Friday, January 23, 2009

Breaking Into the News

Just imagine - Physical Geography: Explorations in Rich Surface, the upcoming show that friend and fellow encaustic painter Lynette Haggard and I are opening next week, received a wonderful write-up in the Boston Globe Metro West edition! Arts writer Denise Taylor contacted us after receiving our card and press release from ArtSpace Maynard's director. It seems that Denise was familiar with Lynette's work and remembered my name from about 15 years ago when I was very involved with Somerville Community Access Television (I was producer of the year for 1994). Wow!

Denise wrote a wonderful article with a description of the encaustic painting process and she also described Lynette's work and my work. Here's what she said about mine:

"Natale's quilt-like abstracts piece together patterned rectangles of varying sizes outlined by thick, licorice-black whips of wax. Bright, cheerful, and chewy-looking, the more vibrant among them look like a Willy Wonka take on Mondrian. Others, using subdued mossy greens and murky blues, are quieter meditations. With curving strings, buttons, and plants encased in the wax, they seem to strive to order nature's unpredictable forms into neat sectioned panels that can't quite manage to hold them."

I like that "Willy Wonka take on Mondrian." I think that she's talking particularly about this piece, Happy Family, since that's the image I sent her.
Denise is very perceptive to note that I do think of my work as a garden, where the geometric borders struggle to keep the wild, organic components in line. And isn't that a metaphor for all of life? - that continual struggle for control that we are bound to lose just by the nature of things.

2 comments:

M said...

Three words made me interested in your post, surfaces, encaustic and gardens - all interests of mine. In addition I'm also a newbie at blogging. That makes four points of interest. I like the geometric organization of your work that seems to be fighting with the organic patterning contained within.

Nancy Natale said...

Thanks for your comment, Margaret. Art and gardens seem made for each other and many artists have been famous gardeners. For myself, I find that theoretical gardening is a lot more intriguing than the actual. My intentions in early spring are always greater than my resolve in July to deal with the difference between theory and actuality. Those damned plants will keep growing where I don't want them or sprawling all over each other until the garden is one big moshpit. I like to spend spring in the garden and summer in the studio ignoring what's going on outside.