Flock: Catherine Schwalbe | May 15 - June 25, 2022
Detail, Flock, 2022, 100 year old oak staves and white paint
Opening Reception: Sunday, May 15, 3:00 - 6:00 PM
Mending Workshop: Saturday, June 4, 1:00 - 5:00 PM
The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present Flock, a site-specific installation by Catherine Schwalbe in our FlexSpace.
Catherine Schwalbe writes:
More and more deeply, I realize that we are nature. So many of us cite “nature” as inspiration for our work. I have for years. I am feeling the need to update my own words to reflect my current thoughts and therefore my works, and this work, in particular. I look out my own window and appreciate the most common of birds – the sparrow, the American robin (my favorite), crows, to the occasional oriole, and the Coopers Hawk that visited this winter. My interest in the natural world, a trip to Maine last year (to the Puffin sanctuary), life near the Chicago River North Branch with countless heron, snapping turtles, and napping coyote, Purple martins at Montrose Beach, a bluebird on a country road in Wisconsin, living under the migration flight path of whooping cranes, and so much more, have enriched my life beyond words. My mind swims with prior, old school Chicago Reader, columns called Field and Street by Jerry Sullivan. His weekly missives centered on city life and wildlife within and helped me pay attention to my surroundings in new, fulfilling, and urban ways.
The installation is also founded on my need to honor my work with and for the many elders and those that serve them. Forty-two years as a recreation therapist and early, as a paraprofessional, in long term care have grounded me and helped me practice what my own aging process might be like.
July 1, 2021 marked my last day working as a consultant in dozens of long term care communities filled with hundreds of fellow humans that lived, worked, and visited those communities. Most know the (continued) devastation of Covid on these communities and we fellow humans. We are not yet in the after times to fully understand what we have been through. Time will afford that understanding and perspective for us, when our minds and hearts will be less clouded by trauma.
Cranes, long a symbol for elders in some cultures, may also be what comes to mind with you as it has come to mine.I think of human migration over the millennia due to war, famine, weather, opportunity. We too have ebbs and flows to our behavior because of needs and wants, just like all the other creatures on this globe.
Before and After: Mending a life after a pandemic or some other catastrophic event in your life, An artwork and experience with Cathi Schwalbe
Mending Workshop: Saturday, June 4, 1:00-5:00 PM
Please join Catherine Schwalbe for a free mending event in the sculpture garden on Saturday, June 4th. Drop in anytime between 1:00 - 5:00 PM and bring clothing or any fabric item in need of repair. It will be a casual gathering of people to share conversation and stories. There will be sewing supplies for those who can offer the skills to mend and refreshments for everyone. Don’t know how to sew? No problem, Catherine and others will be there to assist or do it for you. This event is free, donations are appreciated. Join us as we bring the community together to help each other through repair and mending.
Catherine Schwalbe writes:
As the life as we have known fades away, how will we humans around the globe mend our lives as individuals and as a community? What will we keep? Of what will we rid ourselves? What shall we strengthen? For some, the pandemic has been a portal to something new. For others, it has been nothing short of traumatic in every way. What have we discovered about each other? How do we go forward? This work honors the fact for so many; mending is necessary. To mend and repair, the very root word of reparations, is clearly part of this work. Lastly, counting on each other and declaring our interdependence, is more important than ever.
Catherine Schwalbe is a Chicago-based artist, whose social practice art centers around issues and aesthetics related to food systems, water, agriculture, reuse, connection, and being human. She received a BFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee with additional education through Artist Bookworks, Columbia College for the Book and Paper Arts, Lillstreet Art Center, and Chicago Industrial Arts and Design Center. Her previous role as a part-time Recreation Therapist/Consultant, contributes to her social practice art, combining her art, caring, and engaging others.
Among numerous exhibitions throughout the country, Schwalbe’s mixed media sculptures, installations, and site specific works, have been exhibited locally at Oliva Gallery, the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Accolades include a CAAP grant and reviews in Lumpen and Chicago Art Magazine. She creates at her home-based Haptic Studios and in a clay-centric studio at Lillstreet Art Center.