June 26, 2003
Artist in Residence: UW grad at Henry this summer
Starting next week, members of the campus community will have the opportunity to drop in on an artist at work. Between July 6 and 27, Claire Cowie will be at the Henry Gallery every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. working on paintings and sculpture.
It’s all part of a residency at the gallery which includes an exhibit of Cowie’s past work, her open studio and a lecture on July 24. And this isn’t just any artist: Cowie is a graduate of the UW School of Art’s master’s program who now lives and works in Seattle.
“I’ll be working on a large watercolor on paper and a fairly large grouping of sculpture,” Cowie says. “I’ll also probably work on some smaller collage pieces that are made up of prints and drawings and pieces of paper and other materials.”
During Cowie’s studio hours, visitors will be able to come by to watch her work and to ask questions if they wish. She’s looking forward to the interaction. In fact, the only difficulty the very voluble young woman sees is the possibility that she’ll talk too much and not get enough work done.
“That’s why I consulted with the gallery and made sure it would be okay for me to come work at other times than the posted hours,” Cowie says. “I do expect to do that.”
At the tender age of 28, this is only the second residency Cowie has done, but her works have appeared in numerous exhibits. She credits an early start with moving her this far, this fast. Growing up in North Carolina, she decided at 13 that her local school was inadequate and began looking around for other opportunities. She first attended the North Carolina School of the Arts as a summer student, but then was able to get into the regular program and earned her high school diploma there.
“The teachers there really treated the students as professionals and took them seriously,” Cowie says. “So it was when I went there that I realized I loved making art and wanted to go on doing it and doing it well.”
She went on to earn an undergraduate degree in art at Washington University St. Louis and then came to the UW.
“I was attracted here partly because of the city,” Cowie says. “I like the coast and I like the type of people who live here.”
She also knew the work of two UW professors — ceramicist Akio Takamori and printmaker Shirley Scheier — and wanted to work with them. Both have become mentors and friends, as have Curt Labitske, Doug Jeck and Jamie Walker.
“They’ve helped me get lecturer positions at the University,” Cowie says of these faculty. “They’ve also come to shows, asking good questions long after I was a student, involving me in community events. Akio is always sending me things informing me about opportunities.”
Thanks to the part-time teaching gigs, both here and at the Pratt Fine Art Center and the Bellevue Art Museum, Cowie has been able to afford a studio and to produce work on a regular basis. Her art has been described as constituting “a fantastic world with its own internal logic.”
Her sculptures, for example, can be of real creatures such as bears, but they’re usually distorted in some way. She also does hybrid animal-human combinations. Whatever they are, the sculptures are always presented in groups. Cowie says she thinks of the exhibit space as a public area like a park where a variety of figures interact in various ways.
“In the space at the Henry there’s this sort of shelf or platform connected to the wall that’s at eye level, and that’s where I’ll put the sculptures,” she explains. “This is going to be a new thing because I’m going to be working on the pieces as I go and putting them in this space which will get changed constantly as I add to it and rearrange them. So I’m looking forward to dealing with what’s possible in the way these figures interact with each other and particularly what’s possible with how they may change and the constantly evolving relationships between them.”
The watercolors, on the other hand, are a different experience for Cowie because there’s a minimal amount of actual painting with a lot of time delay in between. Looking at them, one is reminded of traditional Asian calligraphy, accomplished with a few brush strokes. She says working at the Henry may result in even simpler works because she won’t be going to the studio every day as she ordinarily does.
Cowie finds it difficult to talk about an overarching theme for her work. But she says, “I’m one of those people who make art because I have to for myself and I’m sure I would make it no matter what — even if I never made money or there was no audience. For me there’s a lot missing in normal everyday life in terms of the resolution of problems, my personal struggle with who I am and how I’ve acted. I see art as a place to resolve questions and problems that come up in life in a way that also brings up new problems that are interesting. It’s this nice, ongoing struggle. One of my friends once called my work desperate and I took it as a compliment.”
Stagings: Claire Cowie and the Monsen Photography Collection is an exhibit of Cowie’s past work that is already on display. Based on her interaction with the Monsen collection while helping to prepare a traveling exhibit, it includes Cowie’s photogravures insterspersed with some from the Monsen collection.
After Cowie’s residency ends, the open studio will be turned into an exhibit — to be called Flying Ladies of Leisure — of the work she produced while she was here.
Admission to the Henry is always free to faculty, staff and students.
