My mother had an all-consuming passion that drove her to amass a vast collection of antiques and decorative objects. Her massive inventory literally filled the home in which we lived. The walls were lined with glass and mirror cabinets filled with examples of early American cut glass, European porcelains, and other Worldly goods. These cabinets housed, protected, and categorically displayed the examples of her obsession and desire. My exposure every day for 17 years to the cabinets provided me with a heightened visual vocabulary for understanding pattern, style, and design, as well as arrangements of form and surface.

This urge to collect and to decorate the domestic environment with those collections is the driving force behind the work that I make and represents my personal interest in the decorative arts, ornamentation, the history of design, and finally, organization of interior space. I have become aware of, not only the subtle relationships among the decorative, design, and the fine arts, but also the potential for combining these genres.

Biography

Born in Cleveland, OH, Candy Depew earned her B.F.A. from Kent State University with major studies in ceramics, jewelry/metals, drawing, and cultural anthropology. After studying ceramics and printmaking at Tulane University, New Orleans, she finished her M.F.A. at Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA, in 1997 and has completed additional studies with The London Consortium at the Tate Modern, London, England.

Currently, Depew, a master printer and sculptor/installation artist, lives in Philadelphia and travels around the United States and Europe researching ornamental prints, the decorative arts, and museum collections. She is also working on a four-year project that will result in a seasonal publication titled, Candy Coated: A Contemporary View of Decorative Art (www.candycoated.org). The project aims to further promote and shape the contemporary understanding of decorative arts and culture.

Depew has lectured on the decorative arts and exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Her first museum exhibition took place in Philadelphia at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in 2001. In addition, Depew received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts for sculpture/installation, completed a five-year artist residency at The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, and built a silk-screen printing studio.