JOEL LONGENECKER

Cigar Envy, 40" x 30", oil on linen, 2012 - 2013

 

 

 

 

What are you working on right now?

 

 

Since last January 2012, I’ve been working on a bunch of medium sized canvases ranging from 40” x 36” to 54” x 50”.  As I finish some I start others, so I’m now at the point where I’ve got maybe two dozen or so finished paintings. This is the first work I’ve done since moving upstate in 2010 after living in New York for 20 years. I had to put my studio work on hold as we made that transition. When I started working again, I began where I had left off, but it just didn’t feel right.  I went through a period of rejecting and reworking everything.  When things did finally fall into place, I ended up with the densest, most heavily-worked surfaces I’ve ever made.

 

 

 

Can you describe your working routine?

 

 

When I start my day in the studio, I usually have a pretty clear idea about what I need to focus on from the previous day’s work.  It’s usually midmorning before I’m in the studio, and by that time, I’m anxious to get started.  So mornings are generally not my time for serious looking and thinking.  I wait until I’m done working for the day and then I’ll sit down and look things over and plot my next move.  Once I’m into it, I like to keep the momentum going.  Spontaneity is everything, and it’s a struggle to find the path from control to freedom.   I try to get to the point each day where I’m working freely, taking risks in the work, and letting the painting lead me where it wants to go.  When all of these things come together, I’ve had a great day in the studio. 

 

 

 

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

 

 

I’m after an organic, generative process where one thing slowly leads to another with each piece resolving itself in it’s own way.  Working like this makes it impossible for me to duplicate what I’ve already done, keeping the process open and alive.  I always start several things at once, but am careful to quickly fold them into the work that is already in progress.  In a sense, my work never “starts” or “stops”, but instead is more like a continuous loop in which things are cycled in and out.  Ultimately, what I want is for the paintings to look like they’ve created themselves, much like a tree, or any other bit of nature, that slowly grew into it’s final form.   

 

 

 

 

 

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


As I mentioned previously, we moved in 2010 and building a studio was part of that project.  My wife is also an artist, so we needed a space that would accommodate both of us. The building is barn-like, with my studio on the ground floor and my wife’s on the second floor.  We were able to design the studios to provide maximum storage and working areas. My studio has a wall of glass on one side, two good walls with high ceilings, and the fourth wall is lined with painting racks. I work in the same spot by the bank of windows every day.  It’s been very different working here compared to working in the city. It’s so quiet, and the feeling of open space and the light is very different.  Strangely, my work has become denser and darker in this setting.


What are you having the most trouble resolving?


Over the years, I’ve made many large paintings.  I like working on a large  scale because it enables me to create an enveloping space.  Whenever I make smaller ones, it seems like I have to work longer and harder to resolve them, which I always find a bit ironic.  Now however, I have the opposite problem. As the surfaces have become denser and the marks smaller and more embedded in the ground, the larger paintings have become more challenging for me to resolve.  On the bigger paintings, the individual marks play a lesser role, especially when interacting with the dense surface, making it more difficult to clarify the structure and space.

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

I like using traditional media; watercolor, pastel, charcoal and especially oil paint. 
I work with these same materials year after year.  I love being able to pull a painting out of my storage racks that I made years ago and think about how it relates to what I’m doing today.  The fact that my materials have remained constant becomes a kind of equalizer, enabling me to see more easily the changes in form, space, light, and color that have happened over the years. 

 

 

What does the future hold for this work?

 

 

In the short term, I’m looking forward to the next step as I bring some larger canvases into the mix and expand upon what I’ve done this year.  And in the long term, I know that it will take what seems like an eternity for me to be able to “see” my own work.  So, it’s too early to tell what my work from this past year will lead to. What I do know is that this is an excruciatingly slow process, one full of contradictory and opposing forces, like the immediacy of the day to day work, juxtaposed with the slow process of gaining insight into it.  It’s kind of like a scroll, unraveling bit by bit, revealing more each day.

