Praeterita

American Scenes: Boston, 2000

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 17:44:00 +0000

Boylston Street, Boston, in 1911 (Wikimedia Commons)

The image shows Boylston Street in Boston, Massachussetts, in 1911. I stayed on this street in the year 2000, as I was passing through on the way to an artist's residency in Vermont. The vehicles and styles of clothing that you saw then, and now, are different, but the buildings are the same as when I stayed there.

I flew in to Boston on Friday, August 25th. I know this because momentous things happened to me in the weeks after that date (and also because I verified the dates via Google search). The thigns I remember:

The glitter of the sun on the Atlantic Ocean as the plane from London wheeled and flew parallel to the shore before descending into Logan Airport.
The heat when I stepped out of the taxi on Boylston Street, a main thoroughfare in Boston's Back Bay district where I'd booked a room for the night.
The building where the b&b was located: terratotta coloured stone facade, windows eight feet high, stone steps leading up to an arched entryway, a small room on the second floor with a stained glass window.
Walking along Boylston Street at about 7pm to find somewhere to eat. All of the bars and restaurants filling up with people as they began their weekend relaxation.
The Irish accents of the servers at the bar where I had a meal and a beer.
The impressive building on the corner of a street at the other end of Boylston, which I later found out was the music academy.
The bright low morning sun when I rose at 6 am on Saturday, August 26th, to pull my huge suitcase to the bus station. Slanting copper light on the street surface and burnt umber shadows cutting diagonal shapes across buildings and intersections.

In later years, I would return to Boston several times and spend days there, visiting the historic sites and museums. But on that first short visit, it took less than twenty-four hours for me to feel comfortable in this city with its historic connections to Europe and to the early centuries of the American colonies and republic.

New Year, New Work

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Sat, 07 Jan 2023 22:29:00 +0000

It's the end of week 1 of 2023, and this painting is an example of the new work I've been making since the summer of 2022. Six months ago, I was doing an "at-home residency" as I experimented with finding new material for my art practice. The result was that I went back to my many sketchbooks, which are full of gestural semi-abstract marks, mostly drawn from observing landscape or at least the external world.

This canvas is combined from several drawings, supplemented by photos that I use for colour reference. It measures 5 feet x 4 feet, using alizarin crimson and white.

New Paintings

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 18:50:00 +0000

Beginning in June, I went back to my sketchbooks in search for inspiration for a new path for my painting. I've always carried a sketchbook with me, particularly on my frequent travels (I still have a few pages from sketchbooks from the 1980s!). So the new paintings were derived from drawings that have one foot in something observed. Landscape, even.

But my drawing style has always been very fluid and quick, consisting of lots of looping strokes of the crayon and overlaid colours. That's what I've tried to carry over into oil paintings: a sense of energetic movement as the eye looks around and the hand tracks what the eye sees.

Here is one of the videos of work in progress that I've posted on my YouTube channel:

Monica Aissa Martinez: Nothing in Stasis

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 16:44:00 +0000

Body Female - A Self Portrait, 2012

The Tucson Museum of Art is currently displaying works by Monica Aissa Martinez in an exhibition titled Nothing in Stasis. The description of the exhibition states

Martinez uses line, shape, space, and color to represent the complex connections between body, mind, and spirit. She is drawn to the language of myth and symbol, feminine and masculine, emotion and logic, circle and line, horizontal (heavens and spirit) and vertical (earth and body), finding beauty in the systems and organization of living things.

Which seems to cover every possible way of making art. The things that are most immediately applicable from the museum-speak are the technical means of making the pieces - huge banners of paper covered with intricate spiraling and crossing lines, and washes of pigment - and the systems of living things.

The central figure in each piece echoes the anatomical cross-sections of medical textbooks. But the internal structures are overlaid with patterns of line and colour that seem to be memories of other organisms, and also the pattern-making of linear abstract art. The figure is surrounded by other organs, or organisms, presented in the same meticulous construction of an image from a cross-section overlaid with layers of drawing.

Portrait of Elisa, A Matrilineal Study 2017-2022

The background consists of bands and verticals, across which swim overlapping patterns of cell-like structures and swirling lines that pass over and through the figure, suggesting perhaps how our inner structures reflect and connect with the inherent structures of all things.

Smaller framed works sometimes include paintings of faces executed in a more traditional representational style, though I thought these worked far less well than the 'anatomical' drawings. It's the large works that create the strongest impression. Martinez's process of stripping the living being down to its constituent parts, and building it back up again through an attentive repetition of that artist's hand and eye, ultimately creates a sense of presence, of awe, even, at the mysterious chemistry and biology of life.

Six of the Best 46: Printmaker Saeedeh Golriz

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 19:04:00 +0000

Empty Dreams, etching, aquatint, softground, experimental technique,
15 cm x 10 cm, 2018

Part 46 of an interview series in which artists reply to the same six questions. Saeedeh Golriz is an Iranian printmaker, living in Iran. She mentions that she once wanted to be a chef --- appropriate to the art of printmaking, which is a similar process of combining different elements in often long recipes to produce the finished piece. Both are a form of alchemy, and as you can see by Saeedeh's work, she is an expert printmaking alchemist who makes haunting and accomplished prints. You can see more of her work here.

PH: What medium/media do you chiefly use, and why?

SG: Printmaking, more specifically etching and aquatint, I enjoy the creative parts of it, both when I am in control of the process and also the unexpected surprises that come along the way. I can plan the whole design, but there will be unpredicted elements to it, which is perfect for my taste.

PH: What piece are you currently working on?

