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A series of work recently emerged as I was working with encaustic on paper. Working directly on rice paper on the hotplate, fantastical landscapes appeared on the monotypes. One thing though, I wasn't working in landscape orientation, but rather portrait. I began to feel as though I was looking through a window, watching the world from inside. Well, go figure. Haven't we all been watching the world from inside a lot lately? Some of the more delicate monotypes I mounted directly onto printmakers paper, two others I worked a little more off the hotplate, so they became a bit more substantial. In the end, they all got matted (and ready for your 11x14 frame) and will be for sale first at the Georgetown Autumn Art Stroll on October 21, then at Art at the Bend on October 22-23. The Stroll is a free event, but if you'd like to attend the Bend show, tickets (which cover food, drink, and entertainment) can be obtained here.

When the shows end, I will be uploading any remaining pieces of Views from Captivity to my art portfolios here on my website. If you can't make it to the shows, please stop by the website after October 23 to check to see what's in the store.

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October is shaping up to be a busy month. I've been doing my best to say "yes" to opportunities, and boy, did I say "yes" to October. Beginning this Friday, on October 1, I will taking part in the Round Rock Chalk Walk Arts Festival. This festival is Round Rock area’s largest and most prestigious festival, drawing over 60,000 people annually to a free event during the first weekend in October.  Round Rock Chalk Walk Arts Festival features hundreds of artists, vendors, sponsors, local and regional musicians, theatrical performances, foods and drinks, and a children’s area with performances.  Round Rock Chalk Walk Arts Festival will be held at Dell Diamond in Round Rock, Texas, where artists and vendors exhibit, showcase and sell their work. I will be at Booth #67 in the art tents by the main stage on Friday from 2:00 to 10:00, and then on Saturday from 9:00 to 7:00. Originally hosted by Round Rock Arts and now sponsored by the City of Round Rock Arts and Culture, Chalk Walk Arts Festival is a showcase for a large variety of fine art, fine crafts and other vendors and provides patrons with the opportunity to meet and talk with the artists who created the work. The focal point of the festival is Chalk Mural Artists creating street paintings, but also includes daily live entertainment with Friday and Saturday concerts, making for a perfect weekend at Dell Diamond! For more information, please visit their website.

Next up will be the Georgetown Autumn Art Stroll on October 21 from 4-8PM. The Stroll will take place in Downtown Georgetown and is an opportunity for patrons to view art and purchase art from artists such as myself in Grace Plaza and the Splash Pad at the Art Center, as well as at local arts businesses and arts and culture organizations. The City of Georgetown Arts and Culture Program will provide an opportunity to engage and participate in the creation of a mosaic mural led by muralist and Texas Commission on the Arts Texas Touring Artist J. Muzacz. Local arts businesses and arts and culture organizations will also offer unique opportunities to engage with their arts and culture programming. Live acoustic music at Grace Plaza will be provided by Jack Flatau. Subsequent art strolls are scheduled for Third Thursdays in April, July, and October of 2022!

Grace Plaza is adjacent to Grace Heritage Center and across the street from the Georgetown Art Center. There are many restaurants in the immediate vicinity – such as Kork Wine Bar, Sweet Lemon, District 6, Thundercloud Subs, and Lampost Coffee – as well as many other options around the Square. Pick up a glass of wine or other beverage at any of these restaurant locations to take along with you as you engage in artistic offerings during the evening art stroll.

The very next day, October 22, I will be relocating my art to Art at the Bend, from 6-10PM on Friday and from 9AM-1PM on Saturday. Art at the Bend is a two-day, ticketed event filled with food, drinks, music, and, most importantly, inspiring, original works of art for sale by local artists. The Riverbend campus will be adorned with creations by painters, metal workers, jewelry designers, photographers, and all kinds of makers. This event is open to everyone in Austin and will support local Austin artists and make affordable art available to all who attend. Riverbend's Women's Ministry sponsors this event, and a small portion of all sales will help fund women's programs at Riverbend.

Three opportunities to see art, have fun, and hopefully drop by my booth to check out lots of new work!

Not a widely used medium, encaustic-based works of art are fairly rare in the marketplace. Just this morning, I cruised over to Etsy and typed in searches for original paintings in oil, watercolor, acrylic, and encaustic. Results were:

     1. Oil: 285,269 results found

     2. Watercolor: 356,183 results found

     3. Acrylic: 321,375 results found

     4. Encaustic: 2,894 results found

Wow. That's even lower than I expected. Why is that? And what draws a person to execute work in wax paint instead of one of these other, more mainstream, media?

