LOUISA WABER

Watercolour, gouache & pastel on paper, 8 x 9", 2011

What are you working on in your studio right now?

For the past three years I've mostly been working on paper using watercolor, gouache, and ink. Recently I've also gone back to painting with oil on wood panels. The work on paper is small and intimate in scale. I like the freedom and immediacy of working on paper, somehow because it's not as precious as canvas I'm able to be more loose with it, same is true of watercolor and gouache. If something isn't working I can just toss it for the time being and get back to it later. I have lots of work in various stages of completion.

Can you describe your working routine?

Since I'm not able to go to my studio every day, due to family responsibilities and having to work for money (or look for work, which is usually the case) when I am in my studio, I'm very focused and work almost nonstop. My routine also involves drinking a lot of coffee, and listening to music or talk programs on NPR. (I like Car Talk, This American Life and Fresh Air especially) I seem to need another part of my brain to be focused on something else other than the work I am doing, maybe it frees my unconscious or something like that. When I first get to the studio in the morning I spend some time trying to straighten up and organize stuff – paint tubes, brushes, stacks of paper that are strewn everywhere – I'm a very messy painter. On the days I don't go to my studio I work at home at night or early in the morning, at our living room table. Same routine, lots of coffee and music/talk radio.

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?

My studio is in an old, industrial building in East Williamsburg, Brookyln. There are a lot of artists studios on the floor, and a framing business owned by good friends of mine. I know most of the people who are walking around in the hallway so there's a nice friendly atmosphere. I like this in contrast to the privacy of the studio which I also love. The studio is about 500 sq. ft, long and narrow, with one big window with bars on it facing east, and overlooking sides of buildings and rooftops. Some, but not a lot of natural light, A heater in the winter that's a bit noisy. High ceilings and really grungy floors. Some studios look happy, I think mine does.

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

I approach a painting by making a line, a shape, an area of color, then another and another. A straightforward and intuitive process. Each mark is a response to what came before. At some point I am no longer calling all the shots, the painting has something to say, there's a dialogue, and I respond to what it is saying. Whether the painting is finished or not is sometimes unclear – other times it shouts “done.” Frequently I go back into a painting after a pause of weeks or months, often seeing possibilities I hadn't before. I can't repeat a painting. How it came to be is mysterious. I don't usually remember or know how I did a painting. I do know that every stroke or mark can exist only in the moment it was done. Five minutes later it would be a different mark or stroke and a different painting.

Watercolour, gouache & ink on paper, 8 x 9", 2011

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

In general in my life, I'm having the most trouble finding a job that is fairly tolerable and takes up the least amount of my time, with the maximum pay. Is that too much to ask? I would be on cloud nine if I could spend every day in my studio, or at least 5 days a week. On a more technical note, I'm having trouble making larger drawings and paintings. I've been working on a small scale for several years, and I do want to make the work bigger but it's been a difficult so far. Many years ago I did large paintings (6', 7') and at that time I had trouble making small work. I'd like to be able to easily go back and forth and that's been challenging.

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters​​?

I love materials, all kinds of materials. I love wandering up and down aisles in hardware store, considering all the possibilites. I'm fascinated by glazes and varnishes, wax mediums, dry pigmants, all that stuff. I used to work in an art supply store, a long time ago, and it always made a strong impression on me when somebody came in and asked for something exoctic that I´d never used - "damar crystals" for example - even the name is fascinating. Over the years I´ve tried a lot of different materials and probably always will. One thing I´ve wanted to do for a long time is learn how to make paper. I watched a video on YouTube of a guy demonstrating to elementary scholl kids how to make paper and it doesnt look too hard. You need a blender and a screen, I´m going to try it. I am not a purist about materials.

Notebooks 2012

What does the future hold for this work?

What I hope for is abundant time, so I can keep doing the work I love doing. I hope the future holds a wider audience, more shows, and more sales.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

It's amazing how much inspiring work I've discovered on Facebook and various artists' blogs, I feel a connection and kinship with so much of this work, and this is not a feeling I necessarily get when I'm walking around in Chelsea. I've seen a lot of really deeply felt and beautiful work and I feel like there's a conversation going on, and a sense I have that I can be part of this conversation, that what I am doing in my work speaks to what some other artists are doing and vice versa. Of course I'd love to see this work in real life - I don't really like to spend a lot of time on the internet actually.

Thank you Valerie for your wonderful blog and for providing to me the opportunity to share some thoughts and show my work. You are doing a great service to lots of artists, and you're also doing some awesome paintings.

Watercolour, gouache & ink on paper, 8 x 9", 2011

MARTIN BROMIRSKI

Untitled, acrylic, sand & paper on canvas,

20 x 16", 2012

What are you working on in your studio right now?

Small intense freaky little abstract paintings. I'm in a show up now at Storefront Bushwick (through 3/11) and next opening at John Davis Gallery later in May.

Can you describe your working routine?

I generally spend three to five hours at a time in the studio... usually four... it depends how many paintings I have to work on. My studio is not at home and I don't do anything else in this studio... no hanging-out or reading, there's no internet. When I'm getting closer to a show there is more sit and stare time.

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?

I have a sort of narrow room in a barn. It's only a hundred bucks a month although I just got a note saying I owe four hundred oops. I don't necessarily think that the space affects my work... although yeah if I had a different type of space, or an at-home space, results and habits might be a little different. Last year I was planning on having a nice summer outdoor setup on this farm I work on, but I ended up having an opportunity to go to Istanbul for six weeks... so maybe this year. It is isolated... I think three people visited my studio in three years.

