Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rebecca Zeh. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Rebecca, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
The most meaningful project I’ve worked on Is my current body of work, fusion of artistic practices incorporating performance art and 2D visual art. Combining my passion for improvisational dance and my lifelong visual arts practice, over the past 5 years I have been building a body of mixed media drawings that celebrate creative expression through movement, nature, and our connection to nature as humans.
I’ve studied improvisational dance, sometimes also referred to as creative movement, for over 25 years in my hometown of Saratoga Springs, NY and surrounding areas, under the instruction of my dear friend and mentor, Lili Loveday. The themes represented in this body of work grew out of when my dance class, Improv Dance Explorers, had to start dancing outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We moved our dance studio to the great outdoors so we could continue to dance safely with one another. What started as a challenging change for all of us turned into something really beautiful and inspiring. We fell in love with dancing outdoors and we continue to do so to this day during the warmer months. We dance in a variety of beautiful parks and different outdoor locations in the Capital Region area of New York State. My collection of photographs and video clips capturing our experiences dancing and interacting with the elements of the outdoors serve as visual reference for my drawings. When creating these drawings I utilize a mix of wet and dry drawing and painting media, paper collage, and printmaking techniques, such as block printing and mono printing. I have a Bachelors Degree in Drawing from Pratt Institute so my work is very drawing focused with rich layers of texture and expressive mark making.
Rebecca, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I got into making art at a very young age. It’s a classic story many creatives tell. Ever since I could hold a crayon I have been drawing and painting. I always knew I would be an artist in some capacity when I grew up. I am very fortunate that my family helped nurture my love for art making. When it came time for me to pursue higher education I decided to go for a fine arts degree with a concentration in Drawing.
In 2012 when I moved back home to Saratoga Springs, NY, after graduating from Pratt Institute, I dove into the local arts community. I gained experience working in a local for-profit art gallery called Mimosa, Art for Home and Wear, which sold gorgeous handmade jewelry, accessories, home decor, and fine art created by local and nationwide artists and artisans. I created merchandise displays, provided customer service, helped host community events, and installed art exhibitions.
During and after my time at Mimosa, I worked for an arts and crafts store called A.C. Moore, where I trained as a custom framing specialist. It was exciting to learn about framing and proper mounting techniques, something you definitely don’t learn in art school but is very important for ones success as an artist who wishes to present their work in a gallery setting. After my time at A.C. Moore I developed a love for curating and installing art exhibitions, as well as being an advocate for local and regional artists when I held the position of Exhibitions Coordinator at a local non-profit arts organization called Saratoga Arts. I went from the for-profit sector of the arts community to the non-profit sector. At Saratoga Arts I was able to really hone my curatorial and arts administrative skills. I was in charge of all of the administrative duties that came with coordinating and installing a full schedule of public visual arts programming for the main on-site gallery and several satellite exhibition spaces that were part of the Art in Public Places program. I am very proud of the work I did there. I was able to build meaningful relationships with so many talented local and regional artists and provide support for them to help achieve their artistic goals.
During this whole journey I always maintained an artist practice and took advantage of many exhibition opportunities in this vibrant region of New York State. I currently hold a position at a family owned and operated fine arts supply store in Albany, NY called Arlene’s Artist Materials. Arlene’s is a staple in the local and regional arts community and has been since the early 70’s. At Arlene’s I wear many hats, Custom Framing Specialist, Sales Associate, and Assistant Curator to our on-site gallery, The R Gallery. The diversity of my role there allows me to utilize all of the skills I’ve built up to this point in my career while also maintaining my studio practice from my home studio in Ballston Lake, NY. It’s small but I make it work for me the best I can and I am grateful to have this space. As an artist, I’m not sure what I would do without it!
My current body of work is inspired by dance, nature, and freedom of self-expression through movement. My studio practice offers original mixed media drawings, matted prints, and merchandise, including stickers to my audience and collectors. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to share this body of work in both group and solo exhibitions in several arts venues over the past 5 years since its inception in 2020 including, Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center, CREATE Counsel on the Arts, The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Spencertown Academy Arts Center, and LARAC, just to name a few. I plan to continue building and sharing this body of work both in physical gallery spaces and online for many years to come.
I hope viewers feel a sense of freedom when they view my work. The philosophy of the improvisational dance group I’m a member of called, Improv Dance Explorers, is that everyone is a dancer. No matter your body type, physical disability, race, gender etc. everyone has dance in them and should have the freedom to express that. There is no pre-requisite to joining our class, we invite new people all the time, I think this is a beautiful thing. I love building these of supportive and judgement-free communities. We all need access to these kind of safes spaces, now more than ever. Relating to my statement about body type, as a plus-size woman, I strive to send a message of body positivity with my work and encourage people who might think they don’t have a “dancer’s body” to get up and dance it out! Let it out! and Be you!
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative is witnessing those moments when members of my audience have a positive experience viewing my artwork, my dance videos that I often post on social media, or a live performance by my dance group. I feel immense gratitude for being able to share unique stories. Both personal stories and stories I share with my fellow movers. Some people who have viewed my work often say that it evokes a sense of mystery, “what are those people doing in your drawings?” I love that my work raises questions, this means that it is a unique portrayal of dance that perhaps they have not seen before. I am not drawing ballerina’s in tutus as artists in art history like Degas did. The subjects of my work are every day modern people expressing themselves and their stories through movement in the great outdoors and I love to embrace the strangeness of these fleeting moments and hold them fixed so they can speak to people again and again.
Have you ever had to pivot?
A major moment that stands out in my recent memory where I had to pivot in my career was of course during the COVID-19 pandemic. The day we went into lock down in March of 2020, I was told by my boss to come into work at Saratoga Arts, fetch my work computer, and bring it home. We were to work from home for the foreseeable future, which we were not equipped for. As a small non-profit arts organization, like many others nationwide and across the world like us, we had to make the biggest pivot we could have ever imagined. I had to very quickly turn my home studio into a home office and continue the best I could to manage all of our public exhibitions programming from home. My creative sanctuary all the sudden became a work space. This was definitely the biggest challenge of my career. Of course like artists and the arts always do and have done throughout history, I/we found a way and made it through. People were incredibly grateful for the virtual exhibitions I was able to present to our audience. There were online visual art galleries featuring local and regional artwork available on our website that people could view and enjoy from the safety of their homes. I also hosted virtual artist talks through Zoom meetings.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rebeccazeh.com
- Instagram: @beckyz_art
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beckszeh19
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-zeh-110140221/
Image Credits
The first image was taken by Wendy Zeh
The second image was taken by Lili Loveday