Renewal, an exhibition of collagraph prints and sculpture by artist Helen Schmidt. She grew up in Pittsburgh, PA at a time when the city was transitioning from an industrial hub to a more modern technological center. Schmidt went to Sarah Lawrence College, where she concentrated in Fine Art, Sociology and Religion; and spent a year in France, studying drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture at The Lacoste School for the Arts. After graduating, she moved to New York City, where she worked in the South Bronx as a housing advocate for homeless women and children, and rented space at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking workshop. In 1993, Schmidt moved to Vermont and received her MFA from Vermont College of Art in Montpelier. She co-created an expressive art class to at-risk teenaged girls called

Expresso and taught art classes to people experiencing homelessness and incarceration. She currently teaches studio art and printmaking at the River Gallery School, and printmaking at The Putney School. Schmidt has exhibited her artwork throughout the Northeast in solo, juried and group shows, and has work in private collections in the United States and Europe. “I am drawn to what has been discarded, to birch bark found on walks in the woods or pieces of old rusty metal. I try to use what I find, what I am given, and repurpose it to let a new form emerge. It is this remaking from one thing to another, this dissolution of boundaries that interests me. My interest is in exploring and transformation, where the process of renewal is manifested in the sculptural forms and prints. I am interested in the role art plays in the wider social arena as an impetus for change, as well as its role in personal transformation. My work explores the intersection between the external and the internal as new connections are created, and we find alternative sources of renewal. I am drawn to what happens when one form morphs into another, and we move from a binary and divisive human reasoning to a more interconnected way of being.” – Helen

Artist Talk*: Helen Schmidt: 4-5 PM, Saturday, May 22, 2021, *limited attendance, live Zoom and recorded.