The Tell-All

Lynette Haggard interviews me on her blog. Have a look.

The Questionnaire: Pam Farrell

The Questionnaire is meant to be a lighter version of a bio, a little more revealing in some respects and personal without all the facts bogging it down. I supply the questions and the respondents supply the answers. Either one or both of us supply the images. (Note: Click on images to enlarge.)

                P a m  F a r r e l l               

What is your favorite color?

Currently, earthy greens/golds/browns/greys that have no name 

Hypnotist Collector (ochre 2), 2009, encaustic on panel, 18"x18"

Monoprint 1, 2010, oil on mulberry paper, 16"x20"

Monoprint 2, 2010, oil on mulberry paper, 16"x20"

Chamber 2, 2010, digital image

What is your favorite word?

Every day a different one... today's favorite word is excellent! 

Pam behind the camera on her Mac

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Creatively: challenging, new information; things I don't know 

What turns you off?

Creatively: over-thinking, self-doubt 

What profession other than artist would you most like to be?

Rock star or neuroscientist 

What is your favorite book or movie?

Changes all the time... currently the book I cherish is The Cloud Atlas; I love dictionaries, reference books, specialty glossaries 

(Not the novel The Cloud Atlas, but the actual cloud atlas)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cloud_Atlas

Who is your favorite musician, musical group or style of music?

Blues, jazz, three-chord rock n roll, early r & b

Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Mingus, Chuck Berry, early Stones...I could go on

Charles Mingus

What do you most value in your friends?

Connection, authenticity 



Name three artists whose work has influenced your own or whose work you most relate to.

Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, Brice Marden

Cy Twombly at the Cy Twombly Gallery in Houston with the gallery's largest painting, Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor

Gerhard Richter, Abstract Painting, 1995, oil on canvas, 41x36cm (about 16"x14")

Brice Marden, Adriatic, 1972-73

Brice Marden, Orange Rocks, Red Ground, 2000-02

Name an artist whose work you admire but which may be unlike yours.

Bruce Nauman, Richard Tuttle, Eva Hesse 

Bruce Nauman, Life/Death, Love/Hate, Pleasure/Pain

Richard Tuttle, For Ron, 2009, acrylic/colored cardboard/mahogany shelf, 14 3/4"x40"x2"

Eva Hesse, Ennead, 1966, acrylic, paper-mache, plastic, plywood, string

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Being in the paint

More Work From  P a m  F a r r e l l

All Things Flow (grey), 2010, oil on copper, 5"x5"

Canal 1121, 2008, digital image

Canal 1122, 2009, digital image

False Walls (lacuna), 2009, encaustic on panel, 36"x36"

Hypnotist Collector (grey), 2009, encaustic on panel, 36"x36"

Monoprint 3, 2010, oil on mulberry paper, 16"x20"

For still more work by Pam, see pamelafarrell.com and pfarrellartblog.blogspot.com

Pam is represented by Morpeth Contemporary in New Jersey

Running Stitch Continues To Sprint

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap,
tap, tap, tap, etc.

That's me making this work. Wouldn't you like to be my studio neighbor? (I did some work with tacks similar to this years back when I lived in an artists' building, and my neighbor was ready to tear her hair out - or maybe it was my hair she was after. Luckily I'm now in a work-only building.)

Note: Click on the images to enlarge them.

Bandeau Green, wax-based assemblage on joined birch panels, 24"H x 42"W x 1.75"D

These works are part of the continuing Running Stitch Series that I showed you earlier this month. They are composed of materials such as book covers cut in strips, pieces of treated metal, dipped book pages, rubber, various textural pieces and painted matboard cut into strips. After I attach these materials to the birch panels with tacks (thus the tap, tap, tap), I paint encaustic between and over the strips. I fuse the encaustic with a heated tool (a shoe) as the final step in the process.

Bandito, 24" x 24" x 1.75", on one birch panel

Closeup of Bandito

And, finally, breaking out of the green mode, I've moved on to red.

Untitled Red, diptych 24"H x 42"W x 1.75"D (a less than perfect photo)

A side view of the piece showing more surface texture

Closeup of completed red piece. Can you identify the rounded rectangle shapes?