 

 

 

 

Magic Mountain, 54" x 50", oil on linen, 2012 - 2013

 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

 

Thank you Valerie for giving me this opportunity to talk about my work.  And thanks for creating this blog which has introduced me to the work of so many great artists!

Here are a few images that relate to what I’ve been thinking about...

Vincent Van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885

 

I love the empathetic relationship that Van Gogh has with his subjects. When I look at a Van Gogh painting, I forget that I’m looking at a painting. 

 

 

Soutine, Hill at Ceret, 1921

 

Soutine’s juggling act of balancing structure and control with total abandon is a constant source of inspiration. I love it when he stops describing things logically and the paint takes on a life of it’s own.

 

 

 

 

Marsden Hartley, Evening Storm, Schoodic Maine No. 2, 1942

 

I love Hartley’s spiritual connection with nature.

 

 

 

 

Philip Guston, Black Sea, 1977

 

I love the way Guston pushes paint around on a surface as if he’s modeling forms out of clay.  I always get the sense that he’s surprised himself by what’s emerged.






JERED SPRECHER

Held Close, 40 x 44", 2012

 

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?

 

 

I have eleven paintings in process kicking around the studio at the moment, plus a larger 7’ x 5’ painting that is in a holding pattern. I am building and finishing a table to use for one of my tabletop constructions of arranged drawings and found objects. Recently, I completed two prints. One is a woodcut that my friend Justin Quinn helped me print up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. We did four runs on the print and completed it in just two days. The other print was a more experimental print using inkjet and Xerox. It is a “double exposure” of an image of three doves. I think the images and forms from both prints are going to double back into the paintings that are in process in the studio. In February my solo show, “I Always Lie” opened at Jeff Bailey Gallery. The back wall of the gallery features an arrangement of ten paintings. Each painting needed to stand on its own and exist in a larger group. My goal was a sense of compression by hanging several paintings close together on one wall, while the rest of the gallery was relatively spaced out. I find myself thinking about the relationship between that back wall, the arrangements on the tables and my painting practice.

 

 

 

 

 

Upon the Sea, installation, 2011

 

 

 

 

Can you describe your working routine?

 

 

I alternate between studio days and teaching days and that really sets the rhythm for each week. On studio days I go into the studio at 8am. It takes me time to warm up to the idea of painting. I will read for twenty minutes or so and then start mixing paint or looking at the decisions I made during my last studio session. Being in the studio on the early side is wonderful. I relish the moment when I look at the clock and it is 10am and I have already made major decisions and progress and I still have a whole day to work. Around 4pm I stop painting to spend time with family, tend to professional and teaching responsibilities and then sometimes sneak in a little more studio time.

 

 

 

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

 

 

Right now I keep two studios here in Knoxville; one is at the University of Tennessee where I am on faculty. I use this space for larger paintings and projects. This is a nice space, high ceilings with windows looking towards the mountains. I am really pushing to do larger more ambitious paintings and this space definitely provides the room to work at a larger scale. I have several completed 7’ x 5’ canvases and an 8’ x 6’. There is also an 8’ x 20’ canvas prepped and ready to go.

 

My other studio space is at home. A little over a year ago, my wife and I decided to turn our garage into a studio space. We have three little boys and I wanted to be around them as much as possible, but still be able to get time in the studio. It is great. The space has a concrete slab floor, with four windows and about 500 sq ft divided between two rooms. I use the larger front room to work on paintings and larger works on paper. I have three open walls in the studio that I can work on and have paintings hanging around the room. The back space has a long table and it is where I work on small drawings, sort through source material, and store supplies. Having the dedicated space to work at home helps me get a lot accomplished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

In the studio, I do not think about making a series or making a show. There are generally 15-20 paintings in process at any point. I may not touch one of them for several months or even a year or more, but they are waiting around just in case. Paintings usually start from two different places. Some paintings begin with a found image, something like a quilt, gemstone, graffiti, architectural photograph, or child’s drawing. These source materials are starting points for the paintings. I paint from these source materials to find a way to understand the original image or object and my attraction to it.

