And then there were two...

Forbidden Fruit
Panel 4 of 4

My new definition of Artistic Bliss is when the ideas are coming so fast that you have to make notes on the back of your grocery list and junk mail envelopes.  : )  I will never understand why sometimes the ideas just flow out of the ether faster than I can capture them on paper and then other times I am convinced that the creative well is permanently dry.  I'm sure all creative types experience this problem. 

This past month, the saying "Creativity does not happen in a vacuum" has been proven to me many times over.  Opportunities for shooting, location hunting, prop shopping, and collaboration have come my way from many good friends.  Each meeting has sparked so may new ideas, that I've had to go buy a new notebook to contain them all.  It's purple - the color my 6th grade teacher assured me was a favorite only of insane people.  Ah Mrs. Bachtel - what odd memories you have left in my brain...

I have completed my first collaborative art experience with fellow photographer, Rene Hales!  The entire experience went really well.  My cynical side thinks that this has to be unusual.  Our only hiccup was caused by the company we used to obtain the metal that is backing our prints.  They graciously corrected their error in time for us to finish by our deadline.

We spaced out the work and met regularly making what Rene pegged as "baby steps" each time we got together.  Even with our deadline approaching, I never felt rushed or stressed out.  There was a lot of testing involved because we both went out on a limb and tried some new things.


We used Yes paste as the glue.



This was my first time mounting a print to dibond metal.  Dibond is a lightweight aluminum composite panel that has a different metal finish on each side and a tiny layer of thermoplastic core sandwiched between.  I was a little skeptical at first but the bonus to using the metal was that we could get it cut to odd sizes and it weighs a lot less versus having a wood board.  It turned out much easier to glue the print to metal than to wood.  I had no air bubble issues and it was easy to smoosh around on the metal to find the perfect placement while the glue was still wet.   

The brayer was useful to make  sure the print made
full contact with the metal after we applied the glue.

We applied painter's tape to 1/4 inch border around the print where the metal was showing so we would not get wax on the metal.  There were two reasons for this.  1) I didn't want to have to worry about the wax not sticking to the metal, and 2) we deckled the edges of the prints before we glued them down and I wanted to make sure they still stood out once waxed.

After all the prep-work, the real fun began.  We applied several coats of encaustic medium - fusing between each layer.  Then we used oil sticks to add color, deepen contrast, and highlight areas of each image.

I was having so much fun that I hated to see it end.  But there is new work on the horizon!  Next, Rene and I will be working along the same vein to complete an entirely new body of work for a two person show coming in Spring 2013.  I am extremely grateful to Rene for asking me to collaborate with her.  The experience has caused me to take a step back and reassess how and what I shoot.  Rene's invitation to collaborate came at the perfect time to allow me to test new skills and reconnect with photography in a more traditional way.  Instead of covering figures in collaged photographs, I am capturing an entire image in just one frame and completing the narrative with beeswax, paint, and texture.  

Rene and I will each have one of our regular pieces and also the 4 panel collaborative piece Forbidden Fruit on display starting September 21, 2012, at the M.S. Rezny Gallery & Studio in an exhibit called "Collaborate!".

Forbidden Fruit by Rene Hales & Melissa Hall

Perceiving the world through a lens

Who thought I'd be lured out to shoot in August after the way July went?  Well, thanks to a cold wave, I've been gleefully snapping away.  While processing images, I started looking back to my earlier prints and comparing them to what and how I shoot now.

Moving back to Kentucky about 5 years ago set my feet onto a slightly different path photographically.  My art journey started in Florida which is sort of like being a kid handed the really large box of crayons.  Everywhere you look, colors are abundant, huge prehistoric-looking plants practically grow while you are watching them, and there are a plethora of strange reptiles and majestic birds.  Moving back North forced me to try new methods as well as subjects.



