BIOGRAPHY
“Printmaking, an art
that stems from
the most basic need
of humanity to
communicate,
has always been an extremely democratic form.
As an inveterate printmaker,
from footprints in the sand at age three,
I have made my mark in a multitude of print media.
I have always been drawn to the bold graphic qualities of print
and to the communicative power of working in multiples.
I was mentored and inspired by artists and writers
with a political vision
striving to speak to a broad audience
to further equality and justice.
Wendyn Cadden *
WENDYN CADDEN is a printmaker, painter and activist,
a lesbian artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally
including the Pacific States National Print Biennial in Hilo, Hawaii, the Parrish Museum in Southampton, NY, the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, California, Cabo Frio Print Biennial Brazil, Taller Gallery Fort in Barcelona, Spain, Addison Contemporary Arts and the Handsel Gallery of Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Forum Gallery in New York City.
CADDEN has been a visiting artist at the California College of Arts and Crafts, the San Francisco Art Institute and the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has given lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, The College Art Association and the Women’s Caucus for Art, the Out/Write Conference and Capp Street Project in San Francisco and served as Associate Professor of Printmaking at New Mexico Highlands University. Her work is in many public and private collections including The Harvard University Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Oakland Museum, The Albuquerque Museum, The McCune Collection of Rare Books and Prints, Vallejo, California, The American Indian Art Institute and the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She received her BA at Antioch College in Ohio and studied printmaking at the Art Students League of New York, the Chicago Art Institute and Laney College of Oakland. Among her many inspirational teachers and mentors are Ben Shahn, Mauricio Lasansky,
Joyce Cadoo, Robert Gwathmey,
Joe Zirker, Nathan Oliveira, Charles Chavez and Pele de Lappe.
CADDEN made her living for many years as an illustrator for archeologist Cynthia Irwin-Williams, producing drawings for Anasazi and Salmon River Research Projects in New Mexico. Working for several months on a mesa under the stars, she fell in love with the beauty of the
New Mexico landscape and subsequently, the women of New Mexico.
Growing up in New York City, Cadden’s activism spans a lifetime. She participated in the 1953 Youth March on Washington, DC for Integrated Schools, sit-ins in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New York City, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington DC for Jobs and Freedom. While organizing housing and other services for returning Vietnam Veterans, she protested the war in many nonviolent media:
agitprop theatre, posters, teach-ins, as well as scaling the Pentagon walls.
From a family of journalists and political organizers, she learned the importance of printing, publishing. She studied silkscreen with Ben Shahn and assisted artist Joyce Cadoo print in her New York studio. At Antioch College, she discovered a lithography press and learned the basics of the craft, going on to studying printmaking at the University of Iowa, the Chicago Art Institute and later Laney College in Oakland,
solidifying printmaking as her calling.
As a photographer, printer and publisher in Oakland, California throughout the 70’s and 80’s, she was active in the media movements that covered the Occupation of Alcatraz, the Black Power Movement, the trials of Inez Garcia and Los Siete de la Raza, and the Free Speech Movement. She participated in the formation of Gay Women’s Liberation, the Lesbian and Feminist movements in Northern California, and supported many brothers through the AIDS Crisis.
Through the 80’s she wrote reviews for Arts and Entertainment and ARTWEEK, highlighting diversity and multiculturalism in the Arts.
WENDY CADDEN was a founding member of The Women's Press Collective and a Director of Diana Press, publishing the work of many lesbian and feminist poets and writers. She designed the tribute robe for Audre Lorde presented at the conference
I am your Sister: Forging Connections Across Difference.
She was a member of the innovative Vida Gallery at the Women’s Building, San Francisco, and a custom printer for KALA Institute of Berkeley while teaching art programs for youth in Oakland, Vallejo and Richmond, California.
Wendy Cadden
and
Barbara Nylund PhD MD,
Col USA ret
were married in 2014 and have been partners for over 30 years.
An avid tennis player in her youth, and a sailor,
Cadden had a brief stint playing rhythm guitar at The Ash Grove and Great American Music Hall
with the group
Wailing Pat and The Tear Drops.
She was a Tear Drop.
WENDYN CADDEN is currently associated with the
Mare Island Art Studios
and maintains a studio
in the mountains
near the historic railroad town of
Las Vegas, New Mexico.
*Gallerie Magazine, 1990