Treacy Ziegler
I had the opportunity to visit Treacy at her studio, which is nestled among tall, old trees on a hilltop outside of Ithaca, NY. Her studio has everything she may need to create her work. Some of it the kind of imposing machinery one wouldn't expect a small woman like Treacy to mange on her own. But she does much more than manage. She transforms. She builds. And then she frames.
Treacy has an incredibly in-depth knowledge of art history, with which she plays a little game, where she identifies just about any canonized artist's work when quizzed. Her husband is an established sculptor with his own impressive studio right next door. That closeness with just the right amount of division in their labor establishes a sense of harmony on their expansive property. Treacy and her husband also spend a large portion of each year in Italy, drawing for hours each day. Treacy attributes her continued sharpening of her drawing skills as well as her connection with major art from the past to these sojourns.
While talking with Treacy, she told me, when I asked about artist's statements, "No such thing as self-expression in that you can't tell someone I'm a sensitive person and make that statement anything more than glib. I have to have a person to whom I'm being sensitive and that person has to allow me to be sensitive. It's a two way street. The relationship of expression."
Treacy is currently involved in a project called "An Open Window: Art in Prison," in which she visits maximum security prisons to give art instruction to prisoners, both in drawing and in developing a usable art knowledge base. The project is part of Cornell's Center for Transformative Action. Treacy is so dedicated to this project she has already donated many of her own paintings to these prisons. Real art has an impact, when it is there for prisoners to take in and make connections with in their daily lives, while confined within the mind deadening prison system.
Treacy has an incredibly in-depth knowledge of art history, with which she plays a little game, where she identifies just about any canonized artist's work when quizzed. Her husband is an established sculptor with his own impressive studio right next door. That closeness with just the right amount of division in their labor establishes a sense of harmony on their expansive property. Treacy and her husband also spend a large portion of each year in Italy, drawing for hours each day. Treacy attributes her continued sharpening of her drawing skills as well as her connection with major art from the past to these sojourns.
While talking with Treacy, she told me, when I asked about artist's statements, "No such thing as self-expression in that you can't tell someone I'm a sensitive person and make that statement anything more than glib. I have to have a person to whom I'm being sensitive and that person has to allow me to be sensitive. It's a two way street. The relationship of expression."
Treacy is currently involved in a project called "An Open Window: Art in Prison," in which she visits maximum security prisons to give art instruction to prisoners, both in drawing and in developing a usable art knowledge base. The project is part of Cornell's Center for Transformative Action. Treacy is so dedicated to this project she has already donated many of her own paintings to these prisons. Real art has an impact, when it is there for prisoners to take in and make connections with in their daily lives, while confined within the mind deadening prison system.
 Treacy in her studio, engraving. Selected Solo Exhibitions
2010 Chase Gallery, Boston, MA 2010 Gallery 71, New York, New York 2009 F.A.N.Gallery, Philadelphia, PA An Open Window: Art in Prison, Director. A prison project with the Center For Transformative Action. Education 1985-89 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 1978-80 University of Pennsylvania, MSW. 1974-76 Hahnemann University, Philadelphia, BS. Museums/Selected Collections:
Herbert F. Johnson, Ithaca NY Rider College, Trenton, NJ Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY College Board, New York, NY |
Arnot Art Museum
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