Self-Portrait with Olive and Mae

Katy Schneider "Self-Portrait with Olive and Mae"  1997

Author Virginia Woolf famously discussed the necessity for a woman writer to have "a room of one's own," essentially, having the means and time to carve out a space in one's life for creative work. This is important for visual artists as well as writers. Contemporary New England painter Katy Schneider's studio space is in the basement of the home she shares with her painter husband and their three young children. While some might chafe at the restrictions imposed by such a space, Schneider has turned these limitations to her advantage, visually at least, creating small tableaux of modern family life, dramatically lit and chock-full of detail.