artist spotlight: Sylvia Zawistowska
A future art educator with a love for the Earth
Sylvia is one of the most kind-hearted people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. Her art is beautiful, natural, and unique, which lead me to ask her to become Collection Five’s Director of Art Media. Her artwork is heavily inspired by natural forces and she’s striving to become less-to-zero waste, which is a very noble goal.
I first met Sylvia in our speech class at Montclair State University, where we bonded over our Polish backgrounds. It wasn’t until recent years that I saw more of her art and learned how/why she makes it.
“Art has been a part of my life entirely, so its the thing that I can turn to, always.
I graduated with my undergrad with a concentration in drawing, so I really love to draw with anything I can get my hands on, whether its colored pencil, charcoal, oil pastels, any drawing medium. I got into wood burning when my sister got me a wood and metal sauntering kit for Christmas two years ago, and so I had started that and have really gotten interested in that medium. I have just recently started to sell some of my art and that’s what has been going for me, so I think I’m going to go deeper into wood burning.”
I asked Sylvia my favorite question of all: why do you feel the need to create?
“I think that it is my purpose here. It is the most constant thing in my life. I have remembered that art has always been there, family and art have been the two most constant aspects of my growing up into who I am today, so I just remember from being very little always drawing, always trying to make things from other things, even when I’m outside doing little land art, so it’s kind of second nature and I think that’s what my purpose is to be: an artist and share it with the world. Hopefully maybe be in a gallery.
Land art is not typical to what we see today, when we see art it’s usually in somebody’s home or in a gallery in a museum, its propped up. With land art, we have nature to work with, and its sometimes temporary, sometimes you can make it permanent. When I make my land art, I stack pebbles or put sticks together, I even create enormous forts that I go and hang out in. That’s basically what I do with land art.”
We spoke about the concept of land art, Andy Goldsworthy, and the fluidity of what he creates. He’s the type of artist who has an intense connection to the earth and art. One of my favorite quotes from him is: “good art keeps you warm.” Granted, he was wading through snow in order to finish one of his natural sculptures, but the saying always stuck with me. Sylvia’s art reminds me of his. They’re both connected to nature.
“I think it’s because I grew up in a place where I had ample trees, I have the woods in my backyard, and I have an older brother and younger sister, and after school we would always adventure together, and we would always cause ruckus, and it would always take place in the wood. We navigated through it and really enjoyed nature around us, instead of going in the more technological way.
I think gardening is an art form, too. We have these pots that we have on our deck, so we potted a bunch of plants and decorated some shrubs. Hopefully we can get some seeds and produce growing. We try to cultivate it and make as much food as possible.”
Naturally, our conversation circled back to the global pandemic several times. At the point of this interview, quarantine was relatively new and stresses were especially high because of the rising levels of unemployment, transitioning to virtual schooling, and more. Sylvia is currently a graduate student of art education, and virtual learning, as you can imagine, is especially difficult to navigate when you have a hands-on trade. I asked her what she’s been doing and what the last thing she made was.
“I can’t sleep at night, I have insomnia, my brain doesn’t shut off and I’m trying to get that to normal…yesterday I had an empty notebook and I said okay, I’m going to start another journal and this is just going to be whatever, being super personal and vulnerable with myself and explore, and so I opened the first page and I started to draw a design of a moon and clouds in the night sky…because that’s usually what these kinds of vulnerabilities show to me. I wrote a little bit, but that’s the last thing I created.
I think that right now with this pandemic, I have the time to do that, but I hope it can open up another creative form. I’ll probably turn it into a poetry book or something. Writing is very challenging for me. I don’t know about you, but my Polish and English get mixed up and it takes me forever to write.
At first it was very, very hard. I thought I had a very good routine, I had two jobs, I was going to school, I was creating while I was in school, I went to Colorado all alone, and when I came back, it was lock-down. It took me a very long time to get out of bed at a normal hour. I was so unmotivated, but then I was like ‘okay, this is going to be the life right now, I just have to deal with it, but this is time to work on myself and get as much creation happening to make myself feel good, and make the world feel good.’ Then I started to draw more, I was able to relax and get everything done.”
I asked Sylvia if she thrives in a routine, another aspect of life that has been entirely shattered by the pandemic.
Sylvia’s print “Sensational Delusion,” which you can buy here.
“I think so. I discovered that about myself. This quarantine has showed me that you need a routine and be somewhat organized to be successful. You don’t have to have it all planned out, do that morning routine and nourish yourself, and take it step by step. That’s what I found to be easiest. It’s okay to wake up at 1 pm. Like, ‘ugh, I woke up at 1 o’clock but I’m glad I woke up and I have the rest of the day to do what I want to do. I found that not only pestering yourself for doing these kinds of things you’re not fully in control of is not healthy for you, so just see yourself with positivity, keep your window up, nourish yourself with food and water, and take it step by step.
I don’t know what it is, but I think it is at nighttime that I get most creative.
This whole quarantine has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for me, like trying to be zero waste and be healthy for my body and for the ecosystem. It’s kind of hard to get around it because I’m so used to this one lifestyle.
I have been doing some research. I want to reduce my plastic usage, so I have a reusable water bottle that I use every day. I’m trying to lay off on deodorant, and looking for creams and bars of soap and conditioners that I can use. I changed my diet, and I’m trying the pescatarian diet. Also, today while I was gardening, I created a compost pile to use for my garden and for different plants.
You really have to do your research to find the healthiest products, to make sure you’re investing in the right things. Some companies are like ‘well, we’ll give a portion of your money to plants trees’ and only 1% of your money actually goes towards that. The packaging is also important.”
Don’t even get me started on packaging.
“I have a friend who lives in Illinois, so I had to ship out my artwork to him. So I thought, what do I do to be earth-friendly while making sure my piece doesn’t break? I ended up scrapping recycled materials together, it looked ugly, but I didn’t care.
A professor told me ‘art is just a tool for you to begin somewhere’, and it was crazy that she said that and suddenly we were in this quarantine having 3D sculpture classes over Zoom. I didn’t think I would be able to make anything in 3D in quarantine, and she proved me wrong. I was able to use materials that I didn’t think I would ever use in my art, and come up with pretty awesome things. I think that being sustainable does show your creativeness and how you can create a better home for yourself.”
I personally love the challenge of making art with the resources you have around you.
“People are very judgmental because we have this one ideology that everything has to look the way it does. We are raised with this one mindset which is hard to change and maneuver, but doing so, changing, moves your brain a bit and keeps you going forward.”