Mieke Zuiderweg
Artist Mieke Zuiderweg (born 1977, The Netherlands), had an early fascination with tightly-knit neighborhoods and conjoined structures. She spent a good part of her childhood in Europe, weaving her way through shallow cobble stone streets and observing how centuries-old towns were packed together like sardines. Sky blue wooden houses nestled on the water in Marken, The Netherlands as well as the pastel homes stacked up hillsides on the Amalfi Coast in Italy made a deep impression on her. Zuiderweg felt a kind of coziness and comfort in these smaller hamlets.
Zuiderweg and her family moved to the United States when she was seven years old. Their first home was in a small town north of Chicago, Illinois, surrounded by corn fields and big skies. The family’s first home in the U.S. stood on top of a sloped hill with a large yard. The amount of space to explore and play in was unlike anything available in Europe. There, thousands of years of civilizations became stacked on top of and next to each other to accommodate the ever growing population. An expansive yard, much less a free-standing house was not something to come by easily. The vastness of space between houses, blocks and towns in the U.S. was stunning.
Zuiderweg’s family spent each summer exploring their new country, ultimately camping and hiking through national parks and the wilderness in 38 states. The landscapes and natural formations were eye opening. These unique vistas didn’t occur anywhere else in the world, and neither did the multiple cultures. Zuiderweg enjoyed the travels she took with her family, but was often overwhelmed by the newness and unpredictability of both nature and man. While the vast landscapes inspired her to paint and write, they were always depicted in cautious observation. This is around the time she started creating stacked apartment blocks with Legos, and watercolors of small close-knit villages. Each new creative expression explored the same feeling; security.
Zuiderweg rolled her love of artwork into a B.F.A. with a minor in photography at Michigan State University (graduated 2000). Her work as a photographer at the school-run newspaper (The State News) gave her the chops to apply to internships in Ohio and Massachusetts. She secured a job as a full-time photojournalist on the East Coast at the Union News/Sunday Republican for the better part of a decade. The artist spent years zig-zagging New England, photographing hard news stories, features, portraits, sports as well as producing news videos for online content. She co-hosted an entertainment short each week that was run on the local news station. The time working for newspapers gave her great insight into humanity under every living condition. After brutal shootings, protests, church services as well as witnessing crimes and riots, the artist still kept her faith in humanity. Unfortunately, with the newspaper industry shrinking and a recession knocking, she decided to pick up and move to Chicago for more opportunities. Chicagoland’s artist culture, music and diversity pulled her to live in Uptown, a lively and unique neighborhood by Lake Michigan. There she re-evaluated her life and found what had been missing the past decade; the time and discipline to dedicate to the arts. Zuiderweg worked in several galleries, meeting artists, curating exhibitions, creating artist videos and overall submerging herself in the scene. She was exposed to countless pieces of fascinating artwork, as well as being able to pick the brains of artists and what inspired them.
In 2011, a childhood friend invited her to visit Lincoln Square Pottery Studio - Learning Center. She was a guest for the afternoon, and managed to get thoroughly entranced by the medium. She started to remember the hand building and wheel throwing classes she took in college, and how much she enjoyed them. The clay was so much more malleable than anything she could manage with a pen or brush. Whatever she could imagine in her mind (well almost everything) could be coaxed from the slippery substance. She officially joined the studio, and spent the first year excising some pent-up clay demons. A series of architectural forms (hand built) came pouring out of her imagination. The shapes stacked into each other much in the same way the small villages do in Europe. A Brutalist bend started to creep in, which made sense to her since she admired Soviet Union and old Eastern Block buildings from the 1950’s. If she approached a piece with a feeling and impression of a building she admired, the work would in a way build itself. She played with the context of these architectural forms- some turning into planters, others into vases. Most remained totally useless in the sense that they were strictly created to hold a visual space, but no real function. Zuiderweg didn’t have much experience with glazing, and has mainly avoided it for the past decade. Luckily, the surfaces of the forms she creates tend to look better with a stark and stripped-down hue, or a distressed look created through stains or raku firings.
After trying to sell her work at art festivals in the Chicago area, as well as through gallery shows, Zuiderweg wanted to change direction. To be successful in sales, an artist often has to capitalize on designs that the public gravitates towards. For Zuiderweg, that tended to be planters and little figures that became repetitive to make. Gallery showings were exciting and fun, but after giving up 50% of the value of the piece to the gallery, as well as sometimes not selling at all, the artist changed course. She decided to re-calibrate and focus on things important to her. Exploring themes and unusual stories snapped her back into her creativity. A series of unusual animal stories, depicting ways humans used them over time, really had her feeling inspired. Her animal series was shown at a two-person show, along with her mother’s work, at the Clay Studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her father was also part of the event, playing classical violin for the onlookers.
The animal series got her thinking about delving into more history-based work, specifically that of her country or origin (The Netherlands) and their rampant colonialism over the centuries. Before she was able to delve into the difficult task, she and her husband (not an artist, but a big appreciator) had a baby girl, and drifted their way into the COVID19 pandemic with a lack of sleep. After a year-and-a-half, Zuiderweg was able to consistently get back into the studio (as well as sleep through the night again!). She’s been working on her new series, “Whitewashed”, which delves directly into the dirty underbelly of colonialism, slavery and the pillaging of resources. So much of The Netherlands’ esteemed and progressive culture is contingent on a base of wealth. Exemplary artwork, architecture, education and trade all exist due to the riches attained (and stolen, or forced slavery for labor) from Indonesia, South Africa, and several Caribbean islands. Zuiderweg’s series dredges into past and current atrocities, and will be shown as part of a conference addressing racism and colonial Dutch history in Ann Arbor this coming Fall.
Mieke Zuiderweg is an independent studies student at LSPS-LC, as well as being its media director.