My Encaustic Learning Curve

"Blue Skies", encaustic, plant parts and raffia on board, 12"x12", 2007

In 2004 I attended a 3-day introductory encaustic workshop taught by Cynthia Winiker at R&F Paints in Kingston, NY. That was a big deal for me to spend that much money and time away from home, and it showed the extent of my interest, but for the life of me I can't remember what prompted my initial interest in encaustic. Crazy, huh? Oh, well, I've forgotten more important things, I guess. Anyway, I just loved encaustic and the workshop was wonderful - all the info I needed to set up my studio and get going with the new medium. I bought a bunch of paint and tools and drove home ready to make it my own.

Then, pretty much nothing for three years or so. Oh, I dabbled and played around but the work I made didn't look much like anything I was making in any other medium and even the pallette of colors I used was not really me: many of the original pieces used red, yellow and white. What the hell was that?

So 2004 and 2005 were pretty much a bust. If you look at the picture of my old studio in the right column, you'll probably see why. Then 2006 was the Year of Moving. Bonnie and I spent that whole year packing, getting rid of or moving stuff to storage near where we would live, and generally getting ready to sell our house and 20 acres in Ashfield. Originally we were going to be part of a mill building redevelopment into loft spaces in North Adams, but that project fell through (thank God), and we decided to move to Easthampton (next door to Northampton and near Amherst and Springfield). I was without a studio for nearly the whole of 2006 until November 1st when I began leasing my current space in the Eastworks Building.

That meant I didn't begin painting with encaustic again until 2007, and not until then did I start making work that I felt was more my own. I had a lot of false starts and experiments, but when I hit on the idea of incorporating parts of plants from my garden, it started to make more sense to me. I also joined New England Wax in November 2007 and that has been so important to the development of my work in encaustic. Being able to network with other artists painting in encaustic has really broadened my idea of what encaustic can be and at the same time helped me to focus on what I want to do with it.

Encaustic pieces painted in 2007 - about half made the cut

Another very important aspect of belonging to N.E.W. is that it has pushed me to make work to submit for shows. Making work is what has to happen to gain control of the process, so whatever motivates me to do that is really valuable. I need prodding, as most of us do. The Malcolm Gladwell tenet about needing 10,000 hours to master something is probably true - not that I've spent that long working in encaustic, but I'm getting there.

Of course, the encaustic conference has been a wonderful benefit. What a great opportunity to be able to learn various technical processes, discuss the world of encaustic painting, listen to critical panels, see juried shows of top-quality work, hear important keynote speakers and just generally hang out with pals in the cozy confines of the encaustic world. We are so fortunate to have this treasure every year. Thank you, Joanne! (and Montserrat)

I haven't really been comfortable enough to show my encaustic work outside of the encaustic bubble, but I'm starting. This year, I submitted one of my encaustic pieces to the jurying process for the MassArt auction and it was accepted (for the silent auction - not on the block). I've always sold my work here, and even though it goes for half price, it's seen by a huge number of people and exposure is a Good Thing - right, Martha?

Last year (and this) I've made a big push in the studio to make more work in encaustic because of the show that Lynette and I presented at ArtSpace which needed so many pieces and also because there were a lot of juried shows to enter that overlapped and required that different work be submitted to each. I made way more work in 2008 than ever before and finally got to work much bigger than previously.

I have set up a way of working that is comfortable to me, and I can control the medium to accomplish what I want (so far). My next goal is to get my table saw set up for making panels and to get a vent fan installed. Here again, N.E.W. is invaluable because I took Kim's course in using power tools and I can consult with two friends (Lynette and Sue) for advice on setting up the vent system.

I think I'm in a good place with encaustic - even though I'm not working in it at the moment (still working on those saleable paper pieces). I know where I want to go with it for my next series and choosing that direction is most of the battle for me. Wax on!

Selected Painting of the Day + Love Words

Just a Little More, oil and cold wax on canvas, 2008, 36"x36"x1.5"

There's something about this painting that reminds me of Guston's work. It looks a little cartoonish but at the same time has a certain dignity. I gave it that title because at first it was much more an all-over field and then I started putting in boxes. I kept adding more and more of them until they almost filled up the whole work. Then I started over-painting and taking back the field. And then more boxes came back and I kept painting...just a little more. Like eating peanuts - whoops! not these days.

I made this painting as a companion to an earlier piece:



This one is titled Ooooo because of the ooooo in it and also because I was so enjoying working with this medium.