 

The other way that paintings start is less structured and often results from taking left over paint and applying it to empty canvases. It is a strange mix of thrift and feeling around in the dark, trying to find a painting. Whether starting from a predetermined image or by “blindly” scrubbing and scrapping at an empty canvas with paint, I find that the two processes often meet somewhere in the middle as paint and image contend with each other on the surface of the canvas. Lately I have been thinking about how these two approaches relate to inductive and deductive reasoning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

 

 

I have this large canvas around 7 feet tall and I have literally been stuck on it for a year now. It has layers of transparent patterns on it and negative spaces that create four large circles and it needs a seismic change, but I have not found it yet, it is so frustrating but so exciting at the same time, trying to figure out what it needs, but not overdoing it at the same time. These “problems” are some of the most exciting things about painting.

 

 

 

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

 

 

Yes and yes. New materials and approaches are great because they get me out of my habits and comfort zone and inform my eye and hand about what I do and do not know. But parameters like paint and canvas can be just as freeing and informative; they force me to imagine the infinite possibilities within a closed set of limitations.

 

 

 

 

 

I Always Lie, installation, 2013

 

 

 

 

What does the future hold for this work?

 

 

This summer I am going to be spending two months in residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. I am excited to live and work in west Texas, soaking in the striking, natural environment. I will spend time exploding my practice and pushing boundaries. While I do not know the exact ways the work will be impacted by this experience, I look forward to the twists and turns that wait.

 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

 

Thank you, Valerie, for the opportunity to be part of this project.

 

Here are some images from my catalog of source material that I use in the studio:

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 



DOUGLAS WITMER

What are you working on in your studio right now?


The last 12 months have been very busy producing and exhibiting work, but at this moment I am packing my studio in order to move it.  I've been working in a space within my home for the past 7 years.  I'm moving to a newly converted studio building about 10 blocks away from where I live in West Philadelphia.  My home studio is really great, but the time has come for a little more work space and separation between work and family life.



Can you describe your working routine?


With the impending move this is likely about to change drastically.  The past few years I have tended to make work in groups and often driven by external due dates related to exhibitions.  So it doesn't feel "routine" in the way that I imagine or idealize a routine to be.  In addition to my studio work I'm quite involved with running a small family business and parenting my three children.  I have to switch gears constantly all day every day.  However, my home studio has allowed me to be physically in the same place as my work at some point every day.  Whether or not I am working with my hands in the studio, I have been able to have a daily relationship to my art through actually seeing and considering it.



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


My current and future studios both have plentiful daylight. I feel better and work best during the daytime (even though I also work at night). Daylight is a "light" kind of light. Light light vs. heavy light…whatever that means…that's what I go for in my work. Even in more darkly-colored work, I still want it light. Music is important in my space. I usually have headphones on when working. I keep some of my musical instruments in the studio, too. I title my paintings after lyrical phrases from the music I play when working.

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

Even though my current work may be categorized as geometric, I think I'm quite "gestural" in my approach to it. Almost every decision I make ultimately comes down to how it feels, or how I imagine that the result will feel to me physically. And when I say physically, let's not forget "optically." Seeing often gets connected to thinking very quickly…perhaps more quickly than any of the other senses. I want to stay as long as possible in the moment of feeling myself seeing. I feel best about my work when I feel myself wanting to keep looking at it for the feeling I get when I see it.

But to answer your question more directly. My process begins in the preparation (i.e. priming canvas), which typically plays a big role in in the outcome of the work. I begin work in groups and try to finish everything without abandoning it, though that has never been possible. I work with water-based media. My processes are completely additive. This means every decision made happens on the surface and is potentially/likely visible in the final state of the piece. Typically the beginning of my work is very fast and exciting, and then each work reaches a fulcrum of "unfinished balance." At this point I work on it most by looking at it, somewhat paralyzed by the unknown of what could happen next, because each new action has the potential to either clarify or ruin the work. This challenge compels me to keep coming back.

