Margot visits 90-year-old artist Sheila Schwid at her studio in the Westbeth building, NYC. Painting since she was a little girl her love for creating art is stronger than ever.
MM: Have you always been an artist?
SS: Yes. Ever since I can remember, I would always pay attention to whatever I was drawing or painting. Even as a very young child, I thought it was important. When I was 8 years old, I went into our back garden with watercolors and painted the flowers. I also designed and painted my paper doll’s clothes. At 9 or 10, I drew sexy girls with crayons. (I thought they were sexy. So did the boys). I sold them for 15 cents each. They had a choice, either a formal gown or a bathing suit. The bathing suits were the most popular. When I reached 11, I went to every art class I could find. I was painting in oils by age 13.
MM: Who or what has influenced your work?
SS: My high school art teacher was the first; she was the one who taught me oils when I was 13. She had such a wonderful way of encouraging us and imparting important information and techniques just when you needed them. She was the first one who taught me to look at the light and its source when I did landscapes or still lifes. The second was Milton Wolsky, a nationally known illustrator, who taught me even more about light. When I was teaching art in public schools and asked myself why we paint. I came up with a number of answers; to remember a person, an animal, a historical moment, or a personal moment, and also to please, or make a person angry, or to wake them up, or to tell a story. Also, there is always decoration.
" I am very excited to be working as well as I am at this high number of years that I have been on this planet. I look forward to the Two by Two show at Carter Burden Gallery this Autumn. I am in the process of getting the paintings ready. Also, I feel very lucky, my family is wonderful, and Westbeth is a great place to live, there are great people here, and I am happy to be part of B’nai Jeshurun, my Synagogue. Also, for a person of my age, my health is amazing."
MM: How do you want people to feel when they see your work? And are you thinking about how people will perceive your work when creating it?
SS: The first part of the question asks how I want people to feel when they see my art. I leave that up to them. Art is complicated. Our observers are various. They come from different backgrounds, countries, cultures and education. I know they will feel whatever comes to them. Paintings have an instant effect on the observer. It results from the color, shapes, forms, light and dark, and recognizable figures and objects and what they mean to them. I cannot control how they will feel. That does not relieve me of the responsibility of making the best painting possible, using all the techniques to convey my feelings to them. The second part, are you thinking about how people will perceive your work when creating it? Of course. I use every trick in the book to get my feeling and my message across.
Featuring Sheila Schwid
Photography by Shana Trajanoska
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Featured in Margot Magazine