Alumni Spotlight: Heidi Howard '14
The Alumni Spotlight is a place to hear from the School of the Arts alumni community about their journeys as artists and creators.
Heidi Howard (b. 1986, New York, NY) has exhibited her work at Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY (2017, 2016, 2015) Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, MA and Cologne, Germany (2018, 2017), The Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ (2017), James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY (2016) and many more. She been an artist in residence at Palazzo Monti (2018), Byrdcliffe (2014) and the Vermont Studio Center (2011). She lives and works between Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Queens, New York. Her collaborative installation with her mother the interactive sound sculptor Liz Phillips, Relative Fields in a Garden, will be on view at the Queens Museum until August 2019.
Was there a specific faculty member or peer who especially inspired you while at the School of the Arts? If so, who and how?
When I came to School of the Arts I spent a lot of time alone looking at art. The artists I met are now a part of my daily life, including my partner Esteban Cabeza de Baca ‘14. It was important for me to be able to have conversations with a lot of the women whose work I had admired from afar for years: Josephine Halvorson ‘07, Sarah Sze, Patricia Trieb, Chitra Ganesh ‘02, Nicole Eisenman, Elizabeth Peyton, Susanna Coffey, Cecily Brown, Mary Heilman, Charlyne von Heyl, Dana Schutz ‘02, Rineke Djikstra, Kara Walker, Valerie Hammond, Kiki Smith, and Joan Jonas ‘65. It was an opportunity overload. I had a lot of panic attacks. I also gained the confidence to be a professional artist, to feel like I was a part of an amazing community that had something to say about the world. I have a strong vision but I am also constantly plagued with doubt. I think many artists experience this anxiety. Art is about really digging into the grey areas and into your imagination. When I need to feel grounded I reach out to artists whose work I admire. I learned how to do this at the School of the Arts.
What were the first steps you took after graduating?
I got a studio. I was trying to follow in the footsteps of my classmate Lauren Silva ‘13. She had come to the studio to model for me over winter break and was just piecing things together, doing lots of part-time jobs and still making time to be in the studio and make huge crazy paintings. She was having her first show with Zeiher Smith that January 2014. I planned the same sort of the thing, having a show of large paintings with Nancy Margolis Gallery in January 2015 after graduating in May 2014. It seemed like a dream to get to fill a ground floor gallery in Chelsea with my work.
What advice would you give to recent graduates?
See the opportunities your peers are getting as advantages. I want to be an artist for the rest of my life. Most of the time since I graduated I have been struggling to survive, to afford rent and a studio. Sometimes it has not been possible. Maintaining focus on what could be possible rather than missed opportunities has allowed me to build relationships that are supportive and has helped me find solutions to artistic and practical problems.