Monthly Archives: July 2018

W&W2 Workshop report

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Give a bunch of cool poets some hot beeswax and whaddya get? A very nice collection of encaustic collages!

I taught another Wax & Words workshop at my studio yesterday at the request of Pamela Ferguson, who wanted to share the beeswax collage techniques with some of her writer friends.

I was curious to see if their work emphasized words more than images and how well they would do with asemic writing – after all, they are in the creative vocabulary business. As usual, there was a eclectic mix based on each participant’s perception and focus.

The trick to doing best-practices encaustic college is to use adhesives that don’t block the absorption of the beeswax. Acrylic medium won’t let wax penetrate, so that’s out. I often use glue sticks to attach paper to the substrate before waxing, and asked the participants to try a relative new product called  Elmer’s Re-Stick Glue Sticks.

The results were just so-so. Edges kept peeling up before we applied the beeswax and needed more glue, but the glue stick did allow us to shift things around a bit before permanently attaching them. I think I’ll stick to my tried and true favorite, Scotch Permanent Glue Sticks.

We also made sure that all of the paper we used was absorbent so the beeswax would not just sit on the surface of the collage elements. All of this info will be in the video Wax & Words eBook, which should be available in a couple of weeks on my website..

When you watch the workshop video, below, you’ll see the richness the writers brought to their Wax & Words collages. And you’ll also see the completely individual approaches to the task. Always amazing – – –  !

Wax & Words Workshop, Take Two from Lyn Belisle on Vimeo.

 

 

 

Marfa – and wax on black exploration

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In the 1970s, minimalist artist Donald Judd moved to Marfa, Texas, where he created giant works of art beneath vast desert skies

I’m back from a week in West Texas and the beautiful Davis Mountains. One of the best parts of the trip was visiting Marfa and connecting with minimalist artist Donald Judd’s vision. There’s a great NPR article about this – click here. I love the quote by sculptor Campbell Bosworth – “You just come out here and you feel like, I want to make something; I want to do something!”

Maybe it’s the minimalist influence, but it must be true. The Marfa getaway ignited my creative curiosity, and as soon as I got back, I went into the studio and started working in black and white on an experiment with black substrates and beeswax.

I wondered what would happen to the translucent layers of beeswax when they were applied over a dark background.

I used an absorbent black paper and added some white markings with different kinds of media – crayon, stamps, paint:

I added a layer of beeswax – it made it kind of glossy, and did penetrate into the paper, which had been a concern. You don’t want it to just sit on the surface of the substrate:

More experiments – black and white (and a bit of walnut ink):

Like all experiments, some of the techniques worked well, and some were definitely “learning opportunities.” But there is a certain potential for interesting effects that are both chalk-like and smokey. I am going to push these ideas a little further and see what develops (like old black and white film).

Now that I’ve been “Marfa-ized” and infected with some new ideas, it looks like I may be spending more time at the studio, perhaps even developing a wax on black workshop!

 

SAY Si students shine at Art League’s Semmes Studio workshop

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One of the joys of being part of the San Antonio Art League is planning community outreach programs that share our resources with young artists, and our recent youth workshop was a real joy. Our current exhibit is a collection of 27 paintings from the Edgar B. Davis Wildflower Competitions  in the 1920’s. We wanted to share this work and the historic story with creative kids, so we turned to our friends at SAY Si Youth Art Program.

Long story made short, Edgar Davis was an eccentric wildcatter who made a fortune in oil and offered huge cash prizes to artists to paint Texas wildflowers (supposedly, his first well was struck in a patch of bluebonnets). The San Antonio Art League, which was founded in 1912, agreed to host the competition, and many of the paintings ended up in our permanent collection. When these amazing paintings are exhibited, which is all too rarely, scholars of early Texas art flock to see them.

In a collaboration with SAY Si youth art program, seven eight-grade students visited us last Saturday to explore the collection. Each student chose a painting from the collection that resonated with them for aesthetic and personal reasons.

Then they joined my co-teacher, Stefani Job Spears and me in the Semmes Studio for a workshop called Contemporary Collage Inspirations from SAALM’s Edgar B. Davis Collection.

The young artists used their cell phones to take references photos of the pieces they had selected. Then they tore paper and used paint and pencils and markers to interpret the paintings in a personal, contemporary way.

They worked with absolute concentration and focus, each listening to her own music and thinking her own thoughts. At lunchtime, when they took a break to eat in the King William park across the street, Stefani and I could hear them laughing and chattering a block away, but when they were engaged in their artwork, there was a silence that was almost meditative.

When we discussed the finished work, there were lots of insightful comments about the subjects of the early Texas paintings and the old stories the girls had heard from their grandparents about how life had been for them.

The collages were totally original interpretations, filled with imaginative treatments of traditional subject matter.  I was in awe!

I hope you’ll take a minute to look at the video of the workshop (below) and watch the interaction between these young artists and the iconic Texas paintings in the Davis collection. I learned so many lessons from watching these creative girls. Many thanks to Stephen Guzman and Ashley Perez of SAY Si for bringing us together.

SAY Si Students visit the San Antonio Art League’s Semmes Studio for a workshop about the Davis Collection from Lyn Belisle on Vimeo.

Come see the exhibit that inspired these students’ work!

A WILDCATTER’S DREAM: ART, OIL AND WILDFLOWERS
Open to the public from June 10th, 2018 to July 27th, 2018 – EXTENDED UNTIL AUGUST 10! Free and open to the public.

