“I knew the show was coming for about two years but I couldn’t start on any of the work for it until four or five months before,” she says. “It’s not that I wasn’t doing anything; I did other projects, but nothing that would work for a solo show. So when I finally locked onto an idea, I spent those few months working twenty hours a day, which made the experience scary and crazy instead of fun. Actually, it was still fun but in a weird totally insane way.”
     Out of that deadline-induced insanity, Schmidt produced some truly amazing works for her Maneater show, a fact Deitch begrudgingly admitted when the show sold out. “They were really not happy with me for awhile, which didn’t help the crazy stress situation,” Schmidt says. “But being out of my mind helped me make this work. If I had thought about it more, it may have become something completely different.”
     With the show past her, Schmidt is finding herself more inspired by her own life and her surroundings than the work of other artists. And in fact, her new inspirations may not find their way into her trademark drawings, but rather sculptures, videos, photographs, really anything. “Right now is a really exciting time for me,” she says. “I have some money from the show and I also have some more opportunities so I can start saying no to things and take some time to make work for me again.”
     In addition to the show, she recently released a book of her work, another catalyst for the shift in her thinking. “The book was exciting, but it’s a really strange experience to look at everything you’ve done in the last three years, compiled together in one place,” Schmidt says. “It makes me take a step back and think — do I want to continue with that? What should I do now? What do I want the next book to look like?”
     The next book could be filled with new mediums, but it will also likely have a different feel than Schmidt’s previous work, a difference that extends beyond the difference between paint and pencil, drawing and sculpture. “So many artists have taken this cynical ‘fuck this, fuck life’ approach, and that’s something I struggle with daily, too, but I want to try to come at that from a different angle,” she says. “I want to capture that feeling in an emotional way that’s still bleak, but maybe more sentimental than cynical.”
     It also hasn’t escaped Schmidt’s attention that it’s an important time of change for the country and for artists in general. “There’s the recession, a new president, all these new things happening — it’s a really important time to make art,” she notes. “There will be change, but what will it be? What would look interesting now that would be different from the last ten years? There’s nothing worse than just doing the same thing everyone else thinks is cool forever.”