My story goes like this.

Not a formally trained artist, I dabbled throughout my life in various creative pursuits as a balance to my scientific life. I sewed. I did various DIY decorative projects around my house. I was one of the first batch of jewelry artists on Etsy while it was in its "beta" versions. (Fun times!! Now it's all big business it seems.) I made handcrafted collage greeting cards. And it was those collages that most frustrated me. "Mixed media" was not the big thing it is now, and there was no internet community of artists like there is now, so I was pretty much on my own. The work was clumsy and non-cohesive, though kinda cute and good to give to loved ones instead of the generic Hallmark cards out there. But I couldn't get them to look the way I wanted - a seamless, single piece of work, rather than bits all glued together. Then one day about 12 or so years ago I happened upon an art exhibit at the Austin airport. There were these luminous creations on display, unlike anything I had ever seen. They were dimensional, glowing assemblages of ephemera and fabric and thread and....what is that holding it all together - "encaustic"? I had never heard of it. But the translucent yumminess of it intrigued me. "THIS is what I want my work to look and feel like," I thought.

It took some time to track down what that medium was and simultaneously find workshops and tutors to get training, but over the course of about a year and a half, I did just that. I took the time to learn from the best at R&F Handmade Paints and others, and I have been in love and painting in encaustic ever since.

Encaustic is not just beeswax, but a combination of beeswax (usually purified, pharmacy-grade) and a natural tree resin called damar, first developed about 3000 years ago by the Greeks. When melted together, the wax and resin have a higher melting point and a higher clarity than that which can be achieved with beeswax alone. Once cooled and cured, the wax/resin mix is also much harder than beeswax, though still very much wax-like. It has a natural matte finish that can be buffed to a high shine if desired (think French wax furniture polish). It is a paint "medium" just as linseed oil is a medium for pigment to make oil paint, or acrylic formulations with pigment for acrylic paint.

But even just on its own, without added pigment, it melds and unifies anything that is compatible with the wax. It is arguably the most versatile art medium. It can be flat and smooth, or rough and highly textured. It can be opaque or translucent, built up into three dimensions (See Lynda Benglis at MoMA in New York, or Laura Moriarty's geologic sculptures), and even carved back (See Karl Kaiser's blog post about his carved work). About the only artist material that doesn't really work with the wax is acrylic (wax doesn't stick to plastic), so the mixed media opportunities are virtually infinite. Because the medium or paint is applied hot, it is "dry" in seconds (great for the impatient), and if you don't like what you see, can be scraped off and even re-used by re-melting. A painting can be done quickly, or executed over a virtually limitless timeline. And did I mention its smell? Oh my, so good.

But that brings me to the downsides. Encaustic medium and paint must be melted to use, so that usually means electricity. (This is not a plein air painting opportunity, unless you're sitting in sunlight to the tune of 170 degrees Fahrenheit.) Melting is done with heated palettes (think pancake griddles), and layers of paint applications must be fused together with either a heat gun, blowtorch, or iron. Because beeswax and damar are natural materials, they produce volatile organic chemical gases when heated, and especially so when overheated. So, a ventilated studio is required with a careful monitoring of the temperature of the melted wax. NOT a hassle-free set up. Because encaustic must be applied to a compatible surface that binds well with the wax, some limitations also apply to the substrates that can be chosen for use. Anything absorbent is good, but if too flexible (like a canvas panel) it can lead to future cracking. Best to paint on rigid substrates like wooden panels, which are expensive, although paper can be successfully used when applications are thin and the paper is mounted to something supportive. The supplies are not readily available at all art stores, and art schools generally don't teach the necessary techniques for both application and safety, so the medium seems unapproachable to many. Lastly, during its 20th century renaissance, a number of artists were not keeping safety in mind as they experimented with it, mixing and heating the wax with various toxic solvents. Encaustic developed a reputation as "toxic" when in fact, it was being abused. So, a lot of barriers are there to keep artists away.

I'm glad I wasn't deterred. Encaustic's luminosity, versatility, and forgiving nature have contributed to important aspects of my artistic voice. We dance together, the wax and I, and I'm honored to have you as witness to my journey with it.

