Ode to the Annual Encaustic Conference

I was invited to be one of four featured ("HOT" is their word) artists in the premiere issue of Encaustic Arts magazine and have been working on my article. (The other three artists are Kim Bernard, Howard Hersh and Paula Roland.) My article is another rear view mirror moment where I take a look back at the development of  my on-going body of work, the series I call the Running Stitch. I thought that my experience could be interesting as an example of the way one artist (moi) made a big leap in her work to a very new place.

Promised Land, 2010, 27"x42"x1.5", mixed media with encaustic, from the Running Stitch series (click to expand)

After thinking about the process and writing my article, it dawned on me that none of it would have been possible if I had not attended the annual encaustic conference that Joanne Mattera organizes every year. That is how and where my thinking was expanded. Sure, I learned about techniques and processes, but more importantly, at the conference I was able to consult with experts about moving my work forward, I saw first-quality shows of work in encaustic, and I was brought together with artists from all over the U.S., Canada and more. How and where else would that have been possible?

Joanne Mattera, creator and organizer of The Fifth International Encaustic Conference and all the other annual encaustic conferences dating back to 2007

A very big THANK YOU to Joanne for her vision, expertise, unflagging energy and determination to make every year The Best Conference ever!

Although every year at the encaustic conference is rewarding, I think that the third year in 2009 was vital to my development. That year I signed up for two post-conference workshops, on two consecutive days, one with Barbara O'Brien and the other with Miles Conrad.

Barbara O'Brien, now Curator at the Kemper Musuem of Contemporary Art

Barbara O'Brien at that time had curated nearly 50 exhibitions of contemporary art, and that was before she joined the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art as curator later in 2009. Her experience in looking at and assessing artists' work was exceptional. For that third annual encaustic conference in 2009, Barbara was also the keynote speaker, and when I heard her talk, I was blown away by the description of her aesthetic journey from an intellectual response to minimalism to embracing the beauty, warmth and richness of work in encaustic. She was very encouraging and helped the small group at her day-long critical response workshop to think about their work in the broader context of contemporary art and to describe a blue sky vision for their work.

Miles Conrad

Miles Conrad, an artist and gallery owner, developed a class called Moving the Work Forward that uses unique exercises and games to help artists assess their own work and reach their full potential. This workshop in 2009 helped me so much by having Miles' critique my work and statement and get his assistance in directing me to examine the various components of making art and marketing it. This class really propelled my thought processes and gave me some methods to use that proved invaluable.

Castle Hill Center for the Arts

This year's encaustic conference, now The Fifth International Encaustic Conference, is the first to be held at its new location in Provincetown and at the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill in Truro (next to Provincetown). It features many opportunities for artists to develop their work and think about it in a broader context. For example, on Friday afternoon, Toby Sisson will give a talk on the Art of Critique:How to Give and Receive More Helpful Feedback. Giving and receiving feedback is surely an art and the first step in taking an honest look at your own work. Another talk, at the tail end of the conference on Sunday afternoon, will be given by Kim Bernard and called What's Your Work About? Kim will provide exercises and methods to get participants thinking about this topic in a fun and rewarding way.

Toby Sisson

Kim Bernard

There are two panels that will also help artists to examine their practices: Saturday morning's panel, Mastering Media, brings together five artists (including me) with moderator Joanne Mattera. The panel will discuss various aspects of art and media, from book publishing, to blogging, to operating a gallery, to organizing classes, to various tools for promoting your work. This panel is bound to be informative, thought provoking and fun. Then late Sunday afternoon, another panel comes together to discuss Submitting Your Work: What the Juror Sees. This don't-miss-it panel, consisting of three decision makers, will discuss how they view and judge work submitted for exhibitions at their venues.

Jackie Battenfield, Author and Keynote Speaker 

This year the keynote speaker on Saturday night will be Jackie Battenfield, author of  The Artist's Guide: How To Make a Living Doing What You Love. She is all about developing your work and finding ways to keep making it. Jackie will also offer a day-long workshop called Creating Your Own Success on Monday during the post-conference session at Castle Hill. Another opportunity for personalized critique of your work during the post-conference workshops will come on Thursday when Francine D'Olimpio, owner of Kobalt Gallery in Provincetown, will offer a day-long critical feedback session in a small group. Francine is also jurying the conference show, "Beeline", that will be exhibited at Kobalt Gallery.

