Award-winning stained-glass artist Judith Schaechter will present a lecture as part of the SIU Carbondale School of Art and Design’s Visiting Artist Program on March 23. (Photo provided)
October 20, 2023
SIU School of Art and Design to present visiting glass artist on Oct. 26
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Award-winning stained glass artist Judith Schaechter will present a lecture at Southern Illinois University Carbondale on Thursday, Oct. 26.
Schaechter’s presentation is at 7 p.m. in Wham Educational Building, Room 105. Part of the School of Art and Design’s Visiting Artist Program, the lecture is free and open to the public.
Schaechter, whose work is widely exhibited throughout the world, is an adjunct professor in the School of Art at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
In her artist’s statement, Schaechter notes that she initially went to art school to study painting but “knew almost instantly when I tried stained glass that it was what I wanted to pursue for the rest of my life.” She notes stained glass “reached its peak in the 12th century, and it’s been downhill since then” but that she finds it “altogether irresistible.”
“Unlike most raw materials, glass is extremely attractive before the artist ever touches it,” she said. “I found I like to really manipulate it, stretch it, and transform and distort it in unnatural ways. I like to see what possibilities lie in mating difficult emotional ideas with sensuous but cruel materials.”
She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design Glass Program.