SG: It is a 20 cm x 25 cm copper plate. I am working on the second state of aquatint for this one. It is one of the pieces from the “Empty Dreams” series, probably the last one. I started with hardground etching and some dry point engravings and now I am working on different layers of shadows---there is a lot of detail on this one.

Empty Dreams, monotype, 29.7 cm x 21 cm, 2018

PH: What creative surprises are happening in the current work?

SG: Even though I've worked with nitric acid for 7 years, it still has surprises for me. There are definitely challenges while working with any kind of acid baths, but nitric acid being one of the most unpredictable ones, has no middle ground, and the bite sometimes becomes very aggressive, which is great. I will not only harvest the result to my liking, but also create different versions of my original art throughout the process, and sometimes even get new ideas for my next projects.

PH: What other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

SG: I work with digital painting. It combines many of my passions, such as drawing and painting, and it is a great practice for planning my designs, really. I also love to feed my creative hunger with monotypes. It is a tremendous medium to be spontaneous which I've used to discover myself through different stages of my career.

Empty Dreams, hardground etching, aquatint, sugarlift, 20 cm x 25 cm, 2021

PH: What's the first ever piece of art you remember making?

SG: I wanted to be a chef when I was 7 or 8, and I remember I just got a very nice set of watercolors. I would create my own menu and then paint all the elements and make it a collage at the end. I think I always loved to combine media to create things that I loved. The first professional piece of art that I have ever created was 8 years ago: it was a watercolor piece of a chameleon which I sold almost immediately.

PH: Finally, and you can answer this in any way that's meaningful to you: why are you an artist?

SG: I love to create, but I also need to. I need to express myself. I think all of us have this massive energy from the early years of our lives which drives us. I know I had that since I was 5 years old. I knew that I wanted to paint when I was 9. I started my educational journey after that. I am so happy that I did, because we not only live in a crazy world, but I also live in the craziest part of it. So, there is staying sane in this mad mad world.

The main reason for me though is that I am a story teller and I actually have stories to tell and art is the best and the most effective way to communicate with people and share your visions and message. No words, no explanation, just take a moment to stop and feel and think.

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe to my Artist Newsletter via the link in the right-hand column? Thanks, and keep creating.

Six of the Best 45: Stella Untalan

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:50:00 +0000

Allsorts, marker, ink, flashe on 6-inch-square birch panels

Part 45 of an interview series in which artists reply to the same six questions. Stella Untalan, an artist from Philadelphia, is someone who epitomizes the possibilities of abstract art: rigorous formal repetitions of elements, the grid as a basis for the exploration of two-dimensional space, and the beauty of color , line, and texture. You can see more of her work here.

Philip Hartigan: What medium do you chiefly use, and why?

Stella Untalan: Paper is my favorite surface. It is sexy in every way. The surface responds to everything you offer it — at each touch it reacts and I react back.

My work for the past few years falls into two categories: Small works on paper, and drawings on painted panels or MDF. I’m currently using various graffiti-based markers by POSCA, Montana, and Krink. I mix some custom colors for the refillable Montana markers.

The work is on paper, museum quality board, or synthetic papers like Yupo. Works on paper focus on a vocabulary of marks. Some of these marks have been in my work for decades. Work on panels and MDF explore repetition and measurement and are leading to more sculptural work — drawings wrapping around and crossing planes.

PH: What piece are you currently working on?

SU: If you visit my studio space you’ll see it is set up for multiple projects at one time. I have designated walls for work I’ve just begun, work in progress, and a display wall.

Right now if you came to visit me you would see my Allsorts series, a grouping of 6 inch x 6 inch cradled birch panels. These are minimalist drawings made with markers and ink on painted backgrounds of a single hue. These were inspired by and named after one of my favorite colorful licorice candies.

Another wall holds my Rondo series drawn on 6-inch rounds of MDF cutouts. These drawings are much like the Allsorts but using a different form factor that doesn’t play to its roundness.

On my worktable I have a series of postcard-sized small works on Hahnenmüle watercolor paper. These are experimental in nature, extending my vocabulary of marks and their interaction with each other. I’m sharing the drawings and process on my Patreon account as I make them.

Rondos (from top: Looming, Equator, Unraveling), marker, ink, flash
on 5/8 inch MDF, 6-inch-rounds

PH: What creative surprises are happening in the current work?

SU: I’m always surprised with how my drawings develop. I set minimal criteria like medium, substrate, and size and that’s it. Since all the work is driven by materials and process, every deviation reveals something new. The addition of new materials requires giving in to their nature. The biggest surprises come with trying to increase the scale of my marks and looking for new tools to make lines.

One of the most exciting projects that I completed recently was a collaboration with New York City poet David Zimmer. He discovered my Mapping the Terrain drawings on the ello network. Something about the drawings moved him to write poems in response to the series. He asked me if it was ok and he sent me each poem as he wrote them. I love them all. It almost feels as though my drawings were made in response to his poems.

It seemed to me that this was a perfect project for a zine, so I decided to make a side-by-side relationship of the drawings and poems. I’ve made signed copies available at my little art shop and gifts for my top level Patreon patrons.

Right now I’m making larger and calligraphic marks. Their negative spaces are intriguing. The layering of marks or their tangency is of particular interest.

PH: What other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

SU: Photography and Poetry. Photography reveals vocabularies and the referential nature of repetitive marks. I love to read poetry. I find poetry to have a direct relationship with my drawing. I love its rhythm and abstraction.

Mapping the Terrain, ink and flashe on paper, each 4 inches x 6 inches

PH: What's the first ever piece of art you remember making?

