Marcie Schudder in the installation of My Mother’s Garden

When my mother died, I was left with her house and her garden. My work is physically, spiritually, metaphorically rooted in that garden.

I begin with a photograph. I print, cut, fold, sew and sculpt the imagery into three-dimensional quilt-like abstract paper sculptures and objects that occupy, shape and define space. My process is slow, repetitive, mindful, meditative. I re-construct, re-envision and re-create. I adjust and transform the scale, affecting one’s proprioception and sense of movement through space, offering the viewer a moment’s pause to feel.

In the process of creating, I have come to understand a critical piece of my internal being: I am the child of a Holocaust survivor. Although it is something I once resisted, I now welcome it as an imperative call to honor and remember, to share stories, to live and to love.

In the midst of life’s uncertainties, I seek beauty. I explore the mystery of abstraction and joy of play. I embrace the unseen opportunities in the re-imagining and re-shaping what I capture through my camera’s lens. – Marcie Scudder

Marcie Scudder is a lens-based multi-disciplinary artist. Her work explores the connections between the human experience and the ephemeral circles and cycles of nature’s seasons. She examines the dualities between fragility and loss; rebirth and renewal. Her art is about the conversations between generations. It’s about honoring and remembering – how one remembers, what one remembers, and who.

Her work is about gratitude and joy. It’s about what it means to be alive. and to experience with all five senses.

Scudder has an MFA in Visual Arts from Maine Media College, and a B.Arch. in Architecture from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute. Her work has been exhibited in various spaces including The Wilson Museum at Southern Vermont Arts Center; The Kent Museum: Studio Place Arts; SE Center for Photography; and Davis-Orton Gallery. Her work has appeared in numerous publications such as Lenscratch, Still Points Quarterly, NE Home Magazine, Stowe Magazine and Catchlight.

After almost 3 decades of managing her own Architectural practice, Scudder turned to photography as a means of creative expression. Her recent work marries the two practices together by transforming her photographs into 3-dimensional objects that sculpt and shape space.

Scudder lives and works in Stowe, VT. Winter is long. Summer is fleeting. Time is measured by the changing length of the days.
IG: @marciescudder

An interview with the artist follows.

©Marcie Scudder, Install of My Mother’s Garden, (L) Detail of My Mother’s Garden (R)

What inspired you to make this work?

While pursuing my MFA – I found myself exploring connections between generations, while honoring and preserving memory. I dug deep into my Jewish roots and lineage, uncovering stories that had come to me, are carried within me, and now needed to come thru and passed on.

I began with My Mother’s Garden – an unconscious accident that became my metaphorical, spiritual and physical muse. As a fine art photographer – I decided to photograph that garden in all of its ages and stages; from the first of spring buds until the last of fall. I wanted to transform and re-create this garden in a voice of my own. To that – I began the process of printing…cutting…folding…sewing…re-imagining. Piece by piece this paper garden took on its own shape and form.

And yet – at the heart of it – it was still and will always be my mother’s garden. It’s her voice…her legacy passing thru me. She planted the first seeds. Those seeds have become a garden of flowers left to me to tend. I do it for me…for my children and theirs.

While in the process of making – I found myself reconnecting with my mother and her art and her craft, and most importantly her story. She and her two sisters survived the Holocaust due only to the kindness of strangers and miracle of fate. Because they survived – I am. I am Canadian by birth, American by marriage, and most importantly – Jewish by my lineage and DNA.

It became imperative to me to tell these stories following the Oct. 7 massacre – where more Jews were killed in a single day since the Holocaust. And thus – Shvesters was conceived.

©Marcie Scudder, Shvesters

What does the word Shvesters mean?

Shvesters is the Yiddish word for sisters. As a child growing up in Montreal – I went to Jewish day school where we spent half our day learning in English and French, and the other half in Hebrew and Yiddish. Choosing this name for this project came quite organically.

Can you tell us about the sisters and their story?

This is so relevant as tomorrow is Yom Hashoah –  Jewish Holocaust Remembrance Day, when we honor the 6 million who perished in the Holocaust.

The Klein sisters’ story began in Berlin; three Jewish girls born in1930’s pre-war Germany.  When their father’s shoemaking shop was destroyed during Kristallnacht by the Nazi’s – the family fled. First to France, then to Belgium where they became orphans. Their parents were transported to the concentration camps and killed there. The girls managed to stay together while hidden in numerous orphanages and homes.

At the ages of 15, 13 and 10 – they arrived in Canada, where they were adopted by Canadian families, and began their lives again

Ruti

Born in 1932, Ruti was the eldest of the three girls. She had dark hair and dark eyes that danced when she smiled. She loved ruffles and ribbons and bows, and especially loved dressing up in her mother’s high heels and dresses. Often – she’d play in her grandmother’s closets, donning her pearls. Someday – she thought – they’d be hers and she’d wear them.

She was smart. She was funny. She was the family’s first born and the light of their world.

She remembered walking into her father’s shoe shop and seeing that yellow star. She remembered walking to school holding tight to her mother’s hand, while children shouted and pointed: ‘Shmutziger Juden’ and ‘Juden Kike’. She remembered the day she was told she could no longer go to school with her friends, but to one that was designated only for ‘Juden’. She remembered asking repeatedly why she couldn’t leave the house without her yellow star displaying brightly.

She didn’t remember the answer.

And – she remembered Kristallnacht. That night when all things as she knew them to be – changed. Her father’s shop was rampaged and burned. Their family was forced to flee.

