Stacy Caldwell

Stacy Caldwell lives and works in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where a strong Mennonite heritage and an ancestral connection to the land has in many ways informed her work.

The journey into painting began in earnest while working at a local university where she spent evenings and weekends studying painting, drawing, and art history.

In 2018 a three-week residency in an historic dune shack on Cape Cod in Massachusetts became an especially transformative experience. The isolation of the pandemic, correlating with the mentorship of E.M. Saniga, has also been an important influence.

In 2021, inspired by the journal drawings of French artist, François Dupuis, Stacy committed to her own daily practice using charcoal in a Moleskine journal and drawing from surprise encounters, memories, and the fleeting images of daily life. These drawings continue today and have become an important part of her practice.

“My paintings are a quiet response to the landscapes of my surroundings. They are an attempt to honour the mysterious beauty that reveals itself unexpectedly in familiar places.

Time alone in nature has been crucial to me and my creative process. For many years while working full-time in an office, I stole time daily during breaks to go outside to paint or draw. Painting and drawing became a vehicle for responding to what reveals itself when one quietly offers attention, love, curiosity.

In 2021 I began working in sketchbooks with gouache and charcoal to move beyond responding directly to what is in front of me, and instead explore what can emerge out of memory, imagination, design, and invention.

Recently, I’ve been attempting to approach oil painting in the same way I do the sketchbook work, which is to begin with an event, experience, or image and allow the painting to evolve from there.”