As I said above, the final step in making this work is to add the encaustic paint on top after all the construction is done. In the image below, I show you the difference between a panel with and a panel without the final coat.

The narrower panel on the left has the final coat of dark red encaustic added, the right panel does not. This shows how the final coat unifies the elements of the construction. (This is much more visible when you click to enlarge.)

And finally, here is an image of some of the painted matboard I used. I first painted this (archival) matboard with Evans Encaustic burnt sienna Holy Grail and then painted on a coat of red and/or orange encaustic. I fused it with a heat gun and let it cool before cutting it into strips. The pinkish-brownish strips in this photo were made from matboard painted with a grainy ink, let dry and then overpainted with very thin pink encaustic. (I am going to write a rave review a little later about Evans Encaustic holy grail encaustic gesso now available in colors. It is fabulous!)

Painted matboard pieces

The Questionnaire - Lisa Pressman

The Questionnaire is meant to be a lighter version of a bio, a little more revealing in some respects and personal without all the facts bogging it down. I supply the questions and the respondents supply the answers. Either one or both of us supply the images.

             L i s a  P r e s s m a n             

What is your favorite color?

Depends but usually a lime green 

"Underneath," encaustic, 14"x11"

What is your favorite word?

Yes 

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Art, laughter and kindness

Lisa after her talk at the 2010 encaustic conference

What turns you off?

Meanness

What profession other than artist would you most like to be?

An actor 

What is your favorite book or movie?

Godfather 1 and 2, High Fidelity 

Who is your favorite musician, musical group or style of music?

Folk music (old and new) 

What do you most value in your friends?

Acceptance, honesty and humor



Name three artists whose work has influenced your own or whose work you most relate to.

Eva Hesse, Matisse, Jackson Pollock 

Eva Hesse, Rope Piece

Henri Matisse, "Interieur Rouge," 1947

Jackson Pollock

Name an artist whose work you admire but which may be unlike yours. 

Michal Rovner, Agnes Martin, Jasper Johns 

Michael Rovner, see Pace Gallery link

Agnes Martin work  (video interview with Agnes Martin)

Jasper Johns, "Target", 1958

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Great wine, great friends, great food and love (not necessarily in that order) 

Note: Lisa posted alternate answers to these questions on her own blog. So take a look.


Work by Lisa Pressman

"The Rooms of Anais Nin," encaustic, 38" x 24"

"Following," encaustic and oil, 24" x 24", 2010

"Whirlwind," encaustic and oil, 24" x 24", 2009

"Red Rectangle 15," 12" x 12", ink and wax on paper, 2010

"Red Rectangle 16." 12" x 12", ink and wax on paper, 2010

Untitled, oil on canvas on board, 34" x 34", 2010

Untitled, oil on board, 36" x 40", 2010

Dark Visions of Nature's Transcendent Power

I was thinking the other day that I had neglected to recommend the great show at the Whitney Museum of paintings by Charles Burchfield. It is up until October 17th and is really worthwhile seeing. The exhibition was curated by Robert Gober and named "Heat Waves in a Swamp," from the title of a Burchfield work.  (Deborah Barlow at Slow Muse wrote a very insightful review of the show that you may want to compare with this more biographically-oriented take on it.)

Charles Burchfield, "An April Mood," 1946-55, Watercolor and charcoal on joined paper, 40 x 54 inches.

"I like to think of myself--as an artist--as being in a nondescript swamp, up to my knees in mire, painting the vital beauty I see there, in my own way, not caring a damn about tradition, or anyone's opinion."

                                 Charles Burchfield, February 8, 1938

If you are familiar with the work of Robert Gober, you might wonder how and why he would invest himself in the endless time that curating a show takes when his work is so totally unlike Burchfield's. This assumes that artists only admire work that is like their own, and that is a false assumption. Still, while Burchfield totally immersed himself in Nature to the point of finding a Transcendental presence in it, there is a dark and brooding sensibility to his work. I find it slightly scary - there are so many marks and so much going on and the relative sizes of things are not always those observed in reality. You are always aware in his work of the unknown stuff underneath it all--the muck of decay and the leeches in the murky water--in the midst of all the burgeoning growth and life in the swamp. Perhaps this darkness and fear are what attracts Gober.