Fruitville installation, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

This past year I have dreamed about some paintings. In the dreams they are a beautiful outgrowth of what I am making now and it's very clear to me how I could make them. When I am in the studio, nothing I do produces what I remember the paintings in the dreams to be like, nor can I describe to you what they look like.

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

I make work in several ways. I make wall-mounted wooden low relief objects, works on a particular vintage school-grade writing paper which was found and given to me by my dad, and more standard-format paintings on canvas and paper. My paintings are pretty straight-ahead/traditional in terms of materials. The other two bodies of work are already begun by nature of them being found and I bring all kinds of materials into the process with them. It took me a long time to personally reconcile that these three bodies of work all had equal value. But now it's comforting. It makes me feel like a multi-instrumentalist musician. If one day I don't have the energy for the fine points of violin, I can go bang on drums. It's still making music.

What does the future hold for this work?



Once I get my studio moved, there are a few "technical hunches" I want to follow as it relates to my paintings. But otherwise, I honestly have no idea.

 

 

 

 

Blank Space, 2013

 

 

 

DAVID QUINN

'pewter18', 2012, gesso, tracing paper,

acrylic and crayon on board (20.5 x 13.3cm)

What are you working on in your studio right now?


I am working on a big piece which is made up of lots of small pieces . I am also trying out some new pieces which are moving towards sculpture.




Can you describe your working routine?


I don't have a particular routine. My wife is working as an art teacher at the moment and we have two young boys whom I mind a lot during the day, so usually whenever I am not doing that I  can get into the studio to do some work (doesn't really feel like work though).




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


I am using a small bedroom in our house, its cosy and the light is good. My desk is facing the window, I like being able to look up every now and then and see people walking down the road. There is a golf course opposite the house so it feels more rural than it actually is. Its nice being able to go into "the studio" whenever an idea occurs to me. I have a shed at the end of the garden with a clear roof, the light is fantastic but its too cold to use in the winter.



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


 
For the past two years I have been working almost exclusively on panels which are 205 x 133mm. The starting point can be anything, a colour, a found piece of paper, another painting etc.. I work on a lot of pieces at the same time. I like being able to see as many of them as I can while I am working. They feed into and off each other, some sit for ages before coming to fruition others can come together quite quickly, the trick is knowing when to step back. I like to layer things up. I probably approach each piece more like a page in a notebook, that's why having lots is important, it means I don't get too precious and am not overly concerned about messing something up. I try to make the most of every mark or layer, look at it from a few different angles and think about how, if at all I could make something of it.This can mean sitting for ages just looking at the work. I want each piece to contain an element of the unexpected and for that to happen means not having too many plans beforehand. Working on a small scale and on lots of pieces at the same time means you can be a lot more spontaneous which I think is crucial if the work is to have life.  Within the parameters of the scale its a jumbled up unpredictable way of working and I try to let things take their own course although inevitably I probably repeat myself more than I am aware of.



What are you having the most trouble resolving?


The hardest thing for me is talking about and explaining what I do. I think a lot about painting but I don't know how much it helps. As regards the why? I haven't really been able to come up with an answer, all I know is that I feel frustrated when I cannot paint. In relation to actually making the work I know some see it in terms of problem solving, but for me its more about cultivating the right frame of mind, because when I am enjoying it things go well.



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


I do experiment with materials although not as much as I used to because I know by now which ones give me what I want.  Some of what I do is collage and I will use anything if its the right texture/ colour etc. in the past I have used bubble wrap, tin foil, perspex, a laminating machine, shoe polish etc.(not that there is anything particularly original about this, Kurt Schwitters was doing something similar a hundred years ago). As regards painting materials I prefer waterbased for their speed of drying and because they're easier to get out of the carpet

'pewter17', 2012,  acrylic, collage and

crayon on paper on board (20.5 x 13.3cm)

What does the future hold for this work?


