EARTH FRIENDLY ART MAKING

Reinventing an art career after 30 years of promoting myself with the tag line “encaustic artist and educator.”

The materials a visual artist uses are not just tools; they are pathways to expression, creativity, and connection with the world around them. For almost 30 years, my primary medium has been the beeswax based paint, encaustic. The material's versatility, luminosity, painterly and sculptural qualities gobsmacked me from the first moment I encountered it in 1995.

Yet, after my solo exhibition, “The Clothes We Wear,” at the top of my game, both as an artist and educator, I gave myself a year sabbatical from any further show or teaching commitments. I wanted time to consider how exploring other mediums might enhance my art practice. In 2023, I gave myself another year. But I did not stop making. Ever. I enrolled in new-to-me technique workshops with an intention of focusing primarily on sustainable materials.

Much of the time passed in simple ways of being: savoring the slowness of hand stitching, long walks, looking closely. A focus on place, honoring the respect and value I hold for the microcosms of nature. And noticing an intense interest and reverence for trees, specifically since returning to live in my native Pacific Northwest.

An almost daily wander through the forests of Dorris Ranch, along the Willamette River near my home in Springfield, Oregon.

And through all the explorations and frustrations of once again becoming an “emerging” artist, I've been in a state of quiet puzzlement as to what this interest is leading to conceptually. What am I wanting to say with the new art techniques and materials I'm pursuing?

One particular interest that has emerged during this period of exploration is that of making my own handmade paint using natural earth pigments, applied to reclaimed linen fabric that can be hung, stretched, folded, and stitched. Unlike synthetic pigments that have ecological impacts, natural earth pigments are derived sustainably from rocks and soil. I can even source the pigments locally, all by myself.

Locally sourced brown and red clays. Step one for handmade paint from natural earth pigments.

I also really like the fact that working with earth pigments places my work within a profound historical and cultural context. Natural earth pigments are minerals finely ground into powder form, sourced directly from the earth. By using these pigments, I'm connecting with traditions that span cultures and epochs, tapping into an artistic heritage of materials that have been used for millennia by civilizations across the globe, from the ochres of ancient Australian Aboriginal art to the vibrant azurite blues of Egyptian tomb paintings.

“Beyond the Fray,” Natural Earth Pigments on Linen, 30 x 24. One of my new paintings delivered to the Attic Gallery that will be featured at their grand re-opening, September 2024.

People know me as a traveler. Often, my partner and fellow artist, Nard Claar, and I are told “we live vicariously through your travel blogs and posts.” But as I wander amidst the mire of living in a body that has successfully aged to 72, I realize that this newish interest in focusing on locality is reflective of a leaning in to being less mobile, more like the rootedness of plants and trees.

What I've come to so far is the sense that back here in Oregon, near family, dealing emotionally with the passing of my mother and the subsequent familial obligations of sorting through her 90 year accumulation of earthly belongings, perhaps the discussion I'm having with my work involves a search for the right manner and means to effectively explore my personal cultural heritage, as it relates to place, and yes, to my own mortality.

Sign on my Studio Wall!

In the meantime, as the sign hanging in my studio reminds me, I'm just having fun creating things I want to exist. And for now, that's enough.

THE BEAUTY OF LIMITATIONS

We're all familiar with the concept of diminishment inherent in tiny homes. During the month of March, Nard and I lived in a 600 square foot cottage in Anacortes, Washington. We became personally familiar with what it's like to reduce one's footprint by residing and working in the space of a single room.

Cottage living gave limitation on what artwork we could choose to pursue. The Anacortes cottage does have a deck area that expanded our possible usable space, but it's uncovered and if you are familiar with the weather patterns of the Pacific Northwest, you know that nine times out of ten, the space would be unusable unless you are a duck. Here you see the lovely Puget Sound views we enjoyed on a rain-free day.

The tiny cottage kitchen was a limitation of how many pots and pans Nard could use (read: get dirty for me to wash in the teeny tiny sink) to prepare our meals.

