Carnegie Mellon University

Making Art Through Science

Research-based Artist Geraldine Ondrizek Expresses Life Through Craft

School of Art

written by
Pam Wigley

There was no other path but art for Geraldine “Gerri” Ondrizek. The Allison Park, Pa., native believed from a very early age that she was an artist and would one day teach others to express themselves through art. From the time she earned her BFA from Carnegie Mellon’s School of Art in 1985, Ondrizek has made good on her beliefs.

Choosing CMU was relatively easy, Ondrizek said. She spent the school year and in the summers from 10th–12th grade in the School of Art’s Pre-College Program. Just before entering her senior year of high school, she submitted a portfolio to the school and was accepted into the program with a full scholarship. She embraced the curriculum and the faculty who helped to guide her.

“I had the most amazing professors,” Ondrizek said. “Diane Samuels was my mentor and friend. She taught fiber-paper making, weaving, and installation and was a progressive thinker. As a result, she helped me to more fully understand thinking and making.”

Samuels believed in taking her students out of the classroom to experience art within Pittsburgh. On one field trip, she took her classes to the Mattress Factory on Pittsburgh’s North Side, and Ondrizek was struck by the unconventional art forms she saw there. She absorbed all she could outside and inside the classroom, and she found another positive influence in faculty member Ed Eberle, who taught her “ceramics, sculpture and life.”

Both professors taught Ondrizek a philosophy she learned to live by:

“Art and life are not separate. Don’t be narrow in your thinking.”

Gerri Ondrizek

For Ondrizek, that meant seeing all possibilities in the world as open to her, and she was again influenced by Samules.

“I was influenced by teachers like Diane, who told me that I can do whatever I want to do.”

Laurence Qamar and Gerri Ondrizek.

Ondrizek didn’t give up on her art or building a family. By chance, she met a School of Architecture student one day while sculpting in the basement of Doherty Hall. He knew some of her roommates, who were fellow architecture students, and they struck up a friendship. Several years later, she reconnected with her old friend, Laurence Qamar (B. Arch ’85). They ended up marrying and successfully balancing professional and personal lives.

While at CMU, Ondrizek was an assistant teacher at the CMU Children’s School and, later, was hired as a K-12 teacher at Winchester Thurston School near the CMU campus. In 1994, she earned her MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle. Ondrizek then joined the faculty at Reed College in Portland, Ore., and has served as professor of art there for 30 years.

Continuing to pursue her art, Ondrizek began incorporating scientific research into her works about 25 years ago. She created architectural installations and artist books based on medical and genetic information that explores personal and political issues. To make it all happen, Ondrizek works closely with scientists and medical researchers to create art that incorporates — and comments on — medicine, genetics and ethics.

For example, she has created exhibitions filled with colorful chromosome strands and genetic composition, among other subjects. Her work is featured on the Reed College website.

Ondrizek's work for The First 100.

“I have been making works about in-vitro fertilization, early-stage cell development, and the dynamics of cellular division over the past two years,” Ondrizek said of her 2023 New York exhibition on Germination/Gestation. “I have found that the ability for cells to divide, thrive and make human, animal and plant embryos is nothing short of magic.”

Clearly, she is passionate about creating her own art. She is equally passionate and committed to teaching her Reed students sculpture, architecture, installation and craft. She also instills in them some of the same principles she learned at CMU.

“As a teacher, I teach in the way I was taught,” Ondrizek said. “Be present, teach process not product, and think of this as a life practice rather than a career.”


featuring the following:

artwork by Gerri Ondrizek

read more:

about Laurence Qamar, Ondrizek's husband, in this issue