Artist Story: Beth Shadur

I have worked professionally as an artist for thirty years, and began my career as an artist working with community groups to create art. While an undergraduate at Brown University, I took a semester at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago ( a junior year 'across', rather than 'abroad'!). There was a wonderful class led by John Weber, with the Chicago Mural Group, teaching students the process of creating a community mural. I was hooked after one project, and from that point on, divided my work between doing studio work and working on participatory mural projects. This combined my interest in the field of fine arts with my strong leaning toward social activism.

The magic of mural-making lies in the methodology, and the collaborative process used to create a large ambitious project. It teaches participants to work cooperatively in creating a work that likely could not be created by one individual. There is a sense of pride and self-esteem created for each individual participant, who has contributed to a larger whole. Murals use many methods of problem solving, which are valuable in the educational setting. Topic selection and theme development use research skills, as participants (often students) are asked to gather visual and other information for use in developing a design. The design process develops team building skills, and the scaling up of a drawn-to-scale design requires the use of math, proportion, measuring and drawing. Finally, painting skills are taught and used in the final creation of the actual mural. The mural making process becomes a natural tool for teaching people to work together, across cultural, racial, religious and other boundaries.

My own studio works are narrative in nature, telling stories and creating connections through symbols and sometimes jarring combinations of images from diverse cultural backgrounds. The work combines plant forms and other forms from nature, architectural references, objects both real and imaginary, objects traditionally associated with women through history, and most currently, the hand, to weave a narrative that is oblique, often personal, and sometimes political or issue-oriented.

My current work, the works of the "Tikkun Olam" (Hebrew for 'heal the world') series, investigates the image and symbolism of the hand in its many gestures and roles, especially as it is used in cultures to express healing; healing is reflected as both personal and worldly. The works are intended to create prayers for world healing. After the events of 9/11, my confusion and despair served to push my work to aspire towards a supplication for healing. Many of the new works use the symbol of the hands blessing and praying, asking and making a plea for peace, or at least resolution to conflict. Hebrew words and prayers appear painted on the hands to convey these prayers.
There has been a natural blending of concerns from my collaborative projects and my studio work, as in both I find myself addressing issues of concern to me. Working in socially-engaged art practice has resulted in a blending of both individual concerns and social concerns in a way that goes back and forth from my work with the public and community to my work in the studio.

Beth Shadur is an artist who has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Drawing Center in New York City; the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY; the Butler Institute of Art in Youngstown, Ohio; and at the Colorado Springs Art Museum, Colorado Springs, CO. She has created over 125 large public murals as public, private and community art projects in both the United States and Great Britain. She is an Artist-in-Education for the Illinois Arts Council and Urban Gateways in Chicago, IL. Shadur's work appears in many publications, books and catalogues, Shadur has been a Ragdale Fellow and a Thomas Watson Fellow from Brown University. Her work is in many private and public collections.