MOMA? only joking I hope to be able to submit the large piece for the RHAs annual summer exhibition in Dublin.



Is there anything else you would like to add?


It's great to see so much engaging quality abstract painting around at the moment.

'pewter1', 2012, acrylic and watercolour

on paper on panel (20.5 x 93cm) 

LESLIE WAYNE

 One Big Love # 74, oil on panel, 10 x 14.5", 2012

 

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?

 

 

I’m working on a couple of things. One is a group of paintings that are an extension of the “One Big Love” series that’s been ongoing since 2007. These new paintings are also on small shaped panels, but the shapes of these deliberately accentuate and exaggerate the weighty draping aspects of the paint.

 

The other series is a development from an earlier group of tall narrow vertical paintings where I used the format to stack layers of dimensional color as a metaphor for layers of geological time. In these new paintings I’ve gotten rid of the stacking, which is static and fixed, and instead am focusing on articulating moments of transformation. These panels are slightly wider at the bottom, giving a heightened sense of velocity.

 

I’ve also been working on a curatorial proposal that examines the work of three artists who use science and technology to articulate their personal relationships to nature in the context of a highly mediated and technological society. 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

Can you describe your working routine?

 

 

I go to the studio every day from around 11AM – 5PM, unless I have other specific plans. I try to take care of any writing, administration or phone calling in the morning and get to work right after lunch. Having a computer at the studio however, is a blessing and a curse. I find it very hard to resist checking email and Facebook messages constantly!  

 

I generally have around 5 or 6 panels going on at a time, but they don’t all require the same amount of focus and deliberation. Some paintings simply need another layer of color applied and left to dry, where others call for some sort of resolution. The new vertical paintings particularly, offer me a welcomed opportunity to paint more a-la-prima passages that actually describe something happening graphically, which is not generally the case with my work. So this is something new that I’m excited about.

Rag # 13, oil on panel, 10 x 12.5", 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

I’ve had the same studio in Hell’s Kitchen since 1986. I share the floor with two other artists, of whom one is my husband, sculptor Don Porcaro. I came into the space after he and another painter were already established there, and it was impossible to redraw the studios without extensive rebuilding. So I have my workspace in one corner of the floor, and all my storage, flat files and the computer in another.

 

The work-space is about 12’ x 40’ with a bank of drafty windows facing the Hudson. A long work-table is up against the windows and I have a small desk on the opposite side. This gives me one long wall and a smaller wall at the North end of the space to hang paintings. I also keep a folding work-table out in the middle of the floor where I can have books open for reference and work on larger pieces. The South end of the studio has a small kitchen and some bookshelves.

 

If I had a wider space, it would allow me to designate a clean area to do works on paper while my paintings were in progress. I’ve on occasion done some small drawings without disturbing my painting setup. But for anything larger or more ambitious, I tend to switch gears completely until that body of work is finished. It’s not ideal.



 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

I start with the given shape of a panel, which quite honestly determines nothing. But it gives me a starting point, which is more dynamic and demanding than a square or a rectangle. I tend to build up several layers of color over time, and once dry to the touch but still soft underneath, I’ll manipulate them in various ways. This is the point at which the painting begins to demand a resolution. If I can’t resolve it, I’ll scrape the whole thing off, or parts of it off and keep the paint for future use as collage material for another painting.  While I may have ideas or intentions in mind that relate to geology or gravity for example, or perhaps even the work of another artist, I find that my conceptual foundation solidifies and clarifies itself as a result of working over time and allowing the process be fluid. Otherwise I risk the seduction of staying in my comfort zone and that gets stale fast. It’s a balancing act of maintaining that perfect tension between anticipation, control and letting it go.