Whatever it is, Gober suggested the show to Ann Philbin, Director of the Hammer Museum (evidentally a personal friend of Gober's even before this show), and did a fabulous job with "Heat Waves in a Swamp" in conjunction with Cynthia Burlingham, Deputy Director of Collections at the Hammer. The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles opened the exhibition, and it then traveled to the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, and ultimately to the Whitney. The show fills the entire fourth floor of the Whitney and the galleries are arranged chronologically "with each room representing a distinct phase of Burchfield's life and work," as Gober notes in the catalogue

(Slight tangent)

By the way, I liked the show so much that I bought the catalogue (about $50) after looking over a fairly large selection of other books about Burchfield on display at the Whitney. I recommend it and I have taken some photos from it to post here because the Whitney does not allow photography. (And you know how much I love that!)

Cover of the catalogue

Original Burchfield drawing of camouflage from his stint in the U.S. Army camouflage section 1918-19

Back to the show (and the bio)

Charles E. Burchfield, April 9, 1893 - January 10, 1967, was born in Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio. His father died when Burchfield was four and a half years old. Burchfield's mother moved back to her hometown of Salem, Ohio with her six children to a house where Burchfield lived until age 28. He began drawing and painting at a very young age and was his high school valedictorian in 1911.Many of his early works were completed while living in this house.  He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1916, at age 23, won a scholarship to study in New York but quit after one class. He began studying on his own by painting and drawing continuously. The work of Hokusai was an early influence. (Be sure to click on photos because they will open really large.)

"Autumnal Fantasy," 1916-44. Watercolor on paper, 39 x 54 inches.

Wikipedia says that half of his lifetime output of paintings was produced while living in Salem from 1915 to 1917. Later in life he came to regard 1917 as his "Golden Year." Gober says that Burchfield made hundreds of watercolors during 1916-18, often several works of the same subject from different vantage points. (Note how he animates his portrayals of nature by painting sound waves and movements of birds, insects, animals and telegraph wires.)

"Song of the Telegraph," 1917-52. Watercolor on paper, 34 x 53 inches.

In 1921 Burchfield moved to Buffalo, NY, where he was employed as a designer by the H.M. Birge wallpaper company. In 1922 he married Bertha Kenreich and they produced five children by 1928, settling in the town of Gardenville, NY, near West Seneca, where Burchfield lived with Bertha for the remainder of his life. From 1929 on, when he left the employ of H. M. Birge, Burchfield made his living from his art.

"Sunflowers" wallpaper design, 1921, watercolor and graphite on paper.

A gallery in the Whitney show is completely papered in the Sunflowers wallpaper, in a slightly different, but still pretty loud colorway. Here a wall is shown with a Burchfield painting hanging on it.

Some of Burchfield's doodles. He drew constantly.

Burchfield was able to sell his work from the beginning of his career and received recognition early on. In 1930 he had The first one-person exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, following its opening exhibition of  work by Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat and van Gogh! (I found it amazing that his work should become so little known or widely disregarded after this unbelievably auspicious start. How soon they forget!)*

April 1930 exhibition catalogue for 27 of Burchfield's works. Over half of them were located for the Hammer show.

A household name

From the catalogue: In the 1930s Burchfield accepted commissions from Fortune magazine to paint the railroads in Pennsylvania, the sulphur mines in Texas, and the coal mines in Virginia. The experience cemented his deep sympathy for working people and his own desire to be free artistically. After this period he never accepted another commission of this kind.

A page spread from Burchfield's scrapbook of reviews and notices.

Watercolor as a medium

The most striking thing about this exhibition to me was the size of the work and that the work looked like no watercolors I had ever seen. The catalogue has an essay by Cynthia Burlingham about why Burchfield chose watercolor as his medium. She traces the history of watercolor, its popularity in different periods and its use by painting masters such as Turner, Sargent, Cezanne and Homer. During the 1910s and 1920s there was a group of innovative American artists who used watercolor as their primary medium including Maurice Prendergast, Demuth, Marin, Hopper and O'Keefe. Burchfield preferred it because of his ease with it from use "since the first grade", its speed and portability for working outdoors and because he could easily layer it on heavy paper without a lengthy wait for drying. He used both transparent and opaque watercolors and added charcoal, crayon, ink and graphite. One thing that Burlingham notes about Burchfield is that he made a conscious effort to submit his work for exhibitions that were not limited to watercolor, thereby insuring that his work was regarded on its own merits and not limited by the medium. 