SU: I’m not sure which was the first but I can remember being reprimanded in grade school, I think I was seven or eight, for drawing when I should have been paying attention to my academic subjects. I would make still life drawings all day long. I also made lots of comic books. I love graphic narrative.

PH: Finally, and you can answer this in any way you want: why are you an artist?

SU: I know it sounds trite but I’m compelled to make art. I love to spend time drawing wherever I am, and the rituals of a studio practice, and living an artist’s life.

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe to my Artist Newsletter via the link in the right-hand column? Thanks, and keep creating.

At-Home Residency

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 16:42:00 +0000

My wife, Patty, left Tucson for the Midwest in May to spend the whole month directing and teaching at writing retreats in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. Seeing as I was alone at home for all that time, I decided to use the four weeks as an at-home artist's residency.

A real residency, of course, means you go to a location where you are given the use of a studio for a period of time to spend almost all of your time working. The advantage of such a retreat is that you leave the routines of your daily life behind and concentrate on making your art. The at-home residency, while I still had to do some freelance work and do the shopping and chores each week, is an opportunity to tune in to the same state of mind, if not from the same state of semi-isolation.

My goal was to see if I could find a new path forward from the Crow and Hands series I've worked on for the past three years. The image at the head of this blog post is one of the first results: using the same imagery and mark-making, but foregrounding the Indian Red.

Then I tried reducing the palette and retaining mostly the same movement of the hand. I then produced a set of semi-representational oil sketches with full-length figures and birds. I still didn't feel ready to scale these up into a canvas, so I decided to get out and about with my sketchbook.

This resulted in something looking more like a landscape painting, but with an abstract tendency and employing a similar wrist movement to the gesture I used a lot in the Crow and Hands series. This is now the material I'm working with: working from sketches in the studio, taking selected colours and shapes from nature, but working them and reworking them into abstract patterns.

We'll see where this takes me...

Barcelona: Then and Now

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 16:47:00 +0000

During my recent trip to Barcelona in Spain, I took the opportunity to revisit some places associated with the year that I lived there (1993 to 1994). Back then, I did a postgraduate degree in painting there, through a UK art school that ran a satellite "study abroad" program in the 1990s. The school rented two buildings for the twenty or so artists: one in the heart of the Gothic Quarter, steps away from the Museo Picasso; and one in Poble Nou, a working class district on the eastern edge of the city.

The first photo above shows me in 2022 in front of the building in the Barra De Ferro, a narrow side street between Carrer de la Princesa and Carrer Montcada in the Gothic Quarter. The building accommodated an office for the course leader, a printmaking studio with press for the printmakers, and small partitioned studio spaces for artists. In common with most of the buildings in these narrow medieval streets, it was constructed with thick stone walls, a heavy wooden door, and large arched windows. The interior of the ground floor occupied by the art school had a ten foot high ceiling supported by solid stone arches.

I can remember going in and out of that building many times over the course of the year, meeting up with friends to see how their work was going, strolling with them along the street for lunch at one of the bars, or attending meetings with the course leader and talks by visiting artists. The ground floor seemed to be empty when I passed by in April, but I was pleased to discover that until recently it was still used as a printmaking centre by the EINA printmaking space. Here is the only photo I could find of the inside of the space:

My studio was in the Palo Alto building. In 1993, I was disappointed at first when I was allotted a space so far from the city centre (about thirty minutes door to door via the subway/metro). But when I saw the buildings and the location, I was pretty happy. Palo Alto is a set of former warehouses and small factories built in the early twentieth century for leatherworks and other light manufacturing. The former workshops and warehouses are surrounded by a wall that encloses them all in a small compound. The art school rented one of the smaller buildings, a two storey stone barn. Here is what it looked like in 1994 from the outside:

It was fairly primitive: a sliding wood door that opened into a small bare lobby, a single sink and toilet, stairs up to a mezzanine level where I shared a studio with another artist, working back to back, and then the right-hand section of the building was open to the ceiling and partitioned at floor level to make eight small workspaces. There was no heating, so it got pretty chilly in winter despite the Mediterranean climate. The larger space also had a glass roof, so in summer it became baking hot. But it was a great place to work, with a great bar just outside the gates (Bar Paco, named after its owner, who offered a $5 menu del dia and liked to talk about FC Barcelona) and a short walk to the beach.

The art school cleared out by the end of the 1990s, and since then all of the buildings in the compound have been upgraded and developed into a multi-use arts space, with an organisation that serves as an incubator for arts-related businesses, a well-known design firm, a cafe, and a regular market. My former studio building is now (I think) a gallery space. I found this photo of the interior, which looks very like the same space:

The day I went to Palo Alto in April, they were setting up for a weekend event, so I wasn't permitted to enter the compound and have a look around. But I didn't mind too much. I revisited these places not so much from nostalgia, a desire to relive the past and bathe in memories and regret, but partly, yes, to see how I would react. As with the Barra de Ferro space, I was just happy to be there again, to think for a little while about a formative time in my life.

It would have been tempting when revisiting places that meant so much to one in former decades to fall into the trap of the old returnee, lamenting the loss not just of temps perdu but also railing against the inferior state of the modern replacements, the decline in civilization "since the old days." But I didn't feel that at all. Yes, I felt some twinges of emotion, brought on by the collision of vivid memories from thirty years ago with the unlikely event of my presence in the city again. But most of the changes in these art studios were for the better, and I was happy that the buildings continued for decades as spaces that artists and visitors could enjoy.