I like to use cold wax medium when I paint with oil. Dorland's is the most well-known brand, but I prefer Gamblin's because it has less solvent, is more creamy and dries to a more flexible skin. When you mix it with oil paint as a medium, it will let you spread the paint with pallette knives like butter. It dries to a matte finish.

Note for those painting in encaustic, this cold wax medium has nothing to do with encaustic and should not be used with it. If you heat it, it will release toxic fumes because it contains turpentine (solvent).

Aromaphilia (Not a real word, but I made it up to mean "love of aroma.")
Back when I attended MassArt, every time I walked into the building where we had student studios, the smell of oil paint let me know that I was home. I just love that smell - I think even more than the aromatic smell of beeswax and damar resin. Oil paint just wafts me away on a pink cloud more than the most expensive perfume.

Yesterday, after finally recovering from that nasty virus, I decided to clean the house. I felt so sick of winter and so badly in need of uplift from something. When I spotted two wrapped paintings standing against the wall in my bedroom, I decided that they were the change of vision I needed and that hanging them would be my mission before mundane tasks like vaccuuming.

As soon as I peeled apart the bubblewrap, I could smell the oil paint and it was luscious. The painting I hung in the bedroom was Just a Little More, and I hung it opposite the bed so I could look at it morning and night. This is not something I would have done years ago, but I'm fairly happy with this painting and don't mind looking at it for extended periods. That is, I'm not constantly thinking about how I could repaint sections. Progress?

Chromophilia (love of color)
One thing about the bedroom is that the walls are magenta, as in Pipilotti-Rist-at-MoMA-magenta. The surprising thing is that I didn't paint them that color, the prior owner of our house did. At first I was taken aback by it, but I grew to really like it, so here's the painting as it looks on magenta:

Deciding to post this image got me thinking about other backdrops for artwork in our house. We have really strong colors on the walls - no white box for us - so here is more art hung on chromophiliac walls.




Encaustic paintings on deep turquoise.




Another wall in the same room with a work on paper (Pale Guide, 1999).




An oil painting (Mission to Mars, 2004) on dark orange.

Two little oil paintings on a blue-grey wall.

I like the way the art interacts with the wall behind it. It's always a surprise to hang something and see how the wall color changes your perception. Too much interference with art's sanctity? What do you think?

Hey, Wait a Minute

We swept Barack Obama in on a surge of pride, hope and desire for change. He was inaugurated only 20 days ago and now some members of Congress are making a mockery of the people's desire to turn the ship of state around and head for peaceful blue water. Maybe it's my weakened state that's making me sensitive or perhaps it's the video from President Obama that I received, but believe me I am feeling anxious about the stimulus package that is getting the hell beat out of it but that we need so badly.

Probably you are here because this is supposed to be about ART, but before anything, we are all citizens and need to be engaged in our government's operation. Our apathy led to eight horrible years of Bush/Cheney and unimaginable deviation from the rule of law under which America was founded. We need to pay attention and become engaged citizens. This is our country and we must speak up to claim it.

Remember this?
You could get more of the same.

Out here in western Mass., where incidentally Rachel Maddow got her radio start, there is another very smart political commentator, blogger and radio host named Bill Scher. Bill explains the political process in a clear and direct way and has an in-depth knowledge of the way things operate politically out here in the liberal boonies and inside the Beltway in Washington, D.C. (Liberal Oasis.com and Campaign for America's Future)

Apparently what moves congressional votes in Washington more than anything else is phone calls from constituents - not email and not letters. Who knew? I usually email. Bill says that no one understands and uses this fact better than the Rush Limbaugh army who will move to the phone when summoned and make their views known ad nauseum. These Limbaugh Conservatives have been phoning members of the House and Senate non stop and that is why Obama's stimulus package is getting so beat up. Bill has heard several reports that calls were running 100 to 1 from the Conservatives against either the whole package or various parts of it. (Notice that they picked off the contraceptives before anything else? - why do they always go straight to sex??)

Now that the call has gone out to Obama supporters, the tide is starting to turn, but it's really important that we get on the phone and call our senators and congressmen. If you don't know where to call, take a look at Congress.org. Just type in your zip code and it will pop up all your federal and state reps. If you click on one of them, you'll first get their bio page and you can select "contact" to get phone numbers, address, email, etc. (This is a handy website to know about because you can also look up voting records on particular legislation.)

