We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Elizabeth Addison. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Elizabeth below.
Alright, Elizabeth thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
A heartbeat before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, I was elected Exhibitions Chair for the Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art. My first official NCWCA exhibition project, The Ground Upon Which We Stand, a regional exhibition hosted by Abrams Claghorn Gallery, was scheduled for installation on April 1, 2020, just 15 days after the shutdown.
The title for this environmentally focused exhibit was inspired by the now standard practice of an indigenous land acknowledgement, and expanded to include a performance and panel event, titled Environmentally Sound. At this live event, special guests would respond to the exhibition’s artwork and messaging through poetry, song, science, and computer animation, introducing viewers to a wide variety of local and national nature-oriented grass roots organizations and their calls to action. I was ready to roll with amazing group of talent, but suddenly found myself thrust into uncertainty with unknown Pandemic exhibition parameters – and dozens of artists depending upon this project.
As scary and complex as these early Pandemic months were, my colleagues and I decided to press on and adapt plans to the best of our abilities. Multiple ways to engage online were improvised. We also installed a “safe” physical exhibition via touchless artwork drop-off and the exhibition was experienced from the street through the gallery windows and tours of 2-3 visitors at a time. It became evident that working collaboratively with like-minded artists provided mutual community support and magnified our voices during fraught times. This was a lifeline for the artists involved, the community… and myself.
I still marvel at how dozens of us, from diverse communities, came together with caring and cooperation under extraordinarily stressful circumstances. My appreciation of shared creative endeavors and the power of creative expression expanded profoundly. Although difficult in many respects, The Ground Upon Which We Stand exhibition is one of my most pivotal and meaningful projects.
To view the exhibit artwork, https://www.ncwca.org/the-ground-upon-which-we-stand-exhibition.html
Exhibition video links and details, https://www.ncwca.org/guwws-video.html
To order the exhibit catalog, https://www.ncwca.org/guwws-catalog.html
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Thank you for this opportunity to share with you!
I’m a San Francisco Bay Area-based multidisciplinary visual artist and curator with a studio in Berkeley. Since I could hold a crayon and crawl, artistic expression and scientific curiosity have been central to my being.
However, the path to a full time art practice has been gradual and winding. Sometimes, I fantasize about arriving at my art practice earlier, but there are no regrets. Each life phase or moment has informed and flowed into the next… My professional experiences include a career in advertising and design, corporate communications, and visual & digital arts education. 10 years ago, already in my 50’s, I earned my MFA from John F. Kennedy University’s Arts & Consciousness Program. There’s motherhood and family, too, which are a continual source of joy, inspiration, and humility.
True to my nature, my art practice finds itself at the crossroads of visual art and science and it’s deeply rooted in the natural world. Printmaking, mixed media, digital media, and immersive installation are my primary media. As an amateur scientist, these processes allow me to be both an artist and an experimenter!
Inspiration for my artwork is more like a “calling.” Nature and dreams often instruct or ‘speak’ to me. As strange as it sounds, there are divine elements. I don’t embrace these instructions unrealistically, but that’s what I strive to accomplish. Over the years, I’ve developed a process that helps me navigate these “callings,” which I now refer to as Creative Investigations. These are cohesive series that include visual art, research, and writings. Creative Investigation projects range from examining epic dreams and the cosmos to California’s native flora, waterways and environmental equity.
I’m passionate about my current body of work focusing on the Smith River, California’s last wild river, through dimensional collage constructions and mixed media. These works incorporate original photography from, and digital imagery inspired by, my engagement with nature–especially during my annual visits to the Smith River near the Oregon border. I listen patiently and she (yes, The Smith is feminine) speaks to me. In recent years, she has communicated with urgency and I feel bound to beguile with beauty into the caretaking of this wild watershed–and for the safeguarding of fresh waters around the world.
Each work is a meditation on one of her qualities and the continual process of beginning and becoming. These deeply hued and dimensional works are intentionally mandala-like, embodying my personal experiences, research, and wonder.
Over the years, my artwork has been exhibited throughout the West Coast and nationally. I’m an Artist-in-Residence at Kala Art Institute, Exhibitions Chair for Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art, and Creative Director for the Bay Area Women Artists’ Legacy Project.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
As the COVID 19 shutdown went on and on, I began to reconsider what was taken for granted or what I had assumed was part of my life path. Continual improvising under duress in my new position as NCWCA’s Exhibitions Chair could have resulted in discouragement and quitting in despair. Instead, something clicked internally and I leaned fully into curation. This time of improvisation and uncertainty freed my thinking and I was empowered to take risks and create my own curatorial path. I grew bolder about communicating difficult themes, both social and personal ones. There were so many stories to tell and so much artwork was being generated in my community! These were my people!
This deep dive into curation resulted in me exiting my longtime in-person teaching (printmaking) career. My studio art practice blossomed alongside this pivot and my current muse, the Smith River, made herself known and inspired a new series that continues to this day.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
My creative life feels most fulfilling when it’s a team sport. These past four years, I’ve curated/directed six major exhibitions and have been witness to art’s transformative powers, especially through collaborative artistic expression. It is truly powerful and amplifies our voices. I believe it opens portals for change, both personal and societal. The act of curation, especially within the realm of women and women-identifying artists, has indelibly reshaped my perspective and practice.
Contact Info:
- Website: elizabethaddison.com
- Instagram: @eaddison329
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.addison
- Linkedin: Elizabeth Addison, MFA (https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-addison-mfa-a1a3965/)
- Other: https://www.ncwca.org/ https://bawalp.org/ https://galleryrouteone.org/2023/04/artists-exchange-with-vicki-gunter-and-elizabeth-addison-april-19-2023/
Image Credits
Gwendolen Cates