These are just a few of the long list of workshops available at the conference. I haven't even touched on the nine demos that show how to accomplish various techniques such as the ever-popular image transfer, fusing, masking, stencilling, branding, and achieving patterned effects. Wow! So much to learn and so much to gain!

If you can spare the time, the place to really get into learning a technique or experimenting with different processes is during the post-conference week. Here you might spend a day with me Making Fine Art With Unconventional Mixed Media and Encaustic or with Michelle Belto ombining Encaustic and Handmade Paper or with Hylla Evans of Evans Encaustic in her Color-Mixing Workshop. It's all great.

The best part of the conference is meeting people and seeing friends from all around the USA plus Canada, England, New Zealand and Brazil. Currently there are 198 conferees registered, or 79 percent of the maximum. As Joanne Mattera says,

Our maxiumum is 250--a large enough number for the

crosspollination of ideas and information

but still small enough for everyone to get to know everyone else.

There is no other event like this one!

At last year's conference: Lynda Ray from Norfolk, Virginia; Binnie Birstein from Weston, Connecticut and Gay Schempp from Fairfield, Connecticut (in the background in green sweater, Jane Allen Nodine from South Carolina)

Alexandre Masino from Montreal, Canada

Eileen Goldenberg from San Francisco, California

To register for one of the very few spots remaining, click here. And I hope to see you there!

The Questionnaire: Miles Conrad

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.

               M i l e s  C o n r a d              

What is your favorite color?

Almost any shade of green

What is your favorite word?

"Dad da" as pronounced by my daughter

Miles with daughter Alea, age 1 year

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

The natural world

What turns you off?

Aggression

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

Scientist

What is your favorite book or movie?

Love in the Time of Cholera

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

Folk/Acoustic

What do you most value in your friends?

Intelligence, Humor, Honesty, Loyalty, Compassion

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

Eva Hesse, Kiki Smith, Robert Gober, Louise Bourgeois

Eva Hesse, untitled (rope piece)

Kiki Smith

Robert Gober

Robert Gober

Installation by Louise Bourgeois

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

Lee Bontecou

Lee Bontecou

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Cessation of fear and desire, family and friends, sunshine, the ocean and ice cream (in that order).

  Works by Miles Conrad  

Recurrent Infraction (Installation View) - Cast Soap, Fragrance, Light, Sound, 2009

Recurrent Infraction (Detail) - Cast Soap, Fragrance, Light, Sound, 2009

Recurrent Infraction (Detail) - Cast Soap, Fragrance, Light, Sound, 2009

Self-Help Series - Anxiety Disorders of Childhood - Wax, Hair, Found Book, 2008

The Psychiatrist as Ethnographer - Modified File Folder, Paper, Wax, Pigment, 2008

See more at: milesconrad.com

and

conradwildegallery.com

Dimensional Extension

I couldn't quite call it a dimensional explosion (in honor of the 4th), but I have broken through into the third dimension with these little pieces. The "extensions" were made in Miles Conrad's 3D class at the encaustic conference and I worked the little paintings this weekend.

Two views of  No. 1 = Encaustic and collage with plastic, 8"x5"x1.75"

Two views of No. 2  =  Encaustic, collage, oilstick, pebbles with cardboard, 5"x8"x1.75"

Two views of No. 3 = Encaustic, fiber, paper, 5"x8"x1.75"

Of course I had to spend some time in the studio this weekend even though I was trying to take it easy because of the heat. With my two fans going, it wasn't too bad, but I had to leave by the afternoon when the sun came over the top of the building and moved toward my side.

I enjoyed sitting in my easy chair at the studio with my feet up early this morning as I sipped my coffee and read Daniella Woolf's Encaustic With a Textile Sensibility. What a wonderful collection of artists she has included in this book! I found it really inspiring.

Another Nest

Here's another whopper that Bonnie found in a birdbox. It's a house sparrow's nest that contained four eggs.

It filled absolutely every part of the box's interior. You can see how hard they must have worked to find all the great feathers, including a few cardinal feathers for color.

This shot is looking into the interior of the nest where the eggs were laid. It is lined with the kind of crinkly plastic that covers cigarette packs. Pretty clever and certainly three dimensional.

Sunday at the Conference

Man, this blogging on a schedule stuff is hard work! I've set a precedent for myself that I'm finding hard to keep up with. It's life vs. blog and I think life is winning.