Many new, gracious friends have introduced me to the most amazing sites and history lessons in and around Lexington and for that I am truly grateful.   Decay in Florida usually meant colorful rust and sun-bleached painted surfaces.  Decay in Kentucky is more subtle and harder to spot for someone used to looking for psychedelic colors crying out for attention.  After photographing a number of decaying houses, I've also started to discover that they have distinct personalities just like human models.  What's on the inside can be very different from my first impression of what's outside...  Here's an example from a recent expedition.  The outside of the house gave an impression of a whimsical architect gone bonkers.  The inside of the house, while not lacking in character, lent itself more to quiet, introspective, sepia-toned black and white images.

Shooting abandoned, derelict houses and buildings has started to teach me to loosen up.  It's in my nature to go into a shoot with expectations, but those carefully made plans are usually tossed out the broken window of the mysterious dwelling I've cautiously entered.  You never really know what you might encounter.  I've been amazed by grand sweeping entryways with woodwork that makes you want to weep, but then again I've also been struck dumb by walls swathed in cheap moldy paneling.  Getting to experience this most recent house was humbling because I spent my time there knowing that the house was scheduled for demolition just days after my visit.

Okay, enough pontificating on the wonders of neglected Kentucky whiskey baron's mansions and distilleries!  I am one month away from my next encaustic workshop with Bridgette Guerzon Mills in Chicago.  This has certainly been a great year for getting to attend some workshops! 

I'm also currently working on a collaborative project with fellow photographer, Rene Hales.  During our work sessions, I have learned a new lesson concerning photography and encaustics.  Sometimes soft, overexposed images work really well when coated with wax!  The dreamy quality is enhanced and the light from the image glows beneath the wax.  Hurray for happy accidents and artistic playtime!  Below is a teaser from the project which will be on display September 21, 2012, at the M.S. Rezny Gallery & Studio in an exhibit called "Collaborate!".

Who turned the thermostat to Hell?

The world works in mysterious ways - clichéd but true.  I've finally had my first meaningful combination of photography and my new encaustic skills, but it took a heat stroke and exhaustion to pull it together. 

Let me back up a bit and explain the past few weeks and their effect on my life.  During the past 4 weeks there has been no let up.  I shouldn't complain because mainly it has been good stuff - art workshops, openings, visits from family and friends, and one slightly over-wrought photo shoot.  It was the photoshoot that finally did me in.  A show deadline and the opportunity to shoot in an amazing location killed the tiny voice of logic inside my head whispering "Its over 100 degrees outside...you really shouldn't shoot in a 3 story house that smells like roasted bat guano!"  I blame the recently art engorged right hand side of my brain for squashing the sanity my left hand side was trying to provide.  Needless to say, the photoshoot didn't exactly go as planned.  Out of a 3 page list of image ideas, I got one possibly useful shot and I wasn't paying attention to some pose tweaking I should have done for that shot to be perfect.  Ug! <Insert scream here.>  The backlash for these activities and brain baking craziness was an art block.  Ideas stopped flowing, photoshop and paintbrushes alike betrayed me, and that little negative voice disguised in the back of my head as me but with a goatee had a field day.  I did all I could do.  This past weekend I threw in the towel and slept at least 12 hours both days.  There is light at the end of this fried tunnel at last!

In desperation to do something productive, I shot the interesting bits of an unfinished piece from Arrowmont.  Its one of those pieces where it was a great learning experience and I want to explore the idea more somewhere down the road but its not something I want to hang on the wall - you know?  

 

Perhaps I should not be surprised that in my bout of artistic despair, my saving grace would once again be digital collage - aka slapping textures onto a form.  That is the place to where I always, eventually return.   Hallelujah!  The thing about home is once you return, its the one place where they have to let you in. 

Below is a sneak peak of a couple of digital pieces where I used an encaustic painting for texture.  When I started exploring encaustic about a year ago, it was to get my hands dirty and use my photography to make one of a kind pieces away from the computer.  I still haven't given up on that idea, but I won't turn down the occasional gift from my muse either.