Six of the Best 44: Painter Lorelei French Sowa

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 17:11:00 +0000

Manhattan Sky, oil on canvas, wax and gold leaf, 24 inches x 48 inches x 2 inches

Part 44 of an interview series in which artists reply to the same six questions. Lorelei French Sowa is a painter located in Florida, USA. Her paintings, whether they refer to landscape, birds, or abstract patterns, are marked by a strong sense of shape, bold execution, and multilayered textures of paint or collage. You can see more of her work here.

Philip Hartigan: What medium/media do you chiefly use, and why?

Lorelei French Sowa: Paint is my primary medium, but within the scope of 2D, I vacillate between acrylics and oil. I love the problem-solving that 2D provides. The world is full of depth and shapes, and organizing that space on a flat panel and understanding the limitations and the possibilities of the medium paint requires intense creativity. The problem of how to depict something is an interesting one. There are a thousand and one ways you can go about it. There's no set rule.

Philip Hartigan: What piece are you currently working on?

Lorelei French Sowa: I tend to work on several pieces at once rather than just one. In my studio today, a visitor would see three large canvases tacked to the wall that I need to work out for a commission I agreed to do on a vacation spot that holds personal meaning. Additionally, I am working on another sizeable golden horizon line painting where I play with wax texture in the earth and floating light clouds in the sky. I also have six small 12 inch x 12 inch panels I started that I am working out the feeling of a barge crashing into a sea wall (an event that happened this spring near my home on the Connecticut shore). My best work happens when I feel a personal connection to it in some way, so most of my work has a storytelling emphasis. I am trying to become universal in my delivery without losing my specific connection. Painting is like writing in so many ways. Novels are sometimes more real than histories. Great art is not about copying things. It is about interpreting a thing. It is not what a thing looks like that is important, but what we remember about something intriguing. I use photos to understand the event, but where my mind takes over on the process and where my mind takes over on the process and where they happened are never the same.

The Great Egret Bird Pose, acrylic on wood panel, 12 inches x 12 inches x 2 inches

Philip Hartigan: What creative surprises are happening in the current work?

Lorelei French Sowa: I have started incorporating a bit of image transfer in my small acrylic work, and I am delighted with the depth that it adds to the picture. I started playing with this when a client came to me and asked for texture and layers in work. I haven't worked out how much to use this technique and simplify it, but the unknown is always the most exciting part for me. Once work is completed, I get that moment of bliss and empty sadness because I need to move on to something new to discover. I think this is why I never work on one piece at a time because it protects me from the emptiness when I am done working on a thing.

Philip Hartigan: What other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

Lorelei French Sowa: I love reading both fiction and nonfiction. Like painting, I tend to read more than one book at a time. Today I may pick up the middle of "The Island of Missing Trees" by Elif Shafak or "Your Dog is Your Mirror" by Kevin Behan. I highly recommend both of these, by the way. If I start reading something and don't absorb myself into it in the first hour, I put it down permanently. I am also finding much inspiration in the lyrics of songs or great poetry. Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese' is worth committing to memory. In addition to cerebral activities, I think it is artistically essential for me to move physically daily. A long walk, a yoga session, or my favorite barre class help me settle my energy and focus better on the brain. I play golf or go boating to socialize and connect with others. I recognize how easy it is for me to work in my introverted homebody self, but I can energize creatively more if I allow myself to connect socially.

Transplanted Cuttings, mixed media on canvas, 12 inches x 12 inches x 0.75 inch

Philip Hartigan: What's the first-ever piece of art you remember making?

Lorelei French Sowa: My mind floods back to summer camp when we spent time at the arts and crafts table. I loved this part of the day the most. I remember doing all sorts of crayon rubbings with leaves and making things out of string. I always made handmade cards for my parents and coloring book pages for my grandmother. Really the usual activities for children. It wasn't until I was 14 that I remember sitting in a high school art class and playing with acrylic paint on canvas that I fell in love with the process. I still keep up with my art teacher, Kathy Mates today. She was such a positive force in my life. I painted this Raggedy Ann doll sitting in a chair with high-heeled shoes. It is super creepy looking, and my drawing is all off, but my mom kept the painting and still hangs it in her guest cottage in Northern Michigan. I know it is creepy because she told me her last guests took the picture down and turned it around. We both laughed.

Philip Hartigan: Finally, and you can answer this in any way that's meaningful to you: why are you an artist?

Lorelei French Sowa: I am an artist because I am curious. I am imbued with wonder and a deep need for understanding. Painting is a way of life—commuting with the world around me. Being an artist is not about talent but about exploring and figuring things out. It is simply my vehicle for connecting my interior chamber to my outside reality. I have great empathy and emotion; expressing it through painting provides an outlet for all that emotion. I know painting is not the only way to be creative, and It is just the path I am currently using. Staying flexible and independent with a tremendous spirit and a love of play are traits I value. Robert Henri (1865-1929), an American painter and teacher, sums up my understanding of the word artist better than anyone:

"Art, when understood, is the province of every Human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra something."

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe to my Artist Newsletter via the link in the right-hand column? Thanks, and keep creating.

Joan Miro's Lithographs

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 17:47:00 +0000

I was visiting Barcelona, Spain, between April 26 and May 5 --- my first return visit since I lived there in the mid-1990s. The occasion was for my wife, Patty, and I to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary. I could write many blog posts about this trip, from the waves of nostalgia that swept over me, the return to familiar haunts, the new things I saw and did with Patty as we created our own memories together (it was her first time in Barcelona).

