CARRIE ZIEGLER
International artist, speaker, & expert in collaborative art.
VIDEO - AVAILABILITY - ARTIST’S STATEMENT - CV/RESUME
Hello! I’m Carrie, and my mission is to inspire action.
Growing up in my practical German from Russia, North Dakotan family, I never dreamed I would become an artist. It took many years of slow starts, painful openings, failure, unfathomable success, and a complete undoing to fully embrace the artist and change-maker within.
This journey changed my life in ways I never imagined. I had to set aside fear, set aside judgement, and trust that the process of unfolding would take me to where I needed to be.
Today, courage, collaboration, connection, and creativity are my guiding principles.
Pulling from many years of experience as a naturalist and environmental educator, my work focuses on creating solutions to complex social and environmental issues. At the same time, my work ethic, deeply rooted in building and farming, grounds my practice. I continually push myself to learn and grow, especially where it is uncomfortable.
I am an artist, wife, mother, sister, daughter, collaborator, educator, activist, change-maker. All of this informs my work.
I just happen to make public art.
Want to collaborate?
Story-Telling Through Art
Art breaks down barriers and opens hearts. It can help people to hear something they could not otherwise hear before, or hear it in a new way. It gives participants a way to take action and process through difficult concepts/realities. In this video meet Carrie Ziegler and listen as she discusses her philosophy, and her vision for the future of collaborative art.
Availability
Available internationally, Carrie Ziegler is an artist, speaker, and an expert on collaborative art. Her work focuses on community engagement through large-scale, collaborative art installations and murals. Carrie’s primary focus is youth empowerment, environmental and social justice through the lens of collaborative art projects.
As a speaker, Carrie shares inspiring stories of the art’s creation at conferences and workshops, while bringing collaborative art directly to your event.
She also offers interior and exterior murals and sculptures for homes, businesses, government agencies, non-profits and educational institutions using a variety of styles, from decorative, to whimsical, to sophisticated.
Artist’s Statement
My artworks explore the interface between participant, viewer, and subject, resulting in immersive works that compel change. They are process oriented, drawing from relevant environmental and social issues. The finished artworks themselves are multi-layered, pulling the viewer in. The underlying collaboration and community participation is Art in Action.
In my work, the subject matter drives the medium. What links my work is the inclusion of many people in its creation, the goal of engaging viewers and inspiring change, and challenging them to relate to the subject matter in a new way.
Working collaboratively allows for a project that is much larger and wider of scope than any I could do alone. These projects give ownership to all involved, and inspire the viewer through the story of their creation. There are countless layers woven into the pieces, compelling the viewer to delve deeper, if they so choose.
When exploring a new concept, I take in all of the ideas and possibilities, spin them through my Artist Self and ground them in my experience. I then get out of the way and let the ideas flow through from the Source.
My current project focuses on the dichotomy of consumer food waste culture (we throw away nearly 40% of the food we grow), our rapidly changing climate, and hunger. Together with people in my community, many of whom are directly impacted by hunger, and most vulnerable to climate change, we will explore the reasons behind the waste and possibilities to shift away from waste into Plenty. We will use art to empower ourselves, each other, and our greater community to make a stand. The physical end result will be a permanent exterior installation at the new food bank in Lacey, WA, designed and created collaboratively by over 1,000 people. There it will be a beacon of hope, a testament of strength, a…
Thus begins the story. The shape it will take as yet unknown. The process itself, Art in Action.