 

 

 

Leslie Wayne:Recent Work from John Reynolds & Lee Donaldson on Vimeo.





What are you having the most trouble resolving?


I often find it difficult to translate what I do into a graphic language that makes sense on paper. I’m not interested in making drawing versions of my paintings, so it would need to be something that feels conceptually and materially right. I find Ken Price to be a wonderful role model for that.



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


I work almost exclusively in oil as I find its properties suit my need to manipulate the paint over long periods of time. Acrylic dries too fast for me to accomplish what I want.



What does the future hold for this work?


It’s hard to know. I always feel most excited about the newest work, but it’s very difficult to gage how I’ll feel in six months. Sometimes I think I’m ready for a show, and then I finish a new piece that so far surpasses the previous ones that I want to throw half of it away. I think I’m getting close to building enough to have my next show in another year. My last solo exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery was 2010. Given their current program schedule and my other commitments, I think I’m about on target.

 

 

Untitled (yelloworangeteal),

oil on wood, 34 x7 ", 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

I periodically write down things I’ve read which strike a chord and I’d like to share some of them here. Thank you for this opportunity to engage with your readers.

“I keep trying to improve my control over language, so that I won’t have to tell lies.”
  Stanley Kunitz

 

“All relationships arise from the fact that reality is a magic poorly understood.”
  Frederick Sommer

 

“Think! Think! Think!”
  Winnie the Pooh

 

“People prefer that you condense; they find it quite natural for life to be condensed on films. . .they prefer that because they can catch onto the meanings and keep ahead of the movie. But that’s boring. I won’t make shorthand films. In my films there’s a competition with the audience to keep ahead of them.”
  John Cassavetes

 

 “Like art, film should be fake but completely believable. Faking is a ritual of representing.”
  Federico Fellini

 

 “Abstraction is precisely not grounded in universality, but in individual experience and sensibility…based on a process of invention and constant debate, not on corollaries for the discovery of existing truths.” It is about “the constant ‘correction’ or getting closer to absolute order…”
  Kirk Varnedoe

 

“The greatest art always returns you to the vulnerability of the human situation.” 
  Francis Bacon

 

“…paint as a structural element, not a surfacing.”
  Rob Storr on Elizabeth Murray

 

A technique is a technique of the body. It formulates and amplifies the metaphysical structure of our flesh.”
 Merleau Ponty

 

“It’s a long long preparation for a few moments of innocence.”
 Guston

 

 “[Guston’s painting is] not so much a picture as a direct imprint of duration. . .”
  Rob Storr on Guston

 

“(Asian paintings) made me wonder who I was. By contrast, Western painters tried to tell me who they were.”
 John McLaughlin

 

 “Art is the highest form of hope.”
  Gerhard Richter

 

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
 S. Beckett

 

 “What matters in painting is pushing the mundane toward the instant of transcendence...”
   James Elkins

 

“The meaning of a sign is the response to it.”
  Dave Hickey

 

“Visceral responses to an image…are inevitably avenues to meaning.”
“Repetition lies at the heart of meaning…recognition is repetition.”
“[Joan] Mitchell wanted to hold on to her landscapes, to seize the ‘out there’ through the ‘in  here,’ to depict the mysterious flux of perception, not as it’s immediately seen, but as it’s remembered and felt in the body.”
 Siri Hustvedt, from “Mysteries of the Rectangle”

 

 

 



One Big Love #71, oil on panel, 10 x 14.5", 2012

LISA PRESSMAN

Transcending, 24 x 24", oil on wood, 2012-2013

 

 

 

 

 

What are you working on in your studio right now?

 

I have several series of works in progress. Lately doors, windows and even figures are emerging in the work. Most of the time I paint over them. The metaphor of inside /outside has always interested me. Lately, I have been investigating an image suggests a bag, a purse, a container.   ….  I having researching Indian medicine bags and I relate to their healing and spiritual nature. I don’t mind the baggage metaphor as we all have some kind of baggage that we carry around. I have been exploring a change in my palette and scale. There are 10 8” x 6” s, which are small for me, along with the larger works.

