ABOUT ENCAUSTIC WORKS
The encaustic medium is a combination of bees wax combined with a resin hardener and pigment. It was originally used in first century in Rome as a decorative way to waterproof boats. It was further developed by Etruscans living in Egypt during the 5th century, as a painting medium for funeral masks. These works, referred to as the Fayum Portraits have been recovered and show surfaces intact with remarkably brilliant colors. The medium was largely ignored, except for experimental oil paints mixed with wax until Jasper John’s target paintings, which sparked a revival. Contemporary artists have reinvigorated this medium in recent years as Kingston’s R&F Handmade Paints began manufacturing high quality encaustic materials, sponsoring a biennial exhibition and offering workshops to artists. The Latin word, encaustic translates as 'to burn', a reference to the working process. Each layer of encaustic paint must be fused to the last layer using a heat gun, torch, the sun or any other heat source. Utilizing best practices, it is an extremely archival medium, which requires the same care in exhibition/storage regarding temperature and humidity control used for watercolors or oil paints.
Visceral Landscape
Some of the earliest pieces in this collection chronicle the years my husband and I were trying to start a family- a humbling journey. The struggle to get pregnant moved on to a surprisingly long wait for an adopted child. My emotional ups and downs are in the palette. Hopes and wishes appear in the light and in the drawings of plants reaching with out-of-season blooms. Barrenness and fertility seem to be elemental themes. The tides and swirling energetic forces join the atmosphere of the landscape and its emotional sweep.
I use an old Polaroid camera from the 1970's and a film that gives me both a negative and a positive. The film acts slowly in the winter cold and tends to develop only half way, solarizing (reversing) the lightest tones. These landscapes come across as otherworldly, more like drawings of a place where twilight holds day and night in an odd balance; the seasons exist simultaneously; water, sky and earth remind each other of their common business. I am attracted to the inter-relatedness of it all, nature's miracle of cooperation.
The photographs are mounted on wood and then sealed in translucent encaustic medium (bees wax w/ a resin hardener). I use etching tools to draw a response to the photograph, filling the etched lines with oil color. Several encaustic layers build an interpreted place, season, and time of day. This process obscures the work's photographic origins, moving more toward the world of printmaking and drawing. I allow myself to use a photographic image up to five times to see what happens each time depending on my internal landscape. I think of these "editions" as families, cousins, or siblings born with the same genes and destined to realize their own potential.
Botanical Studies
January 2, 2006 our son, Milo was born. We were notified right away and picked him up the following day. The emotional waiting game gave way to a period of deliriously happy, if sleepless times.
These pieces show a brighter palette and emotional tone. With an infant in tow, I stayed close to home, exploring the leaves and weeds in my overgrown back yard. As I worked on these botanical studies, I noticed the plant structures’ similarity to human viens and the encaustic surface’s fleshy quality.
Most of these works are made without a photographic ground, using the real size of each plant as a guide to the work’s scale. I traced the plant on my board as a starting point, painting with encaustic and oil colors. I pushed the leaves into the soft wax, transferred Xerox copies to the surface and experimented with carving and adding three-dimensional elements.
Botanomy
Milo’s energy continues to inspire me and add a joyous outline to my life. He loves his daycare three days a week allowing me some time in the studio. These works show a developing series illustrating the relationship between botanical and human anatomies. As global warming becomes a part of our everyday consciousness, I see the plant realm and ours becoming one. Some pieces in this series start as a digital photograph sealed in translucent encaustic medium. I use etching tools to inscribe drawings, adding carbon transfers and glazing the etched drawing with oil color. Other works begin as rice paper dipped in encaustic medium, creating a transparent skin with imagery on both sides.
Stay tuned for new work incorporating botanical elements, and plaster castings from product blister packaging...