In Five Words: Sandi Miot

Curated by Debra Claffey

Green Biome, 2016; encaustic, oil pastel, fiber, dried materials, repurposed materials; 42 x 32 inches

Detail below

joyous

tactile

kaleidoscopic

entangled

opulent

www.sandimiot.com

Editors' Choice: What We're Seeing, Liking, Doing

This new feature is meant to offer short takes on what our editors and writers are responding to at the moment. Where we typically focus on the work and activities of our members, here we explore the larger encaustic community. We hope you see it as a reflection of what interests you as well. 

Steven J. Cabral: Studio view with The Constant Battle Between Me and I, 2016, oil and cold wax on canvas, on the back wall, and paintings from his current series, Ukiyo

Painting: Steven J. Cabral

We open with the work of Steven J. Cabral. A graduate of Massachusetts College of Art and Design (BFA in Painting, 2009), he maintains a studio in Somerville, an artist-friendly city in the Greater Boston area. Steven has created several series of ambitious geometric abstractions--some in oil and cold wax, some in oil and encaustic. Here we focus on the oil-and-encaustic paintings from his recent Ukiyo series. Via taping and scribing, Steven achieves hard-edge, angular compositions reminiscent of Russian avant-garde paintings of the early 1900s but with a palette and sensibility that is very much of the 21st Century. He describes his work this way: "This collective body of works is a synthesis of my inner thoughts and emotions, which are depicted in narrative hues and shapes that capture the fleeting momentary fragments of past, present, and future." See more at stevenjcabral.com. --J.M.

Ukiyo 3, 2016, encaustic and oil on wood, 24 x 30 inches

. . . . .

Resisting: Kim Henigman Bruce boycotts her own show

As artists we spend a lifetime thinking outside the box, often living and working there as well. With the recent U.S. Presidential election—which has affected all three countries in North America—we have found ourselves resisting in ways we haven’t since the 1960s, and in ways younger artists have never done before.

Canadian Kim Bruce was set to travel from Alberta to Seattle for her two-artist show, Material Memories, in March at Frederick Holmes & Company. Instead, with her gallery’s full support, she boycotted her own show to protest Trump’s travel ban.

“Canadians were supposed to be able to travel freely to the States as long as we had a Canadian passport. Turns out this is not true,” said Kim, as she shared plans of her boycott. “If you are Muslim or even a Canadian-born Muslim, you can be questioned and turned back.” In solidarity, Kim stayed home.

You can read more about Kim’s decision here and see more of her work here. – J.M.

Justice, encaustic, fabric, book pages and string, 16.5 x 4.25 x 4.25 inches

. . . . .

Exhibiting at Conrad Wilde Gallery: Resist: The Art of Disruption 

Sean Paul Pluguez, Resident, 2017, taxidermy and spray paint, 12 x 12 x 18 inches

Featuring the work of 16 artists, Resist: The Art of Disruption, at Conrad Wilde Gallery in Tucson, Arizona, was organized and mounted within three weeks in response to the election of Donald Trump. “When the Electoral College did its job with the presidential election, I knew I needed to take action,” said gallery founder Miles Conrad. Resist ran from January 20 through February 25, 2017, and clearly spelled out the gallery’s opposition to the election in its curatorial statement as well as with the work exhibited: 

.

“This exhibit is intended to add to the body of imminent visual culture that is arising in response to and in protest of the obscenely unqualified, divisive and pathological figure that is Donald J Trump. On the levels of policy, rhetoric, and persona, he is widely held to be the most dangerous public figure to ascend to world political power since Adolph Hitler. Never has a presidential inauguration sparked such widespread protest, both in the Unites States and on every continent abroad.” 

The statement closed with this line from the poet Audre Lorde: “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House.”

Above and below: Beate Wehr, Let's Make American Great Again, 2017; found objects, toolbox and sheep shears, 8 x 19 x 8 inches

Although Conrad Wilde Gallery has had other shows with political content, including those intended to raise visibility for women artists and for queer artists, the impetus for the gallery’s first “strictly political exhibition” was clear. “I feel that the principal values that define our country are under siege,” Miles said, and that the checks and balances that would ordinarily restrain unchecked power are quickly disintegrating.”