Sunday was another fabulous day at the conference. I began by giving my presentation on art blogging, for which I created a blog called All Info on Art Blogging. You can link to it here or use the permanent link in the sidebar to the right. The blog was meant to replace a hand-out and designed to contain all in information you would need to set up an art blog. The presentation turned into a kind of fiasco for me when I discovered that Blogger had changed its design format in the previous couple of days and I was unfamiliar with the new setup. Awkward! But friends who witnessed my embarrassment told me that at least it provided comic amusement so it wasn't a total loss.

Taking Your Show on the Road

Reni Gower, Fragments: CC, 2009, 59"x65", canvas, acrylic, cheesecloth, plastic, aluminum screen, rug-hold, wood.

Next on the docket for me was a wonderful presentation by Reni Gower called "Taking Your Show on Road". Reni is a professor in the Painting and Printmaking Department at Virginia Commonwealth University and spoke about organizing four traveling exhibitions that she has curated and participated in as an artist. She shared valuable information about choosing artists and art, finding venues, putting together a budget, shipping and insurance, communicating with artists and venues and many other items which only a vast amount of experience has provided.

I took copious notes on her six "Checkpoints" of organization. I have always wanted to organize a traveling show and now I have at least the basis for considering it more thoroughly. I know that after you have had the experience of putting one show together, you realize that the amount of effort it took should really be spread out over more than one event. Unfortunately, by the time I have gotten shows off the ground, I am usually so exhausted that I never want to hear about them again. But maybe Reni's presentation will help me in the future. I can only hope.

Patterned Effects and Visual Texture

After another tasty box lunch and a meeting, I was very happy to finally watch a demonstration by Greg Wright that I had been looking forward to since the conference roster was announced.  Greg is a master of texture in his encaustic work, and demonstrated various materials that he uses to get those great effects. What was so wonderful about the demo to me, besides the technical information, was Greg's enthusiasm for the work and excitement about creating and appreciating the happy accidents that occur repeatedly. We were all wowed by the effects he is able to achieve - mainly with powdered pigments plus water and/or shellac - and shared in his admiration for the materials.

Greg Wright showing a sample board

An important part of Greg's presentation was demonstrating the methods he uses in his own studio to reduce the hazards associated with powdered pigments and shellac. He is extremely careful and always conscientious about minimizing his exposure. I was very wary about using these materials prior to his demo, but now I am considering them after seeing how they can be handled in an appropriate way. Wait till I show you some of the sample boards with textures that Greg demonstrated. These textures are what really won me over.

Powdered pigment and water over Titanium White encaustic with Indian Yellow encaustic on top

Powdered pigment and water with encaustic under and over

The varied effects are achieved by varyinig the thickness of the application of pigment/water and the amount of time that the mixture is left to dry.

While extremely leary of it, I was also interested in the use of shellac with encaustic. I knew that it had to be lit on fire, but didn't really understand the material or process. Greg explained that Shellac was composed of lac from the Asian lac beetle that was dissolved in denatured alcohol. The denatured alcohol is what burns off when you light it. Fumes from the burning alcohol can give you a headache, he warns, so this process should only be used in a very well-ventilated indoor space or, preferably, outdoors.

Greg applying the torch to light a sample board where shellac has been applied over titanium white encaustic

A flaming panel - it will extinguish itself when all the alcohol burns off, usually a matter of seconds. NOTE: Don't try this unless you know what you are doing!

A sample board showing amber shellac after it has been burned

Another board with shellac and powdered pigments. If a second coat of shellac is applied after the first coat has been burned off, it will darken in color.

A sample board with water and shellac mixed with charcoal and powdered graphite

Greg showing another demo panel prepared with various techniques

Closeup of the sample board he is holding above. (Transfer and collage with various techniques on top.)

A closeup of texture on one of Greg's finished paintings. See more of his work here.

Conference Wrap-up

You can imagine that after taking in all this information and interacting with many friends and new acquaintances, I was exhausted. However, I did get a second wind after resting with my feet up for a while. I managed to stay awake for the Conference Wrap-up where Joanne summed it all up for us and a name was drawn for a free entry to next year's conference.

Here's Eileen Goldenberg at left doing her pre-drawing dance in which she's putting the spin on the juju (or some damned thang).

The winner of the drawing was Suzanne Arnold. She is the one with the giant smile and a reddish scarf near the center of this photo. Congratulations, Suzanne! See you next year.

More to Come

Today (Monday) is the first day of the Post-Conference Workshops. I am taking Miles Conrad's workshop, Off the Wall: Encaustic in Three Dimensions. Here are a couple of images of 3D encaustic pieces Miles made using the techniques he will be teaching today.

Miles Conrad, Orbs Series

A hairy-looking Orb