Leslie Schwing

Artist

"The endlessness of days put me into a kind of trancelike state. My inner dialog with my work has gotten stronger. Distractions have lessened."

Describe yourself as a maker/artist/creative

I have been making art for over 50 years, 30 of those years in Baltimore City. I reside at Artists Housing Cooperative, with my artist Husband Greg Fletcher. We maintain a showroom, Fletcher Schwing Studio at 1452 E. Baltimore Street.

What are you currently working on?

I am primarily known as a painter. My work as a painter is integrated with a cut paper process. Prior to the Covid Shutdown I had begun investigating printmaking at InkSpot Press. During the shutdown I have focused primarily on the collograph process, and have produced a series of works that will be shown in February 2021 at InkSpot Press. Making collograph plates is a variation of the process I had been using to make my paintings. The result is a two dimensional print but the intaglio surface is also very sculptural.

In the spring, when the weather was good, I also revisited layered graphite drawing of patterns in the garden, a technique I used extensively 40 years ago that requires a lot of uninterrupted time. These are currently being shown at Liriodendron Mansion in Belair. The show will open when the ban is lifted sometime this spring.

Has your work shifted in response to the pandemic? How?

My work has shifted because of the pandemic because it allowed me uninterrupted time to delve deeply into a new arena. The endlessness of days put me into a kind of trancelike state. My inner dialog with my work has gotten stronger. Distractions have lessened. The frustration of not having feedback from completion (showing) has been irritating, and I look forward to the world reopening, however, I don’t want to lose the subtle fragility of the isolated state. It has forced me to go deeper, and that has been rewarding in itself.

See more of Leslie's work here.