Response to the exhibition has been positive. “Almost a hundred percent of the attendees at Resist have been supportive,” says Miles. “We've had inspiring conversations with gallery visitors with whom I would normally not discuss politics so candidly. There have been a few people who have walked through the show quickly and left silently. I can only interpret their silence as consent for what is happening.” For more information: www.conradwildegallery.org --Nancy Natale

Binnie Birstein, Just Because You Say It Doesn’t Mean It’s True, 2017, 

oilstick and acrylic on paper, 22 x 30 inches

Studio Visit: Tracey Adams, Monterey, California

Edited by Paula Fava

“My studio is on the second floor of my house, nestled amid the pine trees, half a mile from the Pacific Ocean," says Tracey. I've managed to get a lot into an 800-square-foot space: Takach etching press, inking table, giant Roland Hot Box, and three work tables for cutting, mounting and working."

Tracey Adams putting finishing touches on a 72-by-84-inch commission, Grapheme 6

The studio, she says, has "wonderful natural light" provided by reflection from the ocean and a huge bank of west-facing windows. She also has LED lights for night lighting. Tracey has considered ventilation as well. "Two large fans draw fumes from wax."

Tracey prepping part of a 12-panel installation, 2016, Cause and Effect

Two views of the worktables with works on paper in progress. Left: on the wall, works in collage, ink, and gouache on panel. Right: Long view of the well-organized work space

Books: Agnes Martin's Awareness of Perfection

By Pamela W. Wallace

Earlier this year a retrospective of Agnes Martin's work filled the enormous spiral in the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The sense of excitement and anticipation I felt when I heard about the exhibition kindled a recollection of the first time I was treated to lobster. Initially I couldn't understand the hype. Then I savored the delicacy and developed a craving.

Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim Musem in New York City
Photo: Joanne Mattera Art Blog

While Martin is well known as a groundbreaking artist, her life and work remain enigmatic (to some) and generative of contradiction. I needed to know more about her. Three books were on my shelf, chosen for their varied type and approach to the artist: Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art, by Nancy Princenthal 2015, Thames & Hudson; Agnes Martin, edited by Lynne Cooke, Karen Kelly, and Barbara Schroder, Dia Art Foundation/Yale University Press 2011; and.Agnes Martin Writings, edited by Dieter Schwarz, 1991. Let me share some of what I learned from these volumes.

Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art

Nancy Princenthal's biography  presents a chronology of Martin's life from her birth in western Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1912, to her death in New Mexico in 2004. It is engaging and intriguing as she sorts through conflicting information about Martin's early life and influences. "If she was not the mystic saint some took her for, neither was she altogether adverse to exploiting that reputation," writes Princenthal, who traces Martin's frequent moves between New Mexico and New York City over the following 20 years, detailing what can be known about Martin's friends and her artistic, philosophical, and spiritual influences. 

In 1957, Martin accepted an invitation to show at Betty Parsons in Manhattan on the condition she move back to the city. For the next several years, she was ensconsed in the quiet niche of Coenties Slip on lower Manhattan. Princenthal vividly depicts the artists, their relationships and living conditions in the former bustling port area. She quotes Martin from an article in The Magazine of New York Living:  "When you paint, you don't have time to get involved with people, everything must fall before the work. That's what's wonderful about the Slip - we all respect each other's need to work. The rest of New York? Everybody groans about going into the city and sings when he comes back home."

Issues of Martin's mental health (a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia) and her closeted homosexuality are historically situated to offer insight into her solitary existence, public persona, and her work. Princenthal details the construction of many of Martin's most significant paintings. Convening conversations, historical documents, and decades of curatorial and critical writing about Martin's work, the author succeeds in illuminating not only the work, but Martin's personality, struggles, lifestyle, and numerous contradictions therein—some humorous, some sadly difficult.

Agnes Martin

This volume from the Dia Art Foundation presents a uniquely varied collection of 10 essays by art historians, critics, curators and artists who share a committed engagement with the work of Agnes Martin. The publication arose out of a colloquium in October 2005 during a retrospective organized by Dia's then curator, Lynne Cooke. Cooke initiated discussion by presenting an overview of the chronology of Martin's life citing  the artist’s own writing, which expressed her wish that she be viewed as a classicist. The subsequent essays reflect the individual focus of the authors and the nature of their connection to Martin. They vary from personal and professional recollections to theoretical constructs for viewing and understanding Martin's paintings and her ascetic life style.