(If you're interested in a short description of the long history of encaustic painting, check out this article by R&F)

I'm sure you did it as a child.....well, I'm still doing it: looking at clouds. Seeing shapes, seeing colors, marveling, as the song goes:

 Ambition in a creative career means different things for different people, but at its heart is a desire to create something "great" - the elusive masterpiece, and perhaps all the acclaim that comes with that. Could there be a single-most important element in an artwork that turns it into a masterpiece?

In a recent blog post by author and artist Austin Kleon he discussed the concept of the "most important thing you do" in terms of building a creative career. I found his words very apt in describing the difference in perspectives between those who are ambitious and those who desire the most out of themselves. Ambition pushes you to some undetermined place in the future. You might even find yourself in circumstances deemed "successful" by others, but there's always more for tomorrow, right? Focusing instead on what is in front of you, creating the best you can in that very moment will most likely lead to better and better as each day unfolds, and each day is a success in its own right, having wrung the best from you.

Kleon presents this quote from author Verlyn Klinkenborg from his book, Several Short Sentences on Writing. Klinkenborg speaks of thinking ahead of the sentence upon which an author is working:

“You’re looking past [the sentence] toward your meaning somewhere down the road,

Or toward the intent of the whole piece.

Somehow that seems more important than the sentence you’re actually making,

Though your meaning and the intent of the whole piece

Depend entirely on the sentence you’re making.

In fact, you’re distracted from the sentence by your intention

And by wondering how soon you’ll be done.

You’re distracted from the only thing of any value to the reader.”

I'd like to subtly paraphrase for visual artists:

“You’re looking past your mark toward your meaning somewhere down the road,

Or toward the intent of the whole piece.

Somehow that seems more important than the mark you’re actually making,

Though your meaning and the intent of the whole piece

Depend entirely on the mark you’re making.

In fact, you’re distracted from the mark by your intention

And by wondering how soon you’ll be done.

You’re distracted from the only thing of any value to the observer.”

Each mark laid down is the most important....until the next one. And so a painting builds, one important mark at a time.

Faith -the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For me faith is not about a particular religious set of doctrines or practices, but as described in this passage from Hebrews in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. There has been a grounding in my life that tends towards a sense of security and abundance through a connection that I felt when I learned as a child that "God is Love."

I have always understood my father to be the root source of my faith, so it made sense to me that he showed up in these three works that eventually revealed themselves to be about faith. I in fact did not know what this series theme was until I created all the pieces for “resilient,” and the aha moment came. An archive of family papers had come to me following the passing of my mother (my father had been long passed) – Mom really kept everything with any hint of emotional connection. So, yes, I have all my report cards, every greeting card sent to them from me, every letter. In the stash was a typewritten sermon written and given by my father to a family reunion gathering in 1974. I made copies of that wonderful old typewriter typeface and used it as a unifying collage element in all three resilient pieces. The text itself was not a particularly remarkable piece of oratory, but his closing words exemplified the faith life he demonstrated and blessedly, passed on to me – “Beloved, if God so loved us, even so let us love – not in word, but in deed.” (paraphrase from 1 John 3:18)

So, the last series created for the residency, Faith:

Lost – Always in Trouble

Healed – Growing to be a Man

Resilient – Standing on the Promises

My paternal grandfather and his family now stand proxy for all those whom I have loved and lost as he and my father’s family have all now passed. That which takes away has been painfully and abundantly obvious in these pandemic times as we have fought a war with a microbiological enemy. Healing and resilience have come to me through family, both the family I was born into, and the family I have made through life.

Lost: Off to War

Healed: Walter Met Helen

Resilient: Walter and His Girls

Home is where the heart is. Home for the holidays. Home sweet home. Homesick. There's no place like home.

The first series that emerged during the creative process in my residency concerned a concept of home. I reacted with somewhat strong emotions to a very faded picture of an old home in my collection of family photos. I don't even know whose home it was. Having lived in 28 different places in my lifetime, my sense of “home” has never had the opportunity to be tightly connected to a single location. In fact, at one point in my family’s life we found ourselves homeless and taken in by relatives for a year. Only ten years ago did I move into what I hope will be my forever home, or as close to it as I can manage as end-of-life issues emerge. It is the first address that I have had for double-digit years. Am I "Home"?

Healing so many lost place connections in my life has always been facilitated for me through my relationship with my younger sister who shares my “nesting” tendencies and tastes. Antiquing, thrifting, DIY-ing....Martha Stewart ain't got nothing on these two girls. But my lifelong transience has shown me, time and time again, that “home” is not in fact a place at all, but rather wherever I am with those I love.

