Interview with Ellie Schmidt: Artist behind the Sirena Collection Collab with SKJ
My first memory of Ellie is when I saw her outside of the Goodhue dorm making a mobile out of bones and sticks she found in the Arb at Carleton College our freshman year. I thought she was the coolest, but we didn’t become friends until we lived together our senior year. Since then we have supported each others’ art practices over texts, calls, emails, and self-imposed artist retreats and projects. Ellie is a huge inspiration of mine— I call her for reassurance when I am doubting my art or struggling with something personally (she joked with me about setting up an artist helpline that just says that simulates listening to your woes and says “You’re doing so great!” I still think this is a brilliant idea).
The jewelry in this collection was inspired by Ellie’s ethereal, dreamlike underwater photography and incorporates physical treasures she collected on the Alaskan coast, where she lived on her sailboat, the Sirena, for the past few years. She created the collage images of the pieces I made against her seascape photography in the lookbook. In this interview, Ellie talks about her motivations, philosophies, and hopes for the future— I’m sure you will leave inspired.
Ellie Schmidt, photograph from Seal Island, June 14, 2018
photo by Jesse Boyd-Reid
What is your artistic philosophy? Interpret as you wish-- about process, end goals, sharing art, making art for personal expression/improvement, etc.
Hmm… I have many, they seem to come and go like the weather and seasons! Right now I’ve been thinking a lot about something my friend Lee said a long time ago: He thinks art should be therapy-- for the maker, or the receiver, or both. I’ve been returning to this a lot lately because I’ve been struggling to find inspiration and motivation to work, but introspection and rest and care and friendship are subjects that I can bring into my practice that help me cope. So, right now: art as therapy.
However overall I would say that my artistic philosophy is that the world needs more of it, in all forms, high brow, low brow, professional and unprofessional, planned and spontaneous, etc. I believe that any kind of art making or organizing makes the world a more irrational, magical, feminine, interpretive place, and this is good. I love that art can confuse barriers and cross disciplines. I admire artists very much and am really grateful that my life has allowed me to pursue art.
Your work is always evolving-- What is your primary medium/media at the moment? What do you like about it?
Right now I am at the University of Michigan working on my first year of my MFA, eek! I love the program here because there is a huge focus on interdisciplinarity/transdisciplinarity/whatever you want to call it. We are encouraged to open our minds to think of ANYTHING as an art practice. Which is a little overwhelming. But it has been freeing to combine lots of different mediums I’ve been working in-- video, underwater photography, zines/comics, and installation. For this semester I have been swimming in the Huron River and Lake Michigan to see how long I can endure the cold! It’s art research into the bodily response to cold water, haha.
Ellie Schmidt, photograph from Seal Island, June 14, 2018
I love thinking of approaching my academic life / personal life from an art-research perspective. Perhaps I could write letters to my friends? Learn how to hold my breath for a really long time? Search for coral fossils in northern Michigan? The possibilities are endless.
However more directly to your question, I love underwater photography and video because it gets me outside, and snorkeling is my favorite thing to do in the world. I also love writing sad poems and binding them into little booklets to disseminate to my friends. Sometimes I paint outside and make interactive installation art.
Who and/or what are your primary influences right now?
Right now I am really inspired by the artists I have come into contact with at the University of Michigan. My advisor Robert Platt is an amazing artist who makes camo outfits and films people crawling around in nature-- really fun and also moving. My cohort is also really awesome, you can check some of them out here. I’m also really humbled and inspired by my friends who are out there in the world DOING IT, like you, who have built your own business up from the ground and keep your jewelry true to your own aesthetic and vision.
I also read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and it really changed my life. Highly recommend.
collage by Ellie Schmidt; Jewelry by Sophie kissin Jewelry, Sirena Collection 2020
What do you wish to accomplish with your art? (Huge, deep question! But something I struggle with often and I’m curious to hear anything you have to say here.)
