Fern Shaffer was born on 1944 and is an American painter, performance artist, lecturer and environmental advocate.
12 Facts About Fern Shaffer
1.
2.
Fern Shaffer's work arose in conjunction with an emerging Ecofeminism movement that brought together environmentalism, feminist values and spirituality to address shared concern for the Earth and all forms of life.
3.
Fern Shaffer first gained widespread recognition for a four-part, shamanistic performance cycle, created in collaboration with photographer Othello Anderson in 1985.
4.
Fern Shaffer is known for feminist and ecology-themed paintings that critics have described as romantic, dizzying and panoramic, spiritual, and capable of combining the scientific, personal and universal.
5.
Fern Shaffer has been a long-time activist for women in art through her involvement and leadership at the Chicago alternative art space Artemisia Gallery and work with the national Women's Caucus for Art.
6.
Fern Shaffer followed with postgraduate work there and at Art Institute of Chicago, before earning an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College Chicago in 1991.
7.
Fern Shaffer's work has been featured at institutions including Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Portland Art Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and in solo shows at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Bogota Museum of Modern Art, and Medellin Museum of Modern Art.
8.
Fern Shaffer has worked in a wide range of media, including painting and drawing, sculpture, installation and performance, most frequently addressing themes of the body, gender, nature and ecology, and the intersections between them.
9.
In 1980, inspired by her interest in Edgar Cayce, Mircea Eliade and Michael Harner, and prompted by ecological concerns shared with her collaborator Othello Anderson, Fern Shaffer began enacting self-designed shamanistic rituals as a form of spiritual intervention.
10.
For those three rituals, designed to initiate environmental healing by evoking archaic mystery and connection, Fern Shaffer donned a garment pointedly fabricated from bubble wrap and other refuse.
11.
Fern Shaffer worked on issues involving women and art for many years.
12.
Fern Shaffer was a member and president of the alternative art space Artemisia Gallery, one of the first women artist collaboratives in the US, which was founded in Chicago in 1973 by a group that included Phyllis Bramson, Vera Klement, Susan Michod and Margaret Wharton.