Industrial Center Building
480 Gate 5 Road Studio #278
Sausalito, CA 94965
(415) 497-3577
chrisschmitz@mac.com
EXHIBITIONS
Winter Open Studios Industrial Center Building -- annually 1999 to present
Open Studios Marin Arts Council -- annually May 1999 to present
Seven -- Group show of seven artists, 142 Throckmorton Gallery, Mill Valley, CA, November 2006
To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen -- Touring show: College of Marin, Syracuse University, The Claremont Colleges, Sonoma Museum of Art 2004-2006. Painted four portraits.
Art and Politics O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, Mill Valley, CA 2005Student Show San Francisco City College, Fort Mason Campus 2000
ARTIST STATEMENT
Painting has enriched my life and given me great pleasure and internal peace. My formal study of art came later in my life, after marriage and my most creative projects, my three children.
I am fortunate to be a part of a group of seven women who met in painting classes with the great Chester Arnold at College of Marin. We meet regularly to critique each other’s work and share creative ideas. I find that extremely helpful and a way to see my work through other eyes. In 2006 we had a group show in Mill Valley called Seven.
We also participated in Chester Arnold's Faces of the Fallen, a very moving exhibit of portraits of the first 1,100 American soldiers killed in Iraq. The photos had been published in the New York Times on the day that the American casualties in Iraq reached 1,000. Painting the faces of these young people whose lives were taken too early, most of them the ages of my own children, was extremely emotional. I was contacted by and began communicating with the anti-war activist mother of one of “my” soldiers after she saw the exhibit and my painting. She even left a copy of his dog tags on my painting in the gallery. He was her only child. She thanked me for “even getting the cleft in his chin.”
Having a studio at the Industrial Center Building (ICB) in Sausalito, --- a place so full of history where I am surrounded by many other artists and a diversity of talents -- enhances my artistic experience. I appreciate having that refuge where I can relax and create. Here my mind shuts out the world for a short while and I can take the time to create something of beauty or relevance to me or to others. I am very grateful to have this means of expression and the balance that it brings to my life. I paint for myself, but if my work pleases someone else, that is a bonus for me.
Christine Schmitz