“This is where the sausage gets made,” she said, picking up a coiled ceramic snake.
Biddle’s art is getting attention. Twenty of her pieces are included in a group show titled “Craft Front & Center: Conversation Pieces” at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York City, curated by Alexandra Schwartz and on view through April 20, 2025. And a solo show of her work, “I have time for death and rebirth,” will open at Geary Contemporary in Millerton on Oct. 19 and run through Dec. 15.
Also included in the MAD show is work by sculptor Mary Ann Unger, Biddle’s late mother. “Alix is the first person to curate my work and my mom’s work together,” Biddle said. “It’s very moving for me.”
Schwartz, MAD’s curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Design & Craft, met Biddle about 10 years ago while exploring Unger’s estate.
“I’m especially intrigued by how artists influence each other, and how Eve’s work responded to her mother’s work,” Schwartz said. “Part of what I like about both their work is how it’s abstract but definitely has references to the body and nature. It can be uncanny.”
Dolly Bross Geary, who owns Geary Contemporary with her husband Jack Geary, also met Biddle about 10 years ago after winning lunch and a tour of the Wassaic Project at a benefit auction.
“Eve’s a great artist,” Geary said. “She has an incredible energy that attracts people to her and her work. She’s also a great connector and supporter.”
Both Schwartz and Geary said they admire Biddle’s use of different media, which includes painting, ceramics, drawing, photography, glass and metalwork. “She does it all,” Geary said.
Biddle grew up in a loft on East 3rd Street in Manhattan, the only child of photographer Geoffrey Biddle and Unger, who died in 1998 at age 53.
“I grew up with a sculpture studio and a darkroom,” she said. “Our house was full of artists, real New York City weirdos in the best possible way — those of different genders, racial backgrounds, straight, gay. My parents were very accepting, and I was raised with this amazing mix of people.”
Biddle said she has been working with serpentine forms for more than 20 years. “Snakes in mythological lore are regenerative,” she said. “They contain a duality, being both feared and revered symbols of fertility. A bite could kill you, but they also represent rebirth, so they can hold both.”
Of the non-serpentine work, she said, “I’m not trying to replicate the human body. These are either ancient or future but not quite real. They could be trilobites, pelvic bones, coccyx, the inside of your mouth, from 1,000 years ago or from the fairy world.”
Biddle, who attended Williams College, co-founded the Wassaic Project with artists Bowie Zunino, Elan Bogarin and Jeff Barnett-Winsby. It began as an arts festival in 2008 and added an artist residency program two years later. She moved to Wassaic full-time from Brooklyn at the beginning of the pandemic with her husband Josh Frankel, an artist whose work is influenced by digital tools, and their two young children.
These years upstate have been a “very productive time,” she said. “The work at MAD and Geary was all made in the past four years.”
Wassaic Project operates out of six buildings: Maxon Mills, a former animal feed processing plant (the grain belts and funnels are still in place) where seven stories of wooden floors have been installed; the Luther Barn, now home to artist studios; Gridley Chapel, a performance space; and three houses used for the residencies.
“We’re not interested in historic erasure,” Biddle said. “We’re invested in a historic continuum.”
Artists can apply for residencies that last anywhere from a couple of days to a month. The site hosts between 80 and 100 artists a year, Biddle said. “Our program is additive to a community that was already supportive of artists.”
For the junior artists in the area, there’s also a drop-in artmaking space and classroom called The Art Nest that runs every Saturday from 12-5 p.m. At a recent event, several children sat at long tables and took instruction from Wassaic Project lead educator Emi Night.
Wassaic Project alumni receive a monthly news gazette with updates on past participants.
“Once you are a resident here, you are connected to the whole family,” Biddle said. “We’re more interested in building bridges than any kind of competition.”