If you go
“Traveling Show”
Where: The Torpedo Factory Art Center, 105 North Union St., Alexandria
When: On view indefinitely
Info: Free; 703-838-4565; torpedofactory.org
Name: Lisa Schumaier
Occupation: Artist
Residence: Del Ray, Alexandria
The work: “Traveling Show,” installation, 2009
What I want to tell you this piece: I made this piece for this year’s Art-O-Matic. I’ve been doing mechanical pieces, and I wanted to do a large puppet show, driven by a crank, that would have the figure of the girl interacting with the goat. I always say my ambitions are bigger than what I have time for: Art-O-Matic approached, and I just did a static installation. But I love the relationships between things. I wanted to make two figures that were interacting.
All of my work has this same kind of worn-in, well-loved quality. Raku, a Japanese glazing process that involves firing in an outdoor kiln, lends itself to that, because if you do a clear glaze it will crackle, and the pattern that this creates is a happy surprise. Afterwards, the piece almost looks like you dug it up; like it’s an antique that you found.
One of the reasons I wanted to make this was because I had this old parasol from China that had belonged to my mom. As it fell apart, it had sort of started to look like a skirt to me, so I wanted to make something that would honor that.
A lot of my ideas come from the clay itself, or from the found objects I use. Once they start to look like something, it becomes sort of like a story that you’re following. I had sculpted the girl, and I had her outside drying in the sun. I’d cut off the top of her head so I could use these little antique glass eyes. So I had all the pieces drying on my deck, and my dog picked up her skull and decided to eat part of it! So I was annoyed, but I fired what remained, and it was so cool. You could see into the skull, so I decided to put a little nest in there with an egg.
I try to let the universe push me around a little bit.