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

Can you describe your working routine?

 

 

I have days that I am in the studio, days that I am teaching, and days that I’m doing the business end of art, so I don’t know if I have an actual routine. If it is a studio day, I am in there in the morning and usually start with straightening up and figuring out what I am going to work on. It is a warm up time. I have concentrated bursts of focused time. I have never been one to paint for hours on end, yet the time I spend making serves me well. Working on many pieces at a time allows me such freedom not to think and just make. Recently a friend of mine joked that I can make a painting in a day. I laughed. I am happy that my work appears to be so fresh and alive but one day does not create a painting. I have been focusing on not overworking my paintings so stopping and starting again is key  to their development. There is a huge gestation time for most pieces. They sit around for weeks, or months until I get back to them and know how to “resolve” them. I always have multiple paintings around in various stages. Most of the work is done in a series and the paintings converse with each other, yet each piece is a completed idea and image on its own. For me, working in a series helps to expand the image idea making and keeps the work fresh.

"There are numerous paintings “percolating”

around in stacks and on the walls today."

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

I am working in my garage, which is a good space in the spring and summer but is pretty cold in the winter. I like that my studio is attached to my house but has a separate entrance.  However, I do not have much natural light and look forward to a studio with big windows and some space.  I am slowly outgrowing my space.

 

 

 

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

 

 

My working routine and process are pretty close. I am at a point in my art making where I feel I have my tool belt pretty well stocked with a vocabulary, ideas, materials, and inspirations. I try to trust that and stay out of my own way. Work begins as play, play with great freedom and without judgment. Evolution comes from looking and paying careful, intuitive attention to what is happening in the work. If I am listening, my work tells me my story. My visual memory and interpretation of the world are more perceptive and in tune than my intellect. I believe in the idea of the spiral. Images and ideas that I have investigated in the past reappear again and again in a different form at different times. I have found my photographs to be very helpful, not as something to work from, but as an indicator of how I see the world. The most important part of my process is looking, editing and of course, deciding when a painting is done. One of my favorite times is coming back to the studio after a day of working to see the work again in a new light.

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 11 x11", mixed media on mylar 2012

 

Untitled, 11 x11", mixed media on mylar 2012

 

 

 

 

 

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

 

 

I have trouble having faith in my process. Although I understand the way I work, I have to fight the doubts, judgments and feelings of that not being enough. This is resolved by just being able to move forward and continue working, and trusting that “not knowing,” which is the place I visit all the time in my work, is “knowing” in my world.

 

 

 

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

 

 

I come from experimenting with many materials. I have used clay, wood, nails, paper mache, pastels, charcoal, acrylic, oil, cold wax and encaustic throughout the years. Right now I am working on oil and cold wax pieces, encaustic paintings that include collage, ink and pastel and a series with graphite on vellum.
I enjoy the characteristics’ of each medium and switching it up activates different approaches. For me working with encaustic allows for a very quick build up of layers and many possibilities for scraping and excavating into the work, but it is a very focused intense process. When I paint with oils I have an expansive experience. There is expressiveness to the application of the paint and the moving around it is exciting. Lately I have been using scrapers, brayers, tools and monoprinting to move and mark with the paint. I am working on a new grouping drawings on vellum. Working with graphite, erasers, pastels is liberating as a visual thinking process.

 

 

 

 

 

The Dark,  8 x6”, oil on  board, 2013

 

 

 

 

What does the future hold for this work?

 

 

I am preparing for a solo show at The Rosenfeld Gallery in September 2013. I have other shows in the works but which are not confirmed.  The work is changing as I write. I just had a great day in the studio.


 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Thanks, Valerie, for this opportunity to talk about my current work and process!

Spirit Bag 3, oil on wood, 24 x 24", 2013