 

 

 

Creative collaborations

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Earlier this month I got several emails from mixed-medial artist and tarot maker Dawn Zichko, whose work I’ve known and liked for quite some time. I wrote another SHARDS post about her about five years ago.

Dawn has a great blog called Mental Mohair which often features a daily card from her Everyday Tarot deck, which you can find in her Etsy Shop.

Four cards from Dawn Zichko’s Everyday Tarot deck

In her first email, Dawn sent a photo with a short note that said,

“Lyn, I thought you might enjoy seeing progress on a collaborative piece.”

Here was the photo (below) – very intriguing – and some of my faces were part of the collaborative design. I asked her if I could share the photo, and she requested that I wait until they had worked a bit more on it.

I’m including that unfinished version so you can see the structure of the body.

The following week she sent photos of the completed collaborative piece along with this description of the process:

“Lyn, we created the Earth Protectress in ritual space. In brainstorming at earlier gatherings, the creation of a goddess was included in the list. So we all thought of creating her. In the sacred space we chose the parts we wanted to work on by chakra.

Essie (not her real name as she would like to remain anonymous) created the head/Third Eye/Crown, Patricia created the torso/Heart/Solar Plexus, and I created the base/Root and neck/Throat (this is the part that needed reconstruction — oh, the analogies!).”

“The other women let me take her home and run with the additions. The clay faces, hair, pouch, and skirt were all done by me, but the additions were discussed with Essie and Patricia before working on them. I am blessed they trusted my creative ramblings. It was truly a touching experience to create this being in togetherness and sacred space.”

I think it’s just glorious – the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and yet each part is amazing.

Artist collaborations can be tricky – sometimes it’s obvious which person did what part, but in this case, there is a seamless sense of sacred purpose. Thanks, Dawn, for sharing this work!
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Have you ever gotten involved with a collaborative project? How’d it work for you?

I have to admit, it’s something I’ve rarely tried, certainly not recently. But a lot of my artist friends, particularly fiber artists, love the collaborative process.

Surprisingly, there’s not a whole lot written about collaborative visual artwork, but I did find this thoughtful post called Cloth, Creativity & Collaborating with fiber artists Cas Holmes and Anne Kelly.

And I also found an engaging article about a mother’s painting with her five-year-old daughter called Making a Masterpiece Together.  Here were their guidelines:

1. We would each add one color to the canvas everyday.

2. We would do our painting while the other one was out of the room, so they would be surprised.

3. We would try not to paint completely over the other persons art work.

Those are great rules! They would work for any kind of collaboration, whether the artwork is done for a sacred and serious purpose like Dawn’s was with her friends, or with an informal group and just for fun.

The trick is always going to be keeping an open mind. No fair thinking “You messed up the part I did!”  Instead, you gotta think “Look how you enhanced my work.” Right??

Photo by Ella Jardim on Unsplash

 

Serapes, Sunsets – and Schenck

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In a earlier SHARDS post I introduced one of my new summer online workshops for Artful Gathering ( an art “camp” for artists, teachers and students) called Southwestern Stripes: Serapes and Sunsets.

In the workshop, I teach the AG students how to use classic stripes and geometrics inspired by Navajo weavings and Pendleton blankets as inspiration in their paintings and mixed-media art.

This is a 90 second outtake showing one of the things we talk about in the four-hour class. (If you can’t see the video screen, click the “Outtake 2” link)

Outtake 2 – Southwest Stripes for Artful Gathering from Lyn Belisle on Vimeo.

As usual, the students are exceeding my expectations. The class still has almost three weeks to go, and they are already producing some impressive work.

Here are three pieces by workshop participant Christine Luchini showing several ways she uses these techniques:

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Lee Ann Lilly did these three, including the collage spirit doll and two beautiful small card paintings:

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Here are three more student works, two by Ronda Miller and one by Paulanne Sorenson:

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Just day before yesterday, Ronda wrote in our discussion forum, “I live in the Phoenix area so I see A LOT of serape art and Native American art. My awareness has been lifted to new heights since I have taken this workshop…kind of like you buy a blue VW because you didn’t see many of them – until AFTER you buy one, then, WHAM, they are everywhere! haha.” Ronda also said “I am an abstract artist so I want to find a way to add a tad bit of serape design to my art and still have people know it is still my work.” 

Boy, is that true about seeing serape patterns everywhere – I am paying a lot more attention to serape designs since I started teaching this class. Wouldn’t you know it, the new Warhol/Schenck Exhibit at the Briscoe Museum here in San Antonio has a ton of them!

I was there last week, and fell in love with Billy Schenck’s use of serape patterns:

Bill Schenck

Bill Schenck, 2014

Bill Schenck, oil on canvas

Here’s the info about the exhibit if you’re in San Antonio and want to see this and some fine Warhol prints as well.

And to add more stripes to the serape story, I just found this beautiful book for $1.00 at the Central Library BookCellar used book store.

Here’s a selection from the book’s introduction that talks about the Spirit Line in weaving – I love it! It goes right along with, “I meant to do that!”

If you want even more Southwestern inspiration, My second Artful Gathering class, Neo-Santos: Creating Personal Spirit Guardians, opens on July 16th.

What was that old commercial about “Yikes! Stripes!”? – there is, and always will be, something fascinating about woven striped serapes and the Southwest.

Happy summer, happy 4th!