Wren Schulz
they/he
Athens, GA, USA
Wren Schulz is a disabled trans nonbinary interdisciplinary artist and metalsmith based out of Athens, Georgia where they received a BA in journalism from the University of Georgia and are currently doing a post-baccalaureate year in the UGA jewelry and metals department. They work with layering mediums, textures, and colours to explore the queerness of objects and how they can serve as a conduit for identification and expression at the intersection of disability and queerness.
“I’m inspired by nature, how life grows and flourishes in each season, how one death leads to new life in an endless cycle – how that cycle of transformation is displayed through my identity as it too unfolds. This work leans on moss gardens, on the growth lines of trees, on the changing of colors that have marked my journey with gender. I combine the old and the new, metal and plastic and thread existing in constrained chaos, building upon each other to form a new entity, a new me.”
How does your work relate to the theme transformation— How does the work translate joy into strength?
“Documentation is a constant part of my life and artistic practice. As someone with bipolar disorder, I often feel like I live at odds with personal transformation because of this documentation. Any change can mean potential danger to myself or others, each moment of euphoria becoming something of paranoia, filed away and cataloged until enough exists to form a broader picture. Hand in hand with my documentation of disability runs my journey with gender, my transformation marked by moments of chaos breaking through and being reigned back in — a constant push and pull that builds its own unique narrative. Regrowth is that transformation in physical form, calling back to my childhood roots in textiles and stepping forward with my current fixation on plastics and metal. It melds the domesticity of a feminine upbringing with the chaos that I associate with queerness.
Hair has always been an important part of my queer journey and ongoing transition — a safe space for me to experiment and express without needing to enforce restraint. I started dyeing it in 2019 as I began exploring my queerness and buzzed it in 2021 when I initially came out as nonbinary. I track these changes through photos, digital reminders of continued persistence and ongoing joy within the constraints I live by. The colors that appear in Regrowth all make regular reappearances in my collection, serving a steady rotation in the regrowth of my 2021 buzz cut, tracking the physical and emotional journey that I have undertaken since in coming out as transgender. Cradled between the backplate and the embroidered enamel center is my hair, grown from the first time I buzzed my head. I started HRT in June 2023 and buzzed my head again in January that year. When making this piece, it was important to me that it not just be inspired by my transformation through hair, but also that it physically house that transformation, keeping it safe and protected and close while also elevating it to something all the more precious."
"Regrowth", Brass, copper, powder coat, acrylic, enamel, embroidery thread, human hair, gel pen, paint, 10.4" x 7", 2024
Anything else you would like to share about this work? This can be an important part of the process, sourcing materials, or research.
“I feel like we as a society don’t talk enough about the instant bonding that happens when one hair dye queer meets another. It’s such a moment of intimate connection and that’s something that I’m very interested in trying to translate to my work. As I’m writing this, my hair is weirdly enough undyed. It’s the first time in five years that it hasn’t been some kind of unnatural color and I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it, but I guess that’s the thing about transformation. It’s ongoing. I think that’s part of the joy of queer existence, constantly shifting and changing and having the freedom to do so without the pressure of fitting into cis-straight society. We are all our own experiments and I live for that.”