Arrowmont Workshop Week



What a handsome group!

Wow...I don't have a clue where to start.  This past February was my 40th birthday and my dear parents sprang for a week long workshop at Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, TN as my gift.  Zowee!  Even they didn't realize quite what they had purchased for me. 

The workshop was an amazing, intense, inspiring experience.  K Rhynus Cesark was our instructor.  She is one of those people with infinite patience when explaining concepts and procedures.  K was extremely generous with her knowledge and skills, and I will have more on that later.  My fellow classmates were an astonishing blend of skilled artists from varied backgrounds.  An atmosphere of camaraderie, anything-goes creativity, and problem solving quickly developed during the week.



The first thing we learned was to make our own medium and encaustic paint.  In the past, I have felt hampered by the cost of pre-made encaustic paint.  This new skill will help me move toward larger works in the future.  (Thanks to Becky Dickovitch, K's assistant, for keeping the medium cooking all week.)

Oil paint on paper towels.

K gave various demonstrations each day and then we had free time to attempt the ideas that intrigued us the most.  I was happy to have so much room to spread out.  This is the first workshop where I've had an entire table to myself.  The venting of the large room could probably have been a little better.  The air kind of condensed toward the back of the room by the end of the day.  Break taking was a necessity. 

K during one of her demonstrations.

Inspecting the drawing transfer demo pice.



K with a propane torch.



My messy workspace.



My classmates had wonderfully imaginative ideas and were pretty fearless when it came to execution.

 Leah Mayer encasing insects in wax for her bee transfer project.

Leah removing paper from her xerox transfer of a bee.



Above is Lynn Bland showcasing her amazing sense of texture and detail - and guess what?  The painting on the left came home with me as a trade!!!  Happy Dance!!!  I feel a twinge of guilt because I definitely got the better end of that deal.

LeeAnn Love is an art therapist who came to work on her own art.  There were a lot of breakthroughs during the week and it was fun watching LeeAnn arrive at hers.  Oh yeah - LeeAnn's a confirmed pyromaniac now!  Ladies, guard your propane torches...

K demo-ing a batik tool to make marks.

K took pity on me and used my rice paper/image sandwich research idea as a demo.  Below are the pictures of the suprisingly detailed process.





Becky set up a  lasagna pan of melted medium to dip and coat my rice paper image.  K used clothes pins to slowly guide the paper through the wax.



K held up the piece to allow the extra wax to drip and then laid it down on a flat surface covered in wax paper.


Out came K's favorite tool - the razor blade - to remove the extra ridge of wax.

Here's the textured surface picture already glued to it's board and coated with two coats of uneven wax by me.



K painstakingly used a heat gun and her razor blade to smooth my wax job to a glassy surface finish.  That was amazing to watch.  I really worked to be in the smooth surface wax club the rest of the week!



K even moved to the window for better light to remove any possible imperfections.

For the final step, K used wax paper on top of the wax-coated rice paper print to burnish and finally did a very careful fuse.  The rice paper wasn't quite as transparent as I had hoped, but I think the idea has a lot of promise and I will start smaller and continue to work on it.

Inspiration was everywhere on the campus.  These clay tiles lined the entrance to the pottery studio.  Daylilies and gladiolas were planted right outside the window of our painting studio.

How could you do anything but laugh with Leah as your table neighbor?  She kept me grooving with music and even shared her box fan when I thought I was going to melt into a puddle of sweat on the floor next to my griddle.

Finally!  Bubbles!  I have been wondering how to do this technique for months...  All it took was a lot of opaque paint layers and some patience with the torch.  Have I mentioned lately how much I love my torches???  Oh yes!  Burn baby, burn!  I made the discovery this week that different torches have different flames.  My little torch ended up having a laser-like flame tip that was especially good for pinpoint needs.  I preferred fusing with the larger torch since it's flame spread out more.