Ava

Born in 1934, Ava was the second of the Klein sisters. She too – had dark hair and eyes as big as saucers. She was the carefree dreamer.

She filled a room with her song and her dance and her laughter. She loved chasing butterflies and running barefoot and spinning herself round and round, imagining the universe was spinning with her.

She talked an endless stream of conversation. With her wild imagination she told stories of who someday she’d be free to be. She remembered the hushed voices…the quiet conversations…her parents and sister – afraid.

She remembered her first day of school. Too many Jewish children all crammed into one small little space. She asked too many questions as to why she couldn’t go to the same schools that others did.

She remembered there was a long journey. Some days they walked, some days they sat in a cart that was pulled by her father. She remembered how tired he was. But – she wasn’t old enough to grasp the danger and enormity, or to understand why.

Raisel

Although Lotte and Josef might have been hoping for a boy, they were gifted another girl. In 1937, Raisel was born. Like her parents and sisters – she too had dark hair and the biggest brownest soulful eyes. From day one – she was destined to be someone’s someday heartbreak.

She was strong-willed, stubborn, fiesty and independent. She was determined to do it her way. Always the third-in-line and the tag-along child, she wanted nothing other than to keep up with her older sisters.

It was that energy and bold grit that served her well. It’s what kept them together and helped her survive.

She was only one year old when they fled Nazi Germany. She was three when her father was taken as a part of Hitler’s Final Solution and massacred in the concentration camps.

She had no memory, nor means to tell us her stories.
She was my mother.

My hope is that viewers might begin to understand that these were just people. They lived. They loved. They laughed. They cried. They died. My mother and her sisters were innocent children. They were not just numbers in and among the millions who perished at the hands of the Nazis. And of course – I’m sharing here a very abbreviated version of a very long story. You can read a more on my website here.
Please know – the girls’ character descriptions are fictitious – a product of my creative license. Their story is very real.

Tell us about your background and how you arrived at photo-based paper sculpture?

 It’s really hard to know where to begin. There are so many things….

My professional background and training is in architecture – where I learned to sculpt and form space. I was gifted my first camera at the age of 12. My love of photography continued throughout.

My father had his own men’s tie manufacturing business – working and weaving in uniquely colored Italian silks. My mother was a fiber artist – sewing and creating beautiful art kimonos.

Somehow – all of these seemingly disparate influences came together in my cutting, folding, sewing, and sculpting in 3-dimensions.

Can you share with us your process? Your materials and techniques?

 I begin with a photograph. The work is informed by the seasonal landscape and nature’s color palette. I print on both sides of 2-sided paper. Using a paper cutting machine, I design and cut my desired shapes. This follows with folding and sewing. Altho I’m always exploring new shape possibilities, I mostly work with squares, rectangles and triangles. Triangles are typically sewn together into hexagons, or 6-sided floral-like shapes. The sculpting process begins when I sew and connect one to another. Its becoming is always something unexpected and new.

I’m a process-based artist. I work without knowing – trusting my hands and heart to guide.

Have you done any other work that relates to honoring and remembering?

Yes.

The Oct. 7 massacre in Israel deeply affected me in a way that I could never have predicted. Call it epigenetics or the weight of intergenerational trauma – but this event and the following rise in global anti-semitism shook me to my core. Impossible to comprehend that the unthinkable had happened again.

As I so often do – I turned to my creative practice to sit with the sadness…the anger…the horror…the disappointment…the fear. I needed to speak-up in resistance. I chose to do so through my art.

And so – in honor of the 364 who were killed at the Nova Festival – I created We Will Dance Again. Again – I began with a photograph from my mother’s ere-retuning garden. I cut and folded 364 origami paper dresses – one for each life lost. The flowers were chosen with intention – white daisy for innocence; yellow buttercup for joy; blue forget-me-not for remembrance; red poppy for love; green leaves for renewal and regrowth. I chose color because color is joy. We must always hold on to joy. I chose dresses because they are a symbol of our maternal lineage. I chose the garden as a reminder again that we are all our mother’s gardens. Like the ephemeral flowers and nature’s cycles, we will continue to re-bloom and re-grow.

Each dress is sewn together with yellow thread, the chosen color of the ribbons that cry out to bring the hostage home. They are linked by chains as a reminder and symbol of our bondage. The pine box is one in which we – in the Jewish tradition – are buried.

Previous to this, and before Shvesters, I created my largest piece thus far: Coquelicots. Made up of thousands of cut, folded and sewn photographs of summer poppies she stands almost 12’ with skirts that sweep 8’ around her.

I chose to work with poppies as a universal symbol of remembrance. I chose the color red as a reminder that it is both the color of blood and the color of love. Sewing with thread symbolized an act of resistance and persistence. In spite of all we Jewish people have endured, we sew ourselves back together, making ourselves whole and strong again.

What are you working on currently?

Seems I’m working on a number of projects concurrently. All are connected to my Jewish lineage and roots. All are very much in progress

The first – I’ve titled: Prayer is the Courage to Hope. Prayer as meditation. Prayer as repetition. Prayer as returning and beginning again. Prayer as the strength to carry on.  Beginning with late autumn reflections on the pond, and becoming three 8’ x 3’ panels.

The second: Coat of Many Colors – a metaphorical and spiritual symbol of the resilience of the human spirit. Beginning with photographs of autumn leaves; becoming a site specific sculpture.

The third: very much In-process paper dresses in process, which I’m calling: The Four Questions. Beginning with photographs of the summer garden. I have so many questions. If only there were answers.

I’ve also been experimenting with smaller weavings, because weaving our stories together provide us the strength we need to carry on.