Wren Schulz
they/he
Edinboro, PA, USA
Wren Schulz is a mixed media metals artist currently pursuing an MFA in jewelry and metals at Edinboro University. They received their undergraduate degree in Journalism in 2023 from the University of Georgia as well as completing a post baccalaureate in jewelry and metals there in 2024. Their work plays with combining plastics and fibers with traditional metals techniques to create layers of texture as part of a larger discussion on identity, queerness, and invisible disability.
“‘He/His Risen’ is a response to being raised Christian and being transgender. To being a child listening to the hatred people claim as God’s love, reading and rereading and rereading the bible in an attempt to understand the basis of my own condemnation. It’s a response to the political concept of a binary God – that creation holds only either or when we all know the beauty of a sunset and people travel miles just to stand on a beach.”
How does your work relate to the theme connection?
“In preparation for going to graduate school, I spent a lot of time in the past year researching states and their laws regarding transgender individuals – talking to people in other states, reading articles and discussion forums, diving into laws being proposed and ones actively being voted on. That research really drove home for me what I had already been experiencing on a more personal level as a transgender person both from a religious family and living in the south. It brought back a lot of memories that I have from when I was a kid – not having words for what I was feeling but knowing that I was innately wrong for it, spending hours reading the bible in an attempt to gain a solution, praying to access whatever it was that made everyone else normal. As an adult now, I’m grateful for the time I spent doing that reading as a child because it’s what truly allowed me to accept myself – to realize that the beliefs being shared under the title of Christianity regarding queer and trans people stem much more deeply from indoctrination and personal bias than any true biblical basis. It’s that connection that allows me to have this conversation in He/His Risen. It's what allows me to challenge those around me on their own ground.“
What role does connection play in your creative process?
“Connection plays a massive role in my creative process. From a literal standpoint, I think a lot about the connections between the old and the new, how metal interacts with plastics and found objects, how layers and textures can connect together to form a new whole. On a broader perspective, the majority of my work centers around identity and its masking and unmasking – how we shift in and out of ourselves to conform or reform to our surroundings. In whole, I think about my process as a broad collage, piecing aspects together in whatever way they want to connect.“
What connection(s) does your queerness make to the world around you?
“Since coming out, I see a lot of queer connections in nature – in the way seasons change, in the way water becomes clouds and rain, in the way night shifts into day and back again. In people, I’ve found that queerness eliminates a lot of the binaries that our society has come to rely on which in turn leads to deeper interpersonal connections. There’s something truly so beautiful about the peace found in queer connection and community – to know that a space is safe and free because queerness exists outside of the binary that restricts so much of our society.“
"He/His Risen", brass, powder coat, flocking, acrylic, gel pen, paint, 7" x 5.5" x 1.25", 2024Anything else you would like to share about this work? This can be an important part of the process, sourcing materials, or research.
“The needles inside He/His Risen have been saved from nearly every hormone therapy injection I’ve done since my first injection in June 2023 and were sterilized before being placed in the work. The poem on the inside cover was written by me as part of this work:
You see God in the daylight
When stars blink in the night
You’ll see me and you’ll wonder
How my soul could leave that life
But I know God in the sunset
They move in waves upon the shore
With leaves falling each season
When I watch nature turn once more
And when I stand here Holy
In the sand where land turns to sea
You’ll morn me in the morning
I’ll watch the sunrise on the beach“