Joys, Sorrows, Concerns features the prints, drawings, books of Susan Schmidt, artist and veteran faculty member at the College of the Holy Cross. Created over several decades, this selection of work created over the last forty years serves to represent a profound body of work that spans drawing and print media of varying scales, and that explores many of our most fundamental concerns; primary among them family, and what binds us together and keeps us apart.

Throughout her career, Schmidt has generated work through sustained observation – of objects, places, people, and relationships – later expanded, layered, and mediated through the print process. Her gestural drawings map closely to her body, while print processes, often replete with uncertain outcome, allow her to rearrange, redistribute, and reconnect the images. The result of Schmidt’s impulse to continually explore the possibilities of print media, in combination with her steady and principled gaze, is a varied and deeply empathetic body of work; one that both challenges and forgives our biases and burdens.

Susan Schmidt received her MFA in printmaking from the Pennsylvania State University. She is a founding member of Brickbottom Artists Building in Somerville MA and has her studio there. She also prints at Mixit Studio in Somerville. Her work has been published in The Harvard Review and is in the collections of the Worcester Art Museum and the Boston Public Library. She is a member of the executive board of the Boston Printmakers and exhibits regularly with them. Susan Schmidt is an Associate Professor in the Visual Arts Department at Holy Cross, where she teaches printmaking, artists’ books and drawing. She has been on the faculty here since 1987.