Art Historian Douglas Crimp offers a history of his personal experiences with Martin and evolving impressions of her work "Of course, Pat (Steir) and I must have seemed to her just kids. . . I'm not sure why we were there, except we both loved her paintings." Artist Zoe Leonard and Doctoral candidate Christina Bryan Rosenberger speak directly to the work." I find that I cannot look at these paintings in any way that I know how to look,” writes Leonard. On the facture of the work and Martin's mastery of materials, Rosenberger writes, "She intentionally varied the texture of her supports to achieve her desired aesthetic ends."

Essays by Suzanne Hudson and Michael Newman use the language of philosophy to discuss interpretation of Martin's work and the influences behind its creation. Art historians Rhea Anastas and Jaleh Monsoor evaluate critical response to Martin's work. Anastas discusses its place in the canon of art history while Mansoor focuses on how Martin's own words and lifestyle influence critical commentary of her work and persona. Jonathan Katz addresses the unmentionable in Martin's lifetime, that she was a lesbian. He explores his perception of its expression/repression in her paintings.

Professor Anne M. Wagner beautifully concludes this series of disparate essays. She places Martin in a contemporary context citing Martin's own words: "That the cause of the response" [in the viewer] "is not traceable in the work." Further quoting Martin, it is their "conditions," not hers, that trigger their response.  Through this lens, the work of Agnes Martin becomes timeless.

Writings

The final book in this trilogy of reportage is a compilation of Martin's own writings. Writings is a short 160 pages, of which half is a translation into German. It is dense, requiring focused attention. Martin wrote for herself but also for students and the public, delivering numerous lectures, some included here. She writes as a teacher, an artist, a poet, and a philosopher about inspiration, perfection, humility, ego, freedom, beauty, and her beliefs on the requirements to live the life of an artist. "Seeking awareness of perfection in the mind is called living the inner life. It is not necessary for artists to live the inner life. It is only necessary for them to recognize inspiration or to represent it."

If you choose only one of these books on Martin, I recommend Nancy Princenthal's comprehensive overview. The Dia essays offer a broad perspective of inquiry and interpretation with some essays posing a challenge to my level of erudition. Agnes Martin Writings feels more like sitting in a quiet room listening to an extraordinary, if sometimes eccentric, artist and human being.  I think the ultimate approach would be to read all three books, and then park yourself in a room with Martin’s paintings. One of my favorite quotes from Martin is this one: "This painting I like because you can get in there and rest." Dia Beacon has four on display right now and it is just down the road from me. I go there to rest.

More on Agnes Martin
. Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim
. Joanne Mattera Art Blog walk through of the exhibition 

. The Agnes Martin Exhibition Catalogue, edited by Frances Morris and Tiffany Bell available online or at the Guggenheim bookstore 

. Agnes Martin at Dia Beacon 

. In additon to the three books discussed: Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances,  personal recollections by Arne Glimcher, founder of Pace Gallery which represented the artist for many years and now represents her estate

Open Call: Transition and Transformation

By Susan Delgalvis

Mount Redoubt, Alaska, 110 miles southwest of Anchorage 
Photo: Andre Delgalvis

Last year I made a really big move: from Anchorage, Alaska, to Grand Junction, Colorado, and from hematology/oncology physician to full-time studio artist.

My husband, Andre, and I had settled our lives in Grand Junction, Colorado, when a practice opportunity arose for me in Anchorage, Alaska, in 2009. We decided to move to Anchorage, renting out our home in Grand Junction. Although I was a full-time physician, I had become very interested in painting, working first in pastel, then oil and acrylic, and finally settling on encaustic, after taking a workshop with Jane Guthridge in 2008.

In Anchorage I began to work independently. I first rented a studio and then converted part of our garage and other rooms in our house into working space. I began working four days a week as a physician and three days in the studio, continuing to take workshops and attending the annual International Encaustic Conference almost every year. I always returned home rejuvenated.


The artist community in Alaska was very diverse and I forged many enduring relationships. Facebook and Instagram enabled me to participate in a larger and more extensive artist community online. However, I felt confined by geography and affected by the light, which was either too much or too little. In summer, we had to black out our windows to sleep, and in winter, we sat in front of a SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) light whenever possible.

