We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Liz Barick Fall. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Liz Barick below.

Liz, 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.

In 2018, I was invited to participate in a collaborative exhibition called Dear Womanhouse, which was a tribute to the original Womanhouse from 1972, the feminist art installation and performance space organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro. The Dear Womanhouse show was a commentary and expression of gender bias, and a reflection of contemporary female experience using WH72 as a point of progressive/stagnant comparison to present times. Several months prior to the start of the collaborative process of building the show with several other artists, I inherited boxes full of vintage household belongings from my grandmother’s house. It included a myriad of things she had squirreled away and held onto for decades: cancelled checks, kitchen implements, sewing supplies, old cleaning supplies, jars, a box of my mother’s hair from a childhood haircut and more. What I would do with all of it, and why I felt the need to hold onto it myself was unclear at the time. In some way, it felt like a chance to capture a lifetime of experiences, both hers, through the physicality of the items she possessed and used throughout her life, and my own, having grown up looking at all of these things while spending time in her home, which was in essence, the museum of her life.
As soon as I became involved with Dear Womanhouse, It became serendipitously clear what I would do with my “inheritance”. I made sculptures and installations from her belongings, which exhibited, celebrated and expressed her domestic legacy. The work acknowledges and celebrates the unseen, unsung accomplishments and contributions of the historically traditional role of homemakers. It was a cathartic and deeply personal exploration of the intrinsic meaning held in the belongings we value enough to hold onto in life and leave behind, as evidence, reminding those who remain of the lives we led.

Liz, 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 am a mixed media artist living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I studied art in college, earning a BFA from The University of Michigan, and an MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art. I have been an avid photographer and collector of many different materials for decades, which I now use in my work. After grad school, I started Fall Metalworks, a home and garden accessories business, selling my products at regional retail stores and nationally through wholesale craft fairs for about 4 years. I then took a break for several years to focus on raising my four daughters. I occasionally taught part time at nearby colleges during those years, but it was challenging to be out of the creative groove for so long. It was a bit daunting to be faced with starting over in middle age, but the time spent with my kids was beyond rewarding, and I wouldn’t have chosen to do it any other way. One benefit of my path, which I have relished, is that when I returned to being a maker, I felt liberated from the restrictions of self consciousness that I sometimes found burdening as a young creative. Now, I am so much less concerned with the judgement of others, more confident and more trusting of my intuition in ways that only come with the experiences of life lived. Recently, I began working on mixed media assemblage and installations which combine my love of craftsmanship, photography, sculptural form and which explore the potential of objects and materials to convey meaning. Themes found in my work revolve around nature, nostalgia, memory, growth/decay, tension/harmony, environment and gender bias. In addition to being a maker, I am the founder and director of trustArt studios and Barickuda Gallery which I developed in 2012. trustArt is an artists’ workspace and gallery in Ann Arbor which provides rental space for artists to practice and exhibit their work, and offers opportunities for creative collaboration in the community. The space includes 8 private art studios, a group ceramics studio and the centrally located gallery space available for art exhibits and other cultural events. The gallery has been used to exhibit many lively and interesting curated group and solo shows, as an intimate theater for an innovative pop-up theater company, served as the headquarters of a local artists collective, and hosted clay workshops with nationally renown ceramicists. The studios have been a welcoming work home for many local artists, including myself! It is unreal to be in my 11th year at the studio—it has flown by and the artists I’ve met, worked with, and shown in the gallery have made it a truly wonderful place to work.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think the single most influential thing that society could do to enhance and support, not just the creative community but society as a whole, is to understand and value the creative process and include it throughout our educational system. Creative problem solving, critical thinking skills, and personal expression contribute to every aspect of daily life, and to every profession and endeavor we undertake. By undervaluing and neglecting to incorporate this essential part of the human experience into our accepted and required academic priorities, we forego untold potential for ingenuity, development, collaboration in all fields of study, and the potential for social progress that engenders tolerance and understanding of each other. On an individual basis, familiarity with and appreciation of the value of goods and services that are created with integrity and care by creatives in our local communities would go a long way. Additionally, being informed and curious about the excess and potential harm done by the generic, low quality, ubiquitous, environmentally hazardous big business model is also important for individuals to consider when choosing what goods and services they want to utilize and which people and businesses they want to support.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

It is hard to pinpoint one aspect that rises above the rest. It is really the blending of several rewarding experiences that make the creative path feel like a privilege to pursue. Naturally, I love spending time in my studio to fully immerse, explore and manifest my perspective in to works of art. It is also incredibly gratifying when I have opportunities to engage with my audience and get to hear the reactions and feelings that come from interacting with my work. As a studio and gallery owner, I truly enjoy working with the many amazing artists that I meet through my studio and gallery. I feel very fortunate to be able to actively participate with the creative community in which I live.  

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lizbarickfall.com
• Instagram: @barickuda
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Barickuda-Gallery-at-trustart-studios/100027272242853/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-barick-fall-78830094
• insta: @sunsetsituation

Image Credits
All photos by Liz Barick Fall