Kate Stigdon
New to Spokane, I tend to call myself a diehard creative more than an 'artist'. In the 1980’s I started a cottage industry in bas relief sculpture, both with wearable and wall art. Eventually I returned to my first love of painting, experimenting in oils and acrylic, primarily with color and composition. In those, my ‘Montana years’, I was raising my wonderful daughters as well as keeping up with the occasional life drawing class. I took classes at the U of M in printmaking, history and generally ‘expanding the mind’ as we used to say, and I still say it. Being a creative is a state of mind.
Other interests are writing and music. My early influences include the ideas of the psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, as well as nonfiction writings on or about women’s issues. Eventually, after I resettled in Portland Oregon, I was inspired to experiment with ‘mixed media assemblage’. This was an outgrowth of my insatiable experimentation in the variety of mediums available, and eventually in the incorporation of found objects. I would call it, in retrospect, a time of transformation. Having worked in illustration (as well as the small 'sculptural' renditions from nature), there had always been huge attention to detail and accuracy. So this transformation was becoming a sort of ‘liberation’ for me. The ‘gestural’ elements in the process of art making now reigned as key.
Technique and surface application were my new passion; ‘mixing things up’, my goal. Breaking the rules of realism gave way to the importance of the essence one is unearthing in making of a work. My subject matter which has often been somewhat feminine centric now was become decidedly so.
My most current work is evolving both into a would-be exhibit, with the line drawings of the collection to be used in a book of essays and shorts.
With the woman, her face and form, and particularly her inner being, her emotion and time spent 'waiting' in life, (as well as the many ways in which she waits, such as work/service) has been realized in the art. I see about me diverse women from all around the world still working on overdrive simply to find ‘voice’ and respect, naturally, obviously. I hope my pieces will bring to the senses a primal 'essence' and appreciation of the beauty and value that lies within, and without us all, all gender issues aside.
