While sitting on the front porch of her Aiken home, Staci Swider takes in the natural beauty around her. Within her gaze are the bees as they float from flower to flower and the butterflies as they flitter by. A morning stroll to the banks of the nearby lake reveal a heron fishing for breakfast.
“That’s how I spend my free time now. It’s much more Zen than living in an urban environment,” said Swider, who moved to Aiken from Olde Town in Augusta about 12 years ago.
The Aiken County wildlife and the landscape provide the artist with infinite inspiration for her works, which have been shown in several galleries around the Southeast during the past year. Her work has been displayed at Burroughs-Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach, the Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens in Ormond Beach, Florida, the McColl Center in Charlotte, North Carolina and Augusta’s own CANDL Gallery.
Her piece “The Seedkeepers” won Best in Show at the South Carolina Chapter of the National Association of Women Artists’ annual exhibit at Brookgreen Garden’s Rosen Gallery in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, in May.
She’s part of a current exhibit at the University of South Carolina’s Koger Center until Aug. 1.
Swider’s career started in textile design. She also spent 11 years teaching art in public schools. When she decided to pursue her art full time, she continued to teach but not in a school setting and saw adult students.
That shifted during COVID.
“I really pulled back from teaching significantly after 2020. It allowed me to focus on my art making,” she said. “Through my art making and really honing in on that process, I defined a lot of techniques that really helped me to work in a very intuitive, specific way that was true to me.”
She feels the work she’s doing now shows that maturation and evolution of her artistry.
Her works reflect the love of texture and design as well as the influence of her natural surroundings. Her multimedia works incorporate textiles and reclaimed surfaces as well as painted surfaces.
“As I get older, I’m learning more about myself and becoming the best version of myself and it comes out in my work in the way I relate to different aspects of life,” she said. “Aging and how I see myself in an aging world in the 21st century is very important now to the work I’m doing. It seems embracing that accumulated wisdom we acquire as we age – embracing that and celebrating it.”
After a busy 12 months, Swider will have a bit of a break in the fall. She is planning a show with several other women artists, and she’s also hoping to return to a teaching role. She is considering three-day retreats for seasoned artists to help them find their intuitive voice.
Learn more at her website.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s a Georgia Press Association winner and the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