For now, I'm considering the work I saw in the Joan Miro museum, and in particular his prints. I've never been much of a fan of Miro's work --- the whimsy often obscures the inventiveness for me --- but I remember being struck by the lithographs when I used to come to the museum a quarter of a century ago (free entry with my student ID). Seeing them again, I was still as taken with them as I was back then.

The selection in the museum consists of about 40 framed prints, arrange in two groups of 20, installed on the walls shoulder to shoulder. In common with almost everything by Miro, the shapes are variations on swirling lines, squiggles, child-like star shapes, organisms that elongate into cartoonish cellular shapes with noses and eyes, some of them filled in with cross hatching and sold tone. When I look at them from a distance, the impression is of uniformity and similarity. But getting in close, I started to see the little variations of placement and scale of these elements. I assume the drawing on the litho stone was spontaneous, and the prints were created close together in time, but one sees that a part of him was aware of the need, or the impulse, to change the direction of his hand for each print.

The result is that the eye is constantly moving around the picture and constantly being surprised by the changes in contrast and mood. Perhaps the monochrome helps: the primary colours of the paintings might be what increases the whimsicality, but in the prints one feels more the joy of invention and creative play.

Beverly Fisher and Studio Light Space

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 23 May 2022 19:08:00 +0000

Artist and designer Beverly Fisher has recently moved to Tucson, Arizona, from Philadelphia and she is working in a beautiful old adobe building in the Barrio Viejo. The space is a classic structure from the middle of the nineteenth century, with thick walls to keep the fierce summer heat at bay, and an interior of whitewashed walls and flagstone floors and a high ceiling with exposed beams and rafters. In addition to making her own work in the structure, Fisher exhibits work by herself and other artists in a space which seems tailor-made to display abstract work in the best possible environment.

Beverly Fisher, A Passage Series, ink on paper on board, 20 ins. x 20 ins. x 2 ins. 2021

Fishers's work consists of ink drawings on paper. Their linearity implies a high degree of formal organization and an imposed structure, but on close inspection it's clear that the final image is arrived at by a process of exploration. In the piece picture above, what appears to be a grid is in fact rows of lines which bend and curve to and fro, setting up a rhythm of fluctuation and uncertainty which is only resolved by stepping back from the surface and seeing them again as a collective. Heavier, darker marks here and there provide a contrasting emphasis, as does the network of spidery lines and dots that criss-cross the picture and work to fracture or at least interrupt the ordered world of the grid.

Jury Smith, Shift, clay, underglaze, stain, 10 ins. x 11 ins. x 10 ins.

Sculptures by Jury Smith are also on display: exquisite abstract forms in clay and earthenware, some of which are polygons, others with echoes of the human figure, but all of them executed in a lustrous monochrome that looks superb in this space.

Maude Andrade, Graphite #2, graphite & oil on board, 24 ins. x 24 ins. x 2 ins.

Finally, there are several pieces by Maude Andrade which are part drawing and part painting. They play with the textures of graphite and oil, the graphite applied to create a band of hard surface and the oil paint applied to set up a viscous contrast. The dividing line between these two areas is never quite at the halfway point, which possibly implies a horizon line and invites us to see them as dark landscapes. In common with all of the work on display in this small group exhibition, Andrade's pieces provide the pleasure of seeing well-made and intelligently executed abstract art.

Fisher intends to host exhibitions of work with guest artist three to four times a year. The striking interior space of the building and the high quality of the exhibited work makes Light Space an invaluable new addition to the artistic landscape of this part of the southwest.

Studio Light Space, 307 South Convent Avenue, Tucson, is open by advance appointment from Thursday to Saturday each week.

Six of the Best 43: Painter Leslie Peterson Sapp

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 09 May 2022 17:41:00 +0000

Boudoir II, 40 inches x 48 inches, acrylic/charcoal/collage on panel, 2022

Part 43 of an interview series in which artists reply to the same six questions. Leslie Peterson Sapp is a painter and printmaker based in Oregon, USA. She makes painting and prints that call to mind mid-twentieth century magazine and book cover images, and film noir mystery. You can see more of her work here. Other interviews on this blog are available here.

Philip Hartigan: What medium/media do you chiefly use, and why?

Leslie Peterson Sapp: I use acrylic paint and paper. This is because I enjoy being able to collage paper and combine it with paint. Back in college I used oils, which are a far more sensual experience. But oil rots paper, and once I started working with collage and drawing, I switched. Now I am accustomed to the short drying time: it has a completely different rhythm than oil paint.

PH: What piece are you currently working on?

LSP: I’m working on a piece I’m calling “Boudoir”. It’s a large piece (40 inches x 48 inches). It is of a femme fatale in a white gown, reclining on an emerald green chaise lounge. On the floor in front of her is a stack of books, and a bottle of champagne and two glasses, one of which is toppled over. It’s very 1930s glamour shot, but the books bring a bit of a twist to it.

Lace, 40 inches x 40 inches, acrylic/collage on panel, 2020

PH: What creative surprises are happening in the current work?

LSP: My work has been created with more immediacy and fluidity than I have been working over the last several years. Previously, I would do drawings and small studies, and then resize the drawing and transfer it to a panel, then paint. This time I decided to skip transferring the drawing, and simply mounted it on a panel and started painting on it directly. It was different and very freeing.

PH: What other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

LSP: My big geeky obsession is archeology and ancient history. Not an artistic medium per se, but very visual and I find it relaxing and inspiring to read about it and watch shows about it.

I also love old movies and I love to dance. I hope to begin learning flamenco dancing soon- I just have to sign up!

