By Rosemarie Tischer Stith
Honorable Mention, Visual (3D), Create | Encounter 2021
Artist Statement:
As a very young child, Rosemarie Tischer Stith lived through Allied firebombings in what became East Germany. Fleeing west to escape the Russians, Röschen (“Little Rose”) and her family settled as refugees in Schleswig-Holstein, where her parents built a home in the dunes of the North Sea. After meeting her future husband, Richard, in Berlin in 1969, Rosemarie found her way into the art world in New Haven, Connecticut. There she threw innumerable clay vessels on the potter’s wheel. Rosemarie has also done works in cloth, such as this 13-foot-tall, and visibly pregnant, Hispanic-style “gigante,” which strolled down the street in a Valparaiso, Indiana, homecoming parade some years ago. On her back appeared the words “EVERYONE DESERVES A BIRTHDAY”, while a birthday cake was carried in front of her and birthday party goers handed out candy bearing the same slogan to the crowds on each side of the street.