Series Home:

Lost: Homestead

Healed: Sisterhood

Resilient: Home is Wherever We're Together

I just googled "what does the color red mean" and pulled up about 4,620,000,000 results in 0.70 seconds. Whew. Over four billion results? Who knew it meant that much? But as an abstract expressionist painter, I believe that all I really need to know is what red means to me. And pink, yellow, cerulean, puce, vermilion.....name any color, and I want know how that relates to my interior landscape so that I can paint with a visual language that is authentic for me. If one certain shade of one certain color evokes a specific memory or emotion for me, perhaps it speaks the same for someone else who sees that color. I believe it is one of the most important ways I can connect through my work to someone observing it. A shared color "language" means the observer is going to "get me" and understand my point of view in the work. But what's even more delicious is that someone with a different color language might see something completely different than me, and their experience with my work will be just as valid, but with a potentially different meaning from my intention as I painted. I find that one of the most remarkable aspects of art - that it can be both a connecting experience as well as an expansive one.

Most days, when I paint it is completely intuitive and in the moment. As I paint and consider what I'm feeling about what I've started with, and basically just say - hey, what would look good next? Or what would feel good to play with next? The color story grows in response to those intuitive impulses and responses.

Sometimes, though, as I did with the body of work I created for my Enso Circle residency, I wanted the works to have an intentional point of view at the beginning, rather than waiting for it to emerge out of my unconscious. How did I develop, then, a conscious understanding of my own personal color language?

It began with a simple process for me. I created an inventory of emotion pairs, inspired and bored, for example, and meditated on each word. Did scenes appear in my mind? The more I could see in these mind-pictures, the more I could see common elements and colors. I used my journal to capture descriptions of these scenes and as accurately as I could a description of the colors in them. If there was a red color, was it bright? Bold? Warmish/orange? A shaded burgundy? Every nuance was important. The reason I chose to do pairs is that so I could eliminate any colors that might be common to both sides. You might think how is it that inspired could be the same color as bored, but I found as I worked through the pairs, some common colors like white, black, and gray were truly neutral for me, and some were not. In the end, I created lists of colors for 26 pairs of words. To see a list of the feeling pairs, click here.

To stay true to a specific intentional emotional viewpoint, I selected a color palette for a given work from my list of colors from the exercise, assuring a full value range and color harmonization. I found the resulting work to be especially resonant for me. In fact, after I completed my series on the theme of "lost", I felt a profound sense of pain and sadness. Nailed it!

In March, I was accepted into the online artist residency program, The Enso Circle. It has been a thrilling experience working with eleven other artists along with residency facilitators Michelle Belto and Lyn Belisle. It will all wrap up soon with the release of the catalog on May 30. The opportunity to join the residency came just in time to get me rebooted into active art making. As a resident, I needed to make concrete goals, and the weekly assignments and check ins kept me on task. I will be forever grateful for the experience.

And boy, did I set out with an aggressive agenda for myself. What is else is new, right? Having always been the intuitive painter, rebelling against intentional images or content, what did I pick for myself? Intentional art. Too ironic. But stay with me....there's a happy ending.

I could see from all across the artistic community - from friends to popular vlogs and podcasts - the pandemic has thrown almost everyone off their game. For me, I was deeply weighed down by overwhelming pessimism. Prior to 2020, I considered myself resilient, and yet by 2021, after the extended isolation and unrelenting powerlessness I felt in the pandemic, I called that resilience into question. I asked myself - What is the nature of strength in the face of loss? I found myself thinking about those who came before me, those whose roots from which I sprang, the starting point for the path of my life, and I found my reflection in the faces of old, sometimes faded and fuzzy, family photographs.  I saw them lost in the fog and miasma of pain and disconnection as I recalled the loss of family members and connections to traditions and places.  I knew them to be healed through the fragile bonds of love and sometimes just hard-fought perseverance through the passage of time. I felt the betrayal of that oft-repeated but never true – time heals all wounds. I have learned from experience that healing is not just “kiss and make it better” and resilience is not just “bouncing back.”

So, for the residency, I set my sights on creating a new body of work, based on the themes of "lost," "healed," and "resilient." Furthermore, I decided that each theme needed a unique visual language thoroughly vetted in my own psyche, and each theme needed to be executed in a different medium. I took as inspiration my own family photos and found stories to tell about home, family, and faith. Join me in the next blog posts as I reveal my processes for visual language development and post the final outcome of works created.