Expansions and Enlargements

If you look back at the dates on the first two paintings under "Back to the Show" above, you will note that they range from 1916-44 and 1917-52. How, you may ask, could someone work on a watercolor for that long? The answer is that when Burchfield looked back on the period of 1916-1918 in his work, he thought that during that time he had:

"The courage to see nature with the great graphic shorthand of youth" - May 15, 1922

He regarded that early work as a great beginning but thought that the works needed to be enlarged to reach their potential.

1942 plan for enlargement of a 1918 painting, The Red Pool, that was never completed.

Schematic drawing for another enlargement. Burchfield carefully mitred the edges of the heavy paper to fit in the additional pieces. The additional sections can barely be seen, even when a few inches from the work.

Burchfield used this expansion technique on works dating back to the Golden Year and on pieces begun much later in his life. As someone who can't resist changing work when I come anywhere near it again with a brush in my hand, I find it incredible that he was able to carry out the enlargement of these works so much later in his life without completely remaking them. The process was evidentally not as simple as it might appear, however. Gober says that he made many drawings of possible resolutions before he settled on the final choice.

"Two Ravines," 1934-43. Watercolor on paper, 36 1/2 x 61 1/8 inches

"Dawn of Spring," ca. 1960s. Watercolor, charcoal and white chalk on joined paper mounted on board, showing charcoal in areas where Burchfield planned to enlarge it.

Closeup showing additions drawn in charcoal and chalk.

There were several paintings in the show similar to the work above with a painting in the center surrounded by charcoal drawing. I loved these pieces. They were very beautiful just as they were and really didn't need to be finished.

"October in the Woods," 1938-63. Watercolor, gouache, chalk, and charcoal on joined papers mounted on cardboard,
45 5/8 x 57 3/4 inches.

"The Sphinx and the Milky Way," 1946. Opaque and transparent watercolor, chalk, and crayon on wove water color paper, 52 5/8 x 44 3/4 inches. This is one of my favorite works - so dark, rich and spooky.

Burchfield kept a journal from the time he was 16 until the end of his life. There are 72 volumes
of journals totaling close to 10,000 pages.

Robert Gober opens the catalogue with two quotes from Charles Burchfield's journals which really illuminate his character.

 My first vote today. I voted no on Prohibition because it is a blow at personal liberty.

 I voted yes on Woman Suffrage because I know so little about politics myself and I am in no position to say they should not have the vote.

 I voted straight Socialist ticket  because their principles mean the freedom of humanity from graft and greed.        November 3, 1914

(After being hospitalized for major surgery between November 10 and 24, 1955)

Some time perhaps I shall feel more like writing more fully about this agonizing time--but not now....At the height of my pain remembering the little field mouse I mutilated when a boy.

*Not everyone forgot him. Burchfield was included in the Carnegie Institute’s The 1935 International Exhibition of Paintings, in which his painting The Shed in the Swamp(1933-34) was awarded second prize. In December 1936 Life magazine declared him one of America’s ten greatest painters in its article “Burchfield’s America.”

In 1940 the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University held Exhibition of Water Colors by Charles Burchfield. Over the next fifty years there were significant exhibitions featuring his work including The Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield at the Cleveland Museum of Art, a retrospective organized in 1956 by The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ Paintings by Charles Burchfield in 1964. His artistic achievement was further honored with the creation of the Charles Burchfield Center at Buffalo State College on December 9, 1966, a month before his death on January 11, 1967.

In 1984 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York curated the exhibition Charles Burchfield, followed in 1986 by the Boston Athenaeum’s An American Visionary: Watercolors and Drawings by Charles E. Burchfield. Charles E. Burchfield: The Sacred Woods was on view at the Drawing Center in New York in 1993, and in 1997 the Columbus Museum of Art organized The Paintings of Charles Burchfield: North by Midwest.