In 2015, after six years in Alaska, I realized it was time to transition to a different focus in my life. I would retire from medicine so I could begin a full-time studio practice by moving back to Grand Junction. Andre, who is a fine art photographer and author, and I, soon to be a full-time painter, were able to fulfill a long-time dream. Returning to Grand Junction, we undertook a major remodel that enabled us each to have full-time studio practice along with shared gallery and living space.

Grand Junction studio panorama: This wax studio is approximately  22 x 23 feet, with an additional painting studio of 12 x 27 feet

Creating studios and enlarging our plans, we opened Studio 2138 LLC, a residential gallery and artist working studio in 2016. We each have separate studios and exhibition space. Andre also has a frame shop. I have a wax studio and another studio for working in oil, pastel, and acrylic. We wanted to present our art in our own style and had many long discussions and resulting negotiations about how artists living together presented a unique set of challenges—nourishing each other while allowing for independence.

Gallery space at Studio 2138 showing Susan Delgalvis’s work

We are promoting Studio 2138 through a number of venues, including social media, open studios, advertising, and recently underwriting an art auction through community radio. We are also involved in the Western Colorado Center for the Arts, where I will start teaching in the fall. I recently became involved with BreckCreate in Breckenridge, Colorado, where I will also be teaching in the near future. We are actively engaged in the artist community with a commitment to sustaining and supporting artists on the Colorado western slope and beyond. In the future we anticipate inviting other artists to exhibit in Studio 2138 while expanding to hosting poets, musicians, and performing artists.

Visiting other studios 

in Colorado, we speak of the “western” and “eastern” slopes, which are separated by the Rocky Mountains. Jane Guthridge is on the eastern slope; I am on the western slope. Recently I visited with Jane in her Denver studio. “The work you see in my studio involves many different media and forms,” said Jane. “I am fascinated by light and am continually exploring it through a variety of translucent and reflective materials.”

Jane Guthridge, Pools of Light 31, 2017; cut Dura-Lar, archival inkjet and encaustic
 on mulberry paper, 36 x 36 inches

I also visited Jeff Julin in his Salt Lake City studio. We discussed the greater artist community, as well as our geographically-defined sensibilities. Jeff and I talked about art having a western sensibility, meaning art related to an environment of openness, a spatial sense affected by the geographic openness we experience in our environment.

   

Jeff Juhlin, Strata & Flow #28, 2015; encaustic, paper, oil, ink on panel, 20 x 18 inches

Jeff noted that despite the spread of the landscape, “there is a geographical restrictiveness in the west—largely due to vast distances between cultural centers— that does seen to make us more isolated.” But the impact on one’s psyche and art are undeniable. “ If you spend a lot of time outdoors in this vast landscape, as I do, with its changing light, extreme weather, amazing geological formations, high mountains and vast deserts, it can’t help but creep into your sensibility and often manifest in some subtle or not so subtle way into your work.”

The Colorado Plateau and its diverse geology have been inspirational to me. I perceive the simplicity of nature, separated into basic elements, and then coming together in a unified image, tethered to our collective consciousness. I have found my community.

Mount Garfield, Colorado, about nine miles from Grand Junction and visible from 
Studio 2138
Photo: Andre Delgalvis  

Back of the Panel

Edited by Nancy Natale

In the Header: Debra Claffey

Edges and Meanders, 2017; encaustic, graphite, pigment stick on Rives BFK paper, 24 x 24 inches

"In this new series of work, I am exploring my emotional and sensate connections to the natural world, specifically the relationship of humans to biota, by focusing on the edges of space and the depiction of time, delineated by line and color. The ingredients in this recipe are plant forms, leaf edges, human-made objects from the tradition of painted still-life, and the hand-drawn line and its implied motion." 

Coming in Issue 17

We're already working on Issue 17, which will be published in early July.
Look for:
. Our regular features, like In Five Words,  Essential Questions. and Studio Visit--edited respectively by Debra Claffey, Jane Guthridge, and Paula Fava
. A curated post by Deborah Winiarski
. Part 2 of  Nancy Natale's interview with Patricia Miranda, Artist-Run Culture 
. A Conversation About Cold Wax, in which Rebecca Crowell, Lora Murphy, Carol Pelletier, Miles Conrad, and Hylla Evans talk to Joanne Mattera about wax that needs no heat to be workable
. And there's a good chance we'll have reports and photos from Conference 11

This painting, in oil and cold wax, is by Rebecca Crowell.

She'll tell you all about it in Issue 17