The once-solitary world of printmaker Amy Caldwell begins to open up

Amy Caldwell has long viewed creation as a solitary pursuit, first turning to art late in high school as a means to reestablish a sense of footing as she emerged from a controversial and since shuttered teenage drug treatment program, Kids Helping Kids, in Milford, Ohio.

“It was really, really trying, because to go in when you’re at such a pivotal point in your life – I was 16 and I finished the program when I was 18 – it really shifts the way you look at the world and what you are allowed to do and be,” said Caldwell, who added that moderators controlled every aspect of what participants were exposed to during their time in the program, limiting access to books and music, movies. “Even after I got out of the program, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where my place was in the world, because I had been told what to do for so long that I wasn’t sure who I was anymore. So, as I got into that first [high school] art class and went immediately on to CCAD, a lot of that introduction to art was very healing, and it helped me figure out what I was feeling and what I was allowed to feel. And that expansion of myself was very much tied to it.”

For this reason, Caldwell has largely kept her creative side tightly guarded, for years shying from public displays of her work. Even in the artist’s time at CCAD, which required them to exhibit their work for classmates, she would generally hold back parts of herself in those pieces, so as to not reveal too much of her story. But working at the South Side coffee shop and gathering space Community Grounds, Caldwell began to soften in this stance, hanging a handful of pieces in the store, and then adding a few more.

“And then the owners were like, ‘You should write an artist’s bio, because people have been asking about your work,’” said Caldwell, who will take part in the group show “Smiles Made Here” at Home Sweet Gallery (1098 Parsons Ave.) from 6-11 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26 – an exhibition that doubles as the one-year anniversary for the DIY gallery space founded by artist Davey Highben. “And at first it was like, ‘Uh-oh, I’m going to have to attach myself to this now.’ But I slowly got it out there, because Community Grounds is a safe space for me, and I’m familiar with the people and the regulars that come in. So, it felt like a nice first step to be like, ‘Here’s some art.’”

It helped, of course, that most of the pieces Caldwell initially displayed were culled from their earliest works, with time having allowed sufficient scar tissue to accrue. In comparison, the pieces the artist will display at Home Sweet Gallery live closer to the surface, confronting everything from relationship struggles and their evolving views on gender (one print reflects the nebulous nature of these explorations even in its design, with Caldwell sharing that she’s unsure at the moment which way the screenprint should even be oriented when hung on the wall) to the sense of self-rediscovery that has occurred as her children have gotten older and she has been able to reemerge independent of parenthood. 

“For a good stretch of time, that was it, right? And all of your time and energy is invested into small children,” they said. “And as they’re getting older, I’m coming out of that and I’m able to figure out who I am again. And having new experiences and meeting new people has been so exciting and beautiful. And to be able to mark that part of my life and sort of relive those emotions has been lovely.”

When Caldwell started making art, she gravitated toward printmaking for myriad reasons, including the reality that the screen-printing equipment at CCAD was squirreled away on subterranean floors – a space whose immersive, underground character reflected the more insular, hidden nature of the work they were creating at the time. Additionally, screen printing is a process over which the artist is able to exact a modicum of control, which felt vital coming out of a treatment program in which she had almost none. 

“I can tell when I’m going through more stress, because the carvings become more meticulous. It would be like, ‘Everything’s chaotic, but I can do this. I can do this thing,’” Caldwell said. “And then at CCAD, screen printing was in the basement, where there were no windows, and I would have no sense of time when I would go in there. … And I can sort of lose myself in that, where it shuts out the rest of the world. I can mix the ink and get it to exactly what I want, and my brain and my entire focus is all on that, which leaves no space for whatever shit is happening in the world. And I love that for myself.”

Caldwell, who currently works out of the Phoenix Rising Printmaking Cooperative, said the process has become such a source of comfort that even the sounds emitted by the equipment – the tackiness of the brayer rolling through the ink and the soft click of the press when it hits the plate – have nerve-soothing qualities on par with the purr of a kitten or the fragile breaths of a sleeping newborn. Indeed, even the inevitable errors that come with the craft have come to serve as larger life lessons, better enabling the artist to adapt to circumstances that exist beyond their control. 

“You can be so precise in making a plate, and when you print it, it still doesn’t go as planned,” Caldwell said. “So, there’s an aspect of letting go of expectation, because it always turns out slightly differently than I see things in my head. And that is sort of healing for me, because if I can learn how to let go of the expectations of what my art might look like, then on a larger scale I’m able to not be so rigid in my life.”