Untitled, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16", 2012

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

I order canvasses from Utrecht or Amazon.... making them myself is a pain, and I like how shallow these are, close to the wall... and also I guess because the quality is not that great they start to shred pretty nice. They are easy to handle and toss around, so light. I work on many paintings at once... they are not started all together but ideally are in different stages. First move on a new one is usually to paint the canvas something solid... or glue some colored paper circles to it... or take a piece of mesh and create a grid of colored sand or glitter... or make a couple small slices. Something to disrupt the blank canvas.

 Most of them get taken to the sink and scraped at some point... much or all of the paper/sand/paint on a painting will come off... lots of unexpected things happen. Cuts and holes get created in that process... they end up as is, or get patched with canvas or old clothing, or become an important element and sometimes expanded. If I've scraped all the way down to bare canvas I can stain.

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

I don't really have that problem, or concern. Or I don't think about it that way anyways. Something always happens. Unsettling is better than resolved anyways.

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

I think the former. I mean, I use the same materials repeatedly... but there is constant experimentation and discovery. I like to weird myself out.

Untitled, acrylic, sand on canvas, 12 x 24", 2012

ALAN VAN EVERY

Gawkei, 60 x 50 cm, paintmarker,

glitter & acrylic on canvas, 2011

What are you working on in your studio right now?

I am epoxying some coconut shells together and just gessoed a new canvas. I need to buy some new materials, I tend to work too fast and use up paint way too fast for my economic standing. Coconuts are cheap and epoxy isn’t bad either.

Can you describe your working routine?

I tend to work on one or two things at a time. I work most days for about 2-14 hours. What I mean is, I try to work every day at least a couple of hours. I get kind of obsessed about finishing something when I get going on it and sometimes spend 14 in a row. I rarely ever finish anything in a day or so, though. I find painting a bit faster as you don’t have to build it first, sometimes I do one in the middle of working on a sculpture. They inform each other somehow and that helps me work.

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?

I live in a row house and actually my living room is the studio. It is big enough and I always have done it that way since school (I mean my studio was part of where I lived and I didn’t travel to get there). I like the TV and computer on so I can waste time when paint is drying or I am sitting and looking a little distraction clears my mind and I like sensory overload. Being here in Thailand affects my work more than the actual psychical space that I work in. I do tend to work smaller than I did when I lived in a big place that I felt was my home. I like small work as much as I like big things so that isn’t really that important, some of my favorite things are not that large. I think a ‘big expression” can be gotten out of a very intimate piece.

It is a practicality too, as I feel I will move away and shipping is harder and more expensive with larger works. I do like it here but also think I will go to someplace that feels more like “home” again at some point. In general I did feel that way about NYC and I miss that. I really like some of the natural “trash or junk” here that I use in my work. Bamboo and coconut shells are kind of throw aways and they work well for me. Also there are craft items that I like to use, glass boxes, candle holders and such things for Buddha shrines that Thais use in their homes. There is a kind of folk or handmadeness that I like about these objects. I like that using them and feel as a non Thai contemporary artist it recontextualizes them. In my (relatively speaking) flat paintings, I have been using glitter for about eight or nine years now and years and I feel that one of the attractions of moving here in the first place was seeing the temples with the glass/mirror mosaics and the sort of stacking of forms.

Over The Under, 40 x 30 cm, paintmarker,

glitter & acrylic on canvas, 2011

Detail

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

Well, first of all it really isn’t where I start that is important, it is how I finish things that counts for me. I work pretty improvisationally, but I change up how I start things from time to time. Sometimes I will just drag my brush over a prepared canvas while I am working on another to start it, I really like to use all of my paint and not waste it. Painting to me is about build up and mostly about addition, I think that is why some of my work is completely 3D but I still consider it all as painting. I realize that strictly speaking there is no doubt they are sculptures and that does have a different mindset in the doing and viewing of them but I am a painter first and the sculptures are made to be covered with materials in a painting way. Even the building of them is more like collage to me, which I think of as a painting process. The works are sometimes thought out, in that I have a vague notion of what I want out of the materials and what I am going to do to achieve it but I find working with too much of a plan constraining. I tend to find most of my processes involve some sort of stacking; either forms or illusions or paint. It is kind of about showing how I got to the spot I am at when I finish but also about making it look just right to me. I spend a lot of time looking at things.

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

Usually I have trouble resolving works when I am into like the 4 or 5th thing in a series of related works. I sometimes like to switch up too fast because of that and when I do, a year later I will come to the conclusion that “this work sucks” and paint over it. I try to give that process and time limit a chance, as thoughts about what I did before and work I have done over has changed too. I usually have a notion of what I want out of a piece but I like to surprise myself, so if I don’t feel that as I work, I tend to have more trouble getting trough it. I like the struggle for the most part though. If I just pop one out, I always think the work has kind of a superficialness. It may or may not, in fact but I trust my instinct on that. There are times I just hit something right and quickly but they are few and far between.

Taxidermy Puff, mixed media, 2011

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. I do try things out and see where they lead me. It took experimenting to get me to the processes I use now and I change them sometimes but in general I know what I want when I try a new thing out. In some ways at least technically, I know what I am going to get if I try something new out. It may take a bit of time to perfect it and then develop ideas that come from doing it.

What does the future hold for this work?

I am always trying to grow and learn new things, that is in general what I get out of working, practice and of course, exchanges with others. A bigger audience and more support would be great and I hope and work towards that. I like to work to learn. It usually develops in a kind of cylindrical way, I do new things and find how they work with ideas that always seem to repeat themselves in the work. Most of the time it is not an intentional thing. I think most artists do that after years of working. I hate to be concrete about any statement I might make about the future though.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Thank you for asking me to talk about my work. It is so nice when people take an interest. It is an honor and a pleasure. I love that the Internet has given rise to this kind of exchange and appreciate your doing this Valerie.

Embryonic Fluid, 40 x 30 cm, paintmarker,

glitter & acrylic on canvas, 2012