Turns out, when we returned to our Colorado Springs spacious home and art studio, I felt a little overwhelmed the first few days. So…...much…...stuff. I was reminded of the axiom that whatever space one has, that's how much stuff one keeps around.

Simplification is complicated….ironic, I know. Everyone's experienced the phenomena of finally getting rid of an object you've had around the house and never used for years. Shortly thereafter, it's exactly what you needed for this project or that.

The idea of seeing limitations as a positive thing isn't new to my way of thinking. In the interest of pushing my work beyond the usual, I regularly set limitations on myself when I'm creating a new painting series. Sometimes it's a limited color palette, sometimes it's a decision regarding design elements that must or must not be included in the final piece, sometimes it's something as simple as a show deadline.

Less stuff, fewer choices, fewer decisions, more time for reading a book or making art or visiting with friends or taking a hike or riding a bike. View of Anacortes, Washington, from Cap Sante Park.

So it seems to me that seeking limitations is actually all about pushing boundaries. What limitations have you initiated, or are thinking of initiating, to facilitate stretching beyond your usual?

Blog #6: Week 44 of “Staying In”...To Wax or Not To Wax.

White Gypsy beer, image snagged from @eirebrews. But that could’ve been my hand!

“A White Gypsy
Sits Beside A Constant Stream
Under A Bi-Polar Sky
With That Broken-Doll Look”

“White Gypsy,” Work in Progress, Hand embroidery on Vintage Linen, 2020 - 2021.

Inspired by the Irish craft beer “White Gypsy,” I wrote this poem in 2016 during Nard's and my month-long residency in Listowel, Ireland. I'm using it as the embroidered text for a Work-In-Progress on vintage linen, which also utilizes a figure drawn from a 2007 painting I made when acrylic was my primary medium. Interesting to note the many ways in which an artist's repertoire gets re-imagined over time.

Figure Study, Acrylic on Wood, 2007.

As with much of my current body of work, I plan to suspend the finished piece as a free hanging form so that both the front and back sides of the stitching are visible. This is a carrying forth of the concept initiated with the “Baby Talk” series I did for my 2019 installation, “I Never Played With Dolls.” The need for considerations of “both sides” is a concept that has been a thing for me over the course of the past four years of deepening societal polarization.

“White Gypsy,” WIP, front side.

“White Gypsy,” WIP, back side.

Installation of “Baby Talk” series, 2019. Hand stitched embroidery on Vintage Linens, waxed and suspended to reveal both sides.

A willingness to view both sides symbolizes my hope for citizens of our country to lean in to characteristics such as respect, acceptance, consideration, and kindness. It also means that during last week's January 6th insurgency on our nation's Capitol, I spent the day with the tv remote control in my hand constantly switching channels, with the intention of viewing disparate points of view regarding the deeper implications of the event. With less than a week until President-Elect Joe Biden's inauguration, we are all waiting to see how the politics of our country plays out.

Parallel to this historic moment, I stand here in my studio fussing and fuming over seemingly inconsequential decisions such as how to proceed on this “White Gypsy” piece. Should I wax the entire piece as I did the “Baby Talk” pieces, or should I preserve the softness of the linen and hand stitching by waxing only the center figure. Or, perhaps, no wax at all? After all, once waxed, there's no going back.

“Test” piece to examine how the wax vs no wax looks on linen. You can see the transparency effect upon the waxed fabric and tissue paper image.

Further, I even question myself about the PC of the phrase “white gypsy.” Might some consider combining “white” and “gypsy” an offensive labeling of the Irish ethnic minority group known as “Travellers?” Like many young teen girls of the 1960's, my favorite Halloween garb was dressing in the stereotype of a gypsy woman. The concept of a nomadic, free-from-societal norms gypsy woman was incredibly appealing to a girl seeking to break free from then-current societal expectations that suitable vocational aspirations included careers such as becoming a teacher or a secretary. Thus, in my mind, PC or not, the poetic suggestion of psychic conflict within the concept of a free spirited White Gypsy jives quite compactly within my own very white personal iconography.

I'm curious and open to your feedback on any of these thoughts.