Judith Schaechter has lived and worked in Philadelphia since graduating in 1983 from the Rhode Island School of Design Glass Program. Excerpts from the artist's statement:

My parents, not artists themselves, accidentally made me an artist by ascribing genius to every scribble I made. My mother kept and labeled everything. Looking through this stuff in college, I was surprised to find out what a case of arrested development I was. I drew dead lions, crying kitties, and Winston Churchill in his coffin.

I never thought of myself as an artist. The real reason I went to art school was to eliminate phys ed and math from my life.

I guess the most appealing thing for me is the tedium factor. I don't have too many worthy and profound ideas, so each piece needs to take a certain amount of time. This keeps my hands busy and in sync with my head.

Ironically, I find my "artistic voice" is liberated only by the severest of technical restrictions. The more monotonous and difficult a process, the more exciting I find it.

No matter how much I love an idea, I'll sacrifice it for the look of the piece. I believe that in visual art the bottom line "conceptually" is always the aesthetic.

So what is the work about? I really have no point of view on life that I can't be argued out of in, say, five minutes. I certainly have never heard a philosophy or intellectual concept so compelling that it merited illustration.

I guess I have no intentions when approaching a project—meaning is assigned to the work way after it's completed. Meaning is what happens when it is looked at. My interpretations have no more importance than yours.

     —Judith Schaechter