By the way, since the Washington numbers are getting a lot of call volume, it will probably be better to call the local office. Your rep will still get the message about your support. And, it's not necessary to go into a lot of detail about what you want. For the most part, they are recording PRO or CON stimulus. If you think that it should be a big, bold package with certain things being put back into the package such as aid to the States (so firefighters, police officers and teachers are not laid off), education and school modernization funding, mass transit funding, ARTS funding (the Senate cut $50 million from NEA and banned any aid to museums, art groups and theatres), etc., etc. then just mention a couple of these items.

I was surprised to learn from Bill that even though in Massachusetts our senators and congressmen usually vote the liberal/progressive way, we still need to call because this is how they determine the strength of support they have. Please remember this and make your calls. This is too important not to spend a few minutes on it.







Call your senators and congressmen. Obama can't live on pride, hope and desire for change alone. He needs your help to bring the change. The country needs your help.













P.S. If you are not an Obama supporter and arrived here looking for Art, call in support of the stimulus package anyway. It'll make you feel more Ahrty. It's true.

Out of Action

There is a horrible virus going around here in western Mass. that put me out of action for three days. I think I am OK now although still a bit weak. Suffering from something like that really makes you appreciate good health and how we take it for granted.

I hope to post again later today or tonight when my energy level gets a little stronger. Meanwhile, wax on!

Recycling Encaustic Paintings

Reworking encaustic paintings is pretty simple because you can just use some heat and scrape off whatever you don't want - either a layer or two or the whole thing, but yesterday's post about reworking acrylic paintings got me thinking about another way of recycling paintings - combining an older painting with newly-painted partners to make a diptych or triptych.

So here's an encaustic painting I made in 2007. I called it "Trinity" and it's 12"x12". I never showed it anywhere because the color pallette is really different from the one I normally use. This painting primarily uses three lovely Evans Encaustic colors: "Joanne Loves This Red" - a rich, dark orangey red, "Duochrome Blue Green" - a fabulous color that breaks to a bronzy sheen when painted over black, and "Cloisonne Pink" - a dense, reddish pink. It also has some drawing in black, a little streaky white, embedded plant parts and black oilstick.

I liked this painting because of the strange placement of the three components, the kinda weird color combination and the way some of the colors broke when painted over what was underneath. What to do with it? I could paint more in this pallette, let it kick around the studio as a singleton, sell it to someone who was on the same strange wavelength - or paint some companions to go with it.

Here's what it became: I chose to turn it around and paint two other panels to combine with it, making it a triptych that I called "Red, Black and Bumpy," 36"H x 12"W. Turning "Trinity" sideways caused the central image to look like an eye (maybe an eye wearing a cute little hat) and that made it a little mysterious. I like the way the more geometric elements in the two panels below play off the original, more organic panel. But don't think that this solved the problem because now I have the triptych as an oddball! Guess I'll just have to paint more to go with.

Reworking Old Paintings

Several years ago I began painting with thin washes of acrylic paint on Okawara ricepaper. The Okawara comes in big sheets 72"H x 38"W, so I would cut pieces off and paint them in an all-over pattern like wallpaper. Then I would assemble a painting composed of geometric elements of the patterned papers I had made.

For example, "Intermediary" above, 24"x24", 2005, or...

"Willow Stripe", 32"x30", 2005

Both of these pieces sold to corporate collections through art consultants, and I did well with this work because it fit the parameters that some corporate collections have: no images of people or animals, no words, colorful, non-controversial. It was easy to ship because I just rolled it into tubes and sent it off (I did not supply the frames), and I enjoyed making it (mostly) because I had the freedom to explore my love of patterning, and I liked the challenge of assembling a final piece from the pattern portfolio I had prepared.

I did get a little tired of doing it and went on to painting in other mediums, but they were harder to sell and harder to ship.

Last year I decided to pursue this work again and placed some pieces I had in my files with a new consultant. That work sold pretty quickly and I had nothing to replace it with. I was totally engaged in painting with encaustic and couldn't drag myself away to work on paper until last week. (Funny how the need for some cold cash can get you busy!) In the meantime, I had taken some work back from a consultant in California and wanted to reuse it. When I took a look at what they had sent me (dating back to 2001), I knew why this work hadn't sold. It was just not fully realized. In fact it was ready to go under the brush again.

So far I have completed two pieces of new work made from the old work I took back. I thought it might be fun to post some images of the old work and see if you can recognize it in the new. Apparently I didn't photo all the old work I received back, so not everything I reused is included here, but a lot of it is. So here are five pieces of the returned work. The squares are 24"x24" and the horizontals are 18"x80".