The message Polly Cross wrote to herself at her desk could have easily applied to me!  Her work certainly did not end up tight but colorful and whimsical.  Polly also conquered her fear of the torch during the week.

I got to enjoy Gloria McCracken's wonderfully dry sense of humor.  She had to think I was nuts because I kept walking by her table to pet a piece she was making with an orange stencil.  The 3 rectangular pieces she presented at our final critique had a lot of depth.

 



One of my classmates remarked - It's the quiet ones you have to watch.   I enjoyed watching Pam draw and methodically work on her pieces all week, but it turned out that she had a wicked sense of humor!



Unlike any other encaustic workshop I've ever had, this class had a 3D component.  We cast wax as hollow and 3D forms!  What a new way to think about design - fabulous!  I made the face on the left and K made the houses on the right.




A fellow student and amazing sculptor, Denise Buckley, showed me how to prep my plaster mold so that it would release the wax and how to carefully build up enough wax in the mold to make my hollow torso strong.

As the week went by I had to keep visiting Denise's table to spy on what she was doing.  These wonderful clay heads kept popping up.  She works in bronze and with the price of metals skyrocketing was attempting to develop a bronze patina look with encaustics and oil paint.  She certainly succeeded. 

One of my other table neighbors, Pam Hodge, is a realistic watercolor artist but during the course of the week made some lovely, loose encaustic paintings.  I was especially drawn to the yellow collage piece below with the great negative space. 

Pam was my studio buddy most nights.  We seemed to get tired around the same time and kept each other company on the long crawl back to our dorm rooms.

Alicia Voisin was another quiet one to watch.  I saw her doing a lot of scraping but her work had such lovely textured finishes. 

Our hardworking teaching assistant, Becky Dickovitch, had a way with textiles.  Her light and airy pieces had such a beautiful color palette.

Below is one of the stoneware pieces I made to take to this workshop.  I can certainly say that I will continue to play with wax on a bisqueware surface.  This was such a fun thing to try.  It gave me a much more immediate and controlable result compared to fired glazes.

It turned out Kevin Schultz was a fellow photographer in the workshop.  We had some great Photoshop discussions.  She and Trish Korte arrived together and were a hoot!  Under the small world category, Trish and I figured out we are in a show together next month at the Pyro Gallery in Louisville.  Wild huh?



Kevin photographing Denise's work.

On the left is Kevin's in-progress piece with shellac burn and solid cast baby heads as the Queen and the Pirate King.   Kevin's beautiful book on the right also has a red wax cast Asian coin on the cover.

I think Trish has to get the most prolific award from the workshop!  You just can't have much more fun than creepy babydoll heads!  She didn't present the figural piece on the right at the final critique but it caught my eye all week.

I was envious of Peggy Leland's workspace during the workshop.  She was the most organized of the students.  She had taken a workshop with K before so she filled us in on what to expect when we had questions.  I really liked her ferris wheel piece with the ghosted image transfer in the background.

Elizabeth Garlington (below) was the one person who brought even more stuff to the workshop than I did!  Her breakthrough came later in the week and she was moved to tears when she completed the two pieces below.  I told you it was an intense week!

Emily Nickel also came to the class from a clay background.  I was astounded with her fairytale based narrative work.  During the class, she came up with a wonderful way to color her ceramic pieces with watercolor, oil paint, and a little encaustic that made for a surface that wasn't exactly matte but wasn't glossy either. 

I had a few preconceived notions about what I wanted to do while at Arrowmont.  I have had an artist block where collage is concerned for years.  In my mind, I could see combining my photography with many other materials to achieve a seamless end product.  I drug my feet all week but finally attempted a collage piece.  While I don't think this is done, I am really happy with the progress I made and plan on working down this route much more in the future.

This is a combination of one of my photographs, pattern paper, torn book pages, colored mulberry paper "borrowed" from Pam's stash, and a lot of encaustic paint.

I miss you guys.  What a wonderful week! 

Thanks K and Arrowmont for such a wonderful experience.