The Hanged Man, 32 inches x 18 inches, acrylic/charcoal on panel, 2021

PH: What's the first ever piece of art you remember making?

LSP: I remember trying to draw hands when I was very tiny, like kindergarten. So, I had two figures, standing side by side, with gigantic hands. I also used to make a lot of drawings of swans in lakes in the moonlight. Very moody, even back then.

PH: Finally, and you can answer this in any way that's meaningful to you: why are you an artist?

LSP: Because I am compelled to. Perhaps it's because I started so young, when I was very tiny, and people would marvel at my ability, so I think I identified with being “an artist” so young, that I never stopped. This isn’t to say that there haven’t been interruptions in my artistic practice. But I’ve never really identified as anything else.

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe to my Artist Newsletter via the link in the right-hand column? Thanks, and keep creating.

Six of the Best: Debra Disman

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 20:43:00 +0000

“It's Not Black and White”, (interior/open), Book board, mulberry paper, used typewriter ribbon, canvas, hemp cord, 2021

Part 42 of an interview series in which artists reply to the same six questions. Debra Disman makes sculptural objects from a combination of materials that can be read as fiber art, yet also imply book forms. Her work is a mesmerising combination of materials, textures, and forms that are combined with exceptional skill. You can see more of her work here. Other interviews on this blog are available here.

Philip Hartigan: What medium/media do you chiefly use, and why?

Debra Disman: At the present time, I am working primarily in what you might call fiber: cloth/fabric/textiles/, including canvas, jute, lace and ribbon; and thread/string/cord, along with book board, paper, such as watercolor and mulberry papers; acrylic paint and adhesives. I interweave other materials such as used typewriter ribbon, varnish and plaster gauze into the works---whatever is needed to bring the emotional message home materially. I really have a passion for cloth, and string too, and putting them together. Cloth is truly as close to human as I think a non-sentient material can be with incredible expressive potential, it is what we are wrapped in often, at our inception and end, it can conform to the human or other bodies, yet has a life of its own. I also love the seeming independence of string, thread and cord, the way they fall and become entangled and entwined, without our intervention, just like human beings and other forms of life!

PH: What piece are you currently working on?

DD: I am working to complete a series of works that comprise my Santa Monica Artist Fellowship project: an investigation and response to the work of and concurrencies between the groundbreaking oeuvre of the artists Charlotte Salomon and Eva Hesse, which I will be showing in June. I have committed to a series of five works, in addition to research and learning new ways to present my work.

“Excavation of the Interior”, (interior detail), Wood, mulberry paper, canvas, muslin, linen thread, hemp cord, 2021

PH: What creative surprises are happening in the current work?

DD: One surprise, which is also a challenge, is how long it is taking to translate my ideas into visual form, and how much concentration it is taking. Luckily, this has been a year-long endeavor. I am stitching text into several of the works, and it is always fascinating to see, as one sews, when exactly the stitching transforms into something beyond the purely the visual, at the moment when all those little lines connect and become readable words that can communicate on another level.

PH: What other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

DD: I am passionate about dance/movement/bodywork; literature/writing/reading; and I love emotive, thought-provoking, intelligent works on the large and small screen. I guess you could say I love story. I live with an actor, so we spend time engaging with this! I also very much need what I call stillpoint: quiet time just to be, get focused, and both rest and awaken the mind. Harder and harder to claim, as the world becomes ever more digital and connected, and it is harder and harder to “get away” and not feel like you just can’t stop.

“Forest Through The Trees”, (exterior/interior), Book board, used typewriter ribbon, ribbon, acrylic paint, wood, hemp cord, canvas, 2021

PH: What's the first ever piece of art you remember making?

DD: I drew all the time as a child on shirt, cardboard, or whatever. I don’t remember when it started! I also remember making things out of grasses and things I found lying around.

PH: Finally, and you can answer this in any way that's meaningful to you: why are you an artist?

DD: I think I have a visceral need to work with my hands, to express myself through making, and just to make as an almost instinctual act. That being said, it is still important the work gets out there and seen, so I must have a strong need to reach out to and communicate with the world through my work, which tends to the conceptual. I am able to spend long hours alone just working away in my studio, and also love repetitive work that becomes a meditative flow. I think flow is what I seek, and when I can find it when working, all feels right with the world, even when it is not! I have heard that the writer Samuel Beckett found hard repetitive manual labor a “consolation”, and I relate to that!

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe to my Artist Newsletter via the link in the right-hand column? Thanks, and keep creating.

Six of the Best 41: Lisa Flowers Ross

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:29:00 +0000

Leaf Stack #43, 2021, hand dyed fabrics, thread,
24” x 18” mounted on stretcher bars

Part 41 of an interview series in which artists reply to the same six questions. Lisa Flowers Ross is an Idaho-based artist working with fabrics and other materials that she combines into pieces that emerge as semi-abstract recollections of natural forms, or as more formal abstract pieces. Lisa has been awarded several artist residencies including at Playa in Oregon, Brush Creek in Wyoming, Flathead Lake Biological Station (through Open AIR) in Montana, and in May 2022 she will spend a couple of weeks at the Holly House in Shelton, WA. In June 2022 her work will be shown in Baker City, Oregon, and in 2023 at the Visions Art Museum in San Diego. You can see more of her work here. Other interviews on this blog are available here.

Philip Hartigan: What medium/media do you chiefly use, and why?

Lisa Flowers Ross: Currently, my main medium is fabric. I started creating artworks with fabric in 2002. Before that, I received my art degree in drawing. But after college, I dabbled in different media over the years. Eventually, I found my way to fabric and it is the one that has stuck for the longest period.

