“ O ld N e w E n g la n d g ra v e y a rd s,
th e G e tty s b u rg b attlefield . .
.I am
in tere ste d in d eath in g en era l.
I m ean a r e n ’t w e all on so m e
le v e l? ” — J u d ith S c h a e c h te r
w ithout one o f her pieces. For
Seeing Is Believing,
the site-specific
piece Schaechter designed for the new M useum o f A rts and
D esign, in N ew Y ork C ity, she put together hundreds o f abstract
m edallions to build a n-foot-high , 9-foot-w ide w in d o w . T h e
reasons people think her w ork is dark may have to do w ith the ap-
pearance o f w idow s, flashers, bank robbers, and dead or wounded
unicorns. But she is not so much dark as observant, and she m an-
ages to m ix m edieval C h ristian ity w ith H ello K itty-n ess, though
there is no sugar coating—there is a sim ultaneously m ischievous
and serious stare into the accoutrem ents o f death and other dark-
nesses. W ith spider web-like nuance, Schaechter details remorse,
or dread, or som ething som ewhere having gone w rong, but behind
it all—precisely because they are stained glass—is light.
T o d ay, S ch aecter is w orkin g aw ay at
Self-Portrait o f Someone
Else,
a w ork inspired by a stained glass w ind ow design at H oly
T rin ity Church in L in colnsh ire, E ngland, an exam ple o f w hat
stained glass artists call jum ble w in d o w s, w h ich , in this case,
w ere smashed during the Protestant R eform ation, and reassem -
bled b y an anonym ous craftsperson w hom Judith adm ires for
his postm odern sensibilities. “ I mean, this is incredible,” she says.
T h e piece w ill take her a little less than tw o months—a quick one.
She has no m aster plan but changes her mind as she goes.
It’s an austere w orkspace, a little m edieval, except for the
NPR
on the radio, w h ich is h ow she likes it. “ I th in k people equate
this kind o f handwork and labor w ith a type o f stupidity—let’s just
call it w hat people th in k,” she says. “A n d they see the idea o f
som ebody sittin g there grinding 500 circles as, w ell, they say,
w hy would you have som ebody like Einstein sitting there grinding
500 circles when you could have his brilliant mind curing cancer
or com ing up w ith
e =m c \
But for a certain segment o f the popula-
tion this is a w ay to you r intelligence and handw ork is w here
it’s at. I couldn’t do it any other w ay. W h e n I get arth ritis, it’s
all over.”
She is n ow back on her horse at the battleground o f art and
craft. “ T h ere are a lot o f really obnoxious assum ptions about art
that have adversely affected craft,” she says. “ M y new thing right
now is I think that the w hole cra ft iden tity crisis is a projection
from art. It’s
art
that has the identity crisis. A n d
they
sit there and
project all their shit on us because they have no definition, and the
art-for-art’s-sake thing w as so nihilistic that w hen it came to its
logical conclusion, all those people w ho liked to m ake art w ere left
sitting there like musical chairs had ended, still standing without
a chair to sit on.” She’s laughing again. “ T h an k s, D ucham p!”
A fte r a chat, she w alks you over to Broad Street, the main drag
in P hilly that runs up to the 37-foot-tall statue o f W illiam Penn,
sculpted b y A lexand er M ilne Calder, grandfather o f Calder the
engineer turned mobile m aker and son o f a tom bstone m aker
from A b erd een , Scotlan d. P h illy looks like an older place on
a d rizzly day, a city from the 70s, or before, and as Schaechter
w alk s, she gets w orked up about old cathedrals, and what it must
have been like, in, say, 1200. H ow sensually engulfing, especially
if you add incense and music, and then, to the stained glass, the
sun. “ It m ust have been am azing,” she says. “ T h in k about it.” +
G im m e M ore!
T 0 hear a podcast o f Robert Sullivan’s interview with
Judith Schaechter go to americancraft.org and click on listen.
068 american craft
feb/m aro9
