is about how I’m feeling in the moment and what I’m trying to do to monitor that.

Bio:

Grace Schumann is a ceramics-based artist based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are working on their BFA in Studio Art with a Ceramics concentration from Kent State University. Recently, their art was featured in the GAR Foundation’s Student Art Show in Akron, Ohio, and this year’s Stratosphere at Kent State University.