Several years after I started working with commercial fabrics, I wanted to have more choices of colors, so I learned how to hand-dye my own fabrics. Now, I mix all my colors using just the pure primary dye colors of red, yellow and blue. This way I can create my own palette. Hand dyeing the fabric creates subtle variations in the color which gives it a slightly more organic, handmade sensibility.

I do not have a wet studio and do most all my dyeing outside during the summer. Usually once a year, I will dye large amounts of fabric at one time. The fabrics have accumulated over the years and I now have a fairly large selection from which to chose.

We are all surrounded by fabric on a daily basis and, therefore, I feel like people can relate to it very well. It is a very tactile medium and has lots of 2D and 3D possibilities.

PH: What piece are you currently working on?

LFR: Right now, I have just completed an artwork in my Leaf Stack series and several pieces in my Field Studies series. The Leaf Stack series began in 2014 and the Field Studies series in 2015. I have been jumping back and forth between them over the years. They are very different in their inspiration.

The Leaf Stack series comes from my imagination and exploring implied transparency, overlapping forms and intersections of lines using a simple leaf shape as a starting point. I have just completed Leaf Stack #44. My Field Studies series is inspired by various natural locations around the Western states. Eventually, I hope to expand this to other states, as well. But since I live in Boise, Idaho, I am starting regionally.

I also create other artworks and have a few other series, but these two are the main ones I keep returning to.

Field Study (I10Pa1), 2022, hand-dyed fabrics, thread, 28-1/2” x 26”

PH: What creative surprises are happening in the current work?

LFR: Recently, I have been wanting to work in a more environmentally friendly way by using found materials. Toward the end of last year, I was able to complete an artwork called Daily Press/ Press Daily that used men’s work shirts and a letterpress drawer. This artwork is quite outside my usual realm. I think it surprised many people. It took a long time for the idea to coalesce and come to fruition. As my brain continues to mull over found materials, I have a new idea for a 3D artwork that uses “fabric yarn” which is created by twisting two strips of fabric together. I have been making this fabric yarn by hand recently to use up small pieces of fabric that otherwise are too small to be usable.

PH: What other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

LFR: In the past, I have also worked in printmaking. I find that that medium seems to work a different part of my brain than working with fabric. Working with fabric is more of an additive process where I am adding and arranging pieces on my design wall, while printmaking has quite a few subtractive processes such as carving away areas on a linoleum block or etching. Since our community press studio has shut down, I have not done as much printmaking recently.

Over the years, I have also done several different daily projects for various amounts of time. During one daily project, I made small collages using found papers and other materials. These smaller works give me the satisfaction of working quicker to complete something, as working with fabrics and stitching can take some time. They also give me license to explore, as I do not plan a design like I do with fabric, but instead let the materials guide the work.

Also in the last couple of years, I have gone back to doing a bit of painting, mostly working on small 3 inch x 3 inch canvases to try my hand at plein air painting. I have also painted swatches on paper to use for small collages. That process is very similar to my working with fabrics. I have a selection of colors to choose from and then I cut shapes and put them together.

The best non-artistic activity that feeds my creative process is being out in natural areas, either hiking, bicycling, walking, or kayaking. Nature provides the most inspiration.

Daily Press/Press Daily, 2021, found materials, 14-1/2” x 22"

PH: What's the first ever piece of art you remember making?

LFR: I remember always liking to do arts and crafts before starting school and throughout my education. I do remember in elementary school we had a contest to create a fire safety poster. I drew Snoopy escaping from his dog house which was on fire. The school hung all the artworks in the hallway. One day I walked by and saw that my artwork was missing. I thought maybe someone took it down because they didn’t like it or maybe it fell and had gotten swept away. Eventually, I found out they had taken it down because it had won an award.

During that same period, I remember a very encouraging art teacher I had in elementary school who motivated me and gave me a watercolor she had painted. It was probably just made as a demonstration for class but I was over-the-moon that she had given me an original piece of art

PH: Finally, and you can answer this in any way that's meaningful to you: why are you an artist?

LFR: I am a very visual person. I learn better through visual images and from watching others do something. I am very observant of the world around me. I feel that I can express myself best through my art. Also, I just love making things with my hands and creative problem-solving. When I am working and can get into the “zone,” it is peaceful and calming. Being an artist means I can create whatever I want. I am in complete control of the outcome, get to make all the decisions and can claim the work as my own. When people view my art, I love hearing their own interpretations of it, an emotion they feel, a moment they remember or a recollection of a favorite place. It’s my way of connecting with people.

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe to my Artist Newsletter via the link in the right-hand column? Thanks, and keep creating.

Six of the Best 40: Michelle Hernandez

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 20:07:00 +0000

Chain of Events, encaustic monotype on Sumi-e paper

Part 40 of an interview series in which artists reply to the same six questions. Michelle Hernandez, based in New Jersey, USA, works with encaustic to create monotypes and mixed media work that take full advantage of the rich range of mark making and depth of surface made possible by those materials. You can see more of her work here. Other interviews on this blog are available here.

Philip Hartigan: What medium/media do you chiefly use, and why?