Now here are the two new pieces:

Temp title: Red-Blue-Gold No. 1, 34"x34"

Temp title: Red-Blue-Gold No. 2, 34"x34"

For the most part, I just gave a new wash of color to certain sections. I did do a little bit of painting to introduce some smaller scale marks. These were fun to assemble, and although they're more decorative than what I usually do, I think they work.

This is what it looks like when I'm making new pieces from old. I cut up some old work, over-paint it and put it on the floor to dry. There's really not enough here to make new pieces so I'll have to paint something fresh that can work off these colors.

Who knows if corporate clients are still buying artwork? Does the bailout cover that? I hope so because I lost one of my at-home, part-time bookkeeping jobs due to that psycho Madoff stealing money from my client and thus stealing my livelihood, too. It's the trickle down effect of greed. You'd think being poor(ish) would protect you from all that, but nooooooo!

Shameless Self Promotion

Saturday was the opening of Physical Geography, and Lynette and I had a great time welcoming friends, relatives and interested people who had seen the article about our show in the Boston Globe. People seem to be fascinated by encaustic and have so much misinformation about it. Exhibiting encaustic works really feels like an educational project - informing people that it is NOT toxic, NOT batik, NOT about to melt off your wall, NOT that difficult to use, NOT made from crayons, etc., etc.

A Soapbox Digression: The other thing is that it's frequently necessary to lead people away from the craft or technical aspect of encaustic toward the fine art direction. As pointed out by guru Joanne Mattera, I am not an "encaustic artist" but an artist who paints with encaustic - a big difference in focus. Encaustic is the medium chosen to make a painting, and learning the technical aspects of the medium just makes me able to achieve my visual ideas. This concept sometimes gets lost in the discussion of the work, and I have to keep steering in the fine art direction - even steering myself. Why is this important? Because the visual ideas and expressions transcend the medium. The medium is not the message, it is the vehicle. Otherwise we become ghettoized or limited by the medium as in "woman artist."

Back to the opening...When we arrived for the opening, we were very pleased to see the wonderful job that Jero Nessen, Director of the ArtSpace gallery (and developer of the whole ArtSpace building) had done in arranging and adjusting the track lights. Many of the 80 artists in the building dropped by the opening and introduced themselves. Talking about art with other artists is always enjoyable, and it was particularly fun to talk encaustic with New England Wax members who came to the opening. Thanks to everyone for being so enthusiastic about the work! (NOTE TO BOSTON-AREA ARTISTS: ArtSpace has an annual call for proposals for solo and group shows.)

Center of back wall (this wall is 40 feet long) showing my work to left and Lynette's to right.

Looking right - these are Lynette's works. From left: "Harmonium" 10"x22" (an outstanding piece - too bad I cut it off), "Matter of Two" 29"x27", "When It Touches" 16"x48" and "Ruminant" 36"x36".

And continuing around to the right. The two works on the right of this picture are mine - picture taken last week before the lights were arranged. They are "Clark" 24"x66" and "The Maze" 16"x32".

This is starting again on the back wall but moving left this time - four pieces of my quiet, contemplative work - "Happy Family" 24"x24", "Wrigley's Best" 24"x24", "Clark" 24"x66" and "Foreign Influence" 24"x24".

Continuing to the left - Lynette's work: "Reveal" 30"x20" (on the card), "Slight Blueness", "Small Paladin, "Woven", "Dark Paladin" - the 4 small ones, "Paladin I" and "Paladin II" both 16"x16" and turning the corner with "Salt-Rose."

A close-up of Lynette's beautiful "Salt-Rose," 2008, 36"x36" - such a fantastic, weathered-looking surface to this piece but hard to see in the photo.

This is taken from the other end of the left wall and shows my blue diptychs on the left - each panel 16"x16". (Love those black heating/cooling panels!)

Here we are way on the other side of the gallery showing the left side of the entry. These three are my pieces - "The Portal" 16"x32", "Abound" (on the card) 36"x24" and "Red Pearl" 24"x24".


The entry wall on the right - kinda dark - from left: my piece "Falling Water" 16"x32", then Lynette's "Only a Few" 20"x16" and "Dot Burst" 20"x16". and finally my "Forever Blowing Bubbles" and "Tongue Tied" both 12"x24".

These are the same pieces from the other direction - "Falling Water" on left.

And if that wasn't enough, we also had a 16-foot long display case that we filled with encaustic "stuff" - wax balls, an electric grille with pots and brushes, encaustic paint, etc. - I like the reflection of the paintings on the glass.

So, a good time was had by all. Tune in in a couple of weeks for the encaustic demo we're doing.