Man, yes this is a question I think about all the time as well. I would be glad if my art helped connect me with others and the larger world, and led me to consider hard questions. A great bonus would be if my art reached others and helped them consider or process their own lives and relationships. Some of my art also specifically addresses environmental problems like overfishing and subsistence rights. I have worked with others, especially in Alaska, to tell stories about Indigenous rights and humanity’s connection to nature. The question that keeps pulling me forward is how humans might reimagine our relationship with animals and nature.
collage by Ellie Schmidt; Jewelry by Sophie kissin Jewelry, Sirena Collection 2020
Something that I also love about art is the way that it connects you with other artists. Artists can be wonderfully strange and mold-breaking. They are also usually super passionate and hardworking and ambitious. And although we are all artists— we make art about an infinite number of issues that we are passionate about. Which creates communities that are both very supportive and kooky, but also really diverse and full of communal learning and growing. I love practicing art even just to help support and sustain these artist communities.
Ellie Schmidt, photograph from Sea Island, June 14, 2018
Much of your work has to do with water and the things that live and grow in it/around it. Can you tell me a bit about that? What qualities of water move you to create and why?
I’ve tried to explain my interest in the ocean many times, without a lot of success. I grew up in Colorado so the most I can guess is that the ocean had a lot of newness and mystery to me? What I really think is going on is that I grew up with my young child’s sensibilities and am just interested in dolphins and bright colors and things that are tropical and smell nice. My interest in places like this— fantasy paradises— led me to places like Alaska, and Ecuador, which are different but definitely escapist paradises in a way. I came for the animals but stayed for the people, the small island communities, and the feeling that I was living somewhere far away from mainstream society. I guess this is a strange answer to a simple question. I do love the colors of the ocean and I love to swim— it feels like flying. I also love grimy boats and beautiful sailboats and kitschy tourist towns where you can eat fish and chips. I don’t see anything too harmful in my love for the ocean so I try to lean into it.
Ellie and me on our self-directedf artist retreat in Jackson Hole in 2015
I also see a lot of human relationships in your work. Can you speak a little about themes of human/nature connection, female friendship, romantic relationships, and womanhood in your work?
Yes. I guess I would answer this question by saying that these relationships— with nature, with my friends, my many crushes and few partners, and my identity as a woman— is what makes me who I am! Or at least who I strive to be. I feel a sort of “call to arms” to work on environmental issues and feminist issues and a kind of personal “dream” to go live in the South Pacific or whatever, but I feel that thinking about (making art about) my relationships is where the real meat of my work lies. This is where I am able to truly benefit from my unique placement as an “interdisciplinary artist” (instead of a non-skilled artist lol), and cross between different disciplines and media like ecology, documentary film, comic books, the Enneagram, animal psychology, etc. I guess what I’m trying to say is that my relationships lead me to many fascinating worlds and allegories, and in my heart of hearts is what I’m the most interested in exploring with my art. How is my relationship with a forest similar to my relationship with my ex? Is it or not? How is my relationship with a salmon similar to my relationship with my mom? These questions never stop interesting me. It’s why I’m so obsessed with the enneagram. And my art is a vehicle to explore these ideas.
You recently moved inland after many years on the ocean. How has this changed your work/artistic philosophy/direction, if at all?
It was a hard choice to come here (as you were witness to!), but I came to Michigan for the shiny program. I’m really happy to be working so deeply on my practice but it is strange to be so far from the ocean! I have been exploring the rivers and lakes here though. And there are fossilized coral reefs hiding below the Great Lakes.
With a global pandemic, political and social unrest, a rapidly warming climate, the world feels overwhelmingly dark right now. What is keeping you going? What are you excited for? What brings you joy?
I honestly remind myself often that this time won't last. This interview may sound pretty chipper but it’s been a really rough time for me. I started therapy and most days I just feel like I am making it through the day. But I have a lot of optimism that life after the pandemic will be better than life pre pandemic. Maybe it’s kind of unrealistic but I have made lots of changes in my life that I could stand to overlook before covid. Now suddenly I feel like I need to take an active role in my life and not let it just roll along. Maybe it’s because the pandemic makes me terrified of losing precious time. But I am hopelessly nostalgic and also I tend to fantasize about the future a lot, so from this vantage point, years past and years future are looking really beautiful.