Michelle Hernandez: My primary medium is encaustic painting and encaustic monotype printing which I then turn into mixed-media collages (usually). I practiced as an interior and industrial designer for years and wanted to embark on a medium which really fed into my need for tactile manipulation. I’m a very hands-on person. As I researched different mediums, the encaustic process intrigued me; it’s a 4,000 year old medium once used by Romans and Egyptians in various forms. It’s a mash-up of ancient and modern techniques. It uses natural materials: beeswax, pigmented beeswax, damar resin (from trees found in Asia). The alchemy of melting, color mixing, fusing with fire or heat, carving, mark-making and excavating became a meditative way for me to slow down, stay in the moment and practice patience. With encaustic monotypes, the immediacy of painting on a hot palette and then printing the image onto paper feeds my impatient traits (I can print 50 to 100 in a few hours.)

PH: What piece are you currently working on?

MH: Currently I am working on a series of abstract landscapes/inner landscapes, inspired by land formations, the ocean, travel. I’m exploring the contrast of the ever-changing external landscape to how we then process it internally.

Untitled, encaustic and oil stick on birch panel

PH: What creative surprises are happening in the current work?

MH: The current series has me re-evaluating my website and my social media posts. I'm also using my design skills to edit, edit, edit in order to get down to the essentials of color, shape, form and detail. I’m currently taking an intensive workshop on monotypes and my brain is hurting with so much new knowledge - it's so exciting!

PH: What other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

MH: Music completely feeds my process - all genres. Travel, food, museums and nature are my go-to’s for inspiration - shared experiences as well as deeply personal experiences. Photography is something I enjoy and use my iPhone as my portable sketch pad to capture nature, a color, a texture or architectural details.

from the Inner landscapes series, encaustic monotype/mixed media collage
printed on Sumi-e paper & mounted on birch panel

PH: What's the first ever piece of art you remember making?

MH: I don’t remember the first piece of art, but I’m sure it was drawing with crayons while watching cartoons. I do remember winning an art contest in third grade for a poster on the importance of reading that was displayed in the public library. It was the first public recognition of something I had created from my head, heart ,and hands. I still call upon that feeling whenever I’m about to put myself/art out there or apply for an exhibit - the 9 year old me is pretty confident!

PH: Finally, and you can answer this in any way that's meaningful to you: why are you an artist?

MH: I’ve asked myself this question many times and even in the context of “why me?”, as if it’s a burden to bear. And there are days... but I’m an artist because it’s the most pure and natural way to express myself.

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe to my Artist Newsletter via the link in the right-hand column? Thanks, and keep creating.

Six of the Best 39: Anna Wetzel Artz

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 18:15:00 +0000

A Consolation, acrylic on panel, 12 inches x 18 inches, 2022.

Part 39 of an interview series in which artists reply to the same six questions. Anna Wetzel Artz is an artist and educator based in the Seattle area. Her visual art, inspired by nature and landscape, consists of accumulations of beautifully spare and sensitive marks that suggest natural forms while retaining a keen semi-abstract sensibility. You can see more of her work here. Other interviews on this blog are available here.

Philip Hartigan: What medium/media do you chiefly use, and why?

Anna Wetzel Artz: I move back and forth between painting and drawing, mostly acrylic on panel and ink or colored pencil on paper. I’m interested in creating layers of expressive marks that evoke natural textures and landscapes, and appreciate materials that dry quickly and allow me to attend to several pieces simultaneously.

I also create out of my home studio, working around teaching and parenting roles, so it helps to have a rhythm of switching between wet and dry media for cycles of quicker clean-up here and there.

PH: What piece are you currently working on?

AW: Right now I’m working on a series of drawings on paper, Dialogues, that have been informed by collaboration with my two preschool-aged daughters.

Compelled by the tension between mothering young children and retreating into the studio to create my “serious” work, for one dedicated month this year I intensively integrated mark-making into parenting life, with the goal of enriching both roles. The resulting works are a dialogue between my daughters and my practice, and a path toward creative survival in this season of life.

Dialogue IV (Whidbey Island), colored pencil on paper, 22 x 30 inches, 2022

PH: What creative surprises are happening in the current work?

AW: First, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how successful the integrative experiment has been. What was meant to be a short-term project has proven to be a rhythm I can incorporate regularly into my studio practice.

Prior to this, I maintained quite clear boundaries between the two spaces, concerned that I couldn’t adequately focus on art-making while around my small children. I did not bring drawing materials along on our family outings. I did not start a painting at the kitchen table while they drew on big swaths of paper on the wood floor. I parented while I parented, and I made art when I could get alone in the studio.

But through this purposeful integration of parenting and creating, I blurred the boundaries and found a powerful opportunity to keep my mark-making fresh and ready, even when I wasn’t able to get properly “into the studio.” I took the sketchbook to the beach on day trips. I began working on my drawings at the kitchen table, prepared for and ready to accept an errant scribble or spill. My mantra became, “No mark is wasted in this process,” and I found a new determination to let my studio practice spill over into the everyday.

I don’t pretend I’m the first artist to make this discovery--indeed, it was through the prompting of communities like the Artist/Mother network that I felt encouraged to emulate this approach. Imogen Cunningham’s 1957 image of Ruth Asawa working alongside her children has captivated me for years, and for the first time I felt that I could really step into that example.

The other big creative surprise has been finding such a deep mine of formal inspiration in these collaborative drawings with my children. As an elementary art teacher, I should never be surprised by the stunning images that young kids create. And yet, the purity of color choice, composition, and mark-making generated by my 5- and 2-year-old just blew me away (especially when translated to a larger scale, with artist-grade paper and pigment). I long to imitate just a fraction of that dazzling freedom.

PH: What other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

AW: The spiritual and emotional nourishment I receive from being in nature is probably the biggest driver of my creative process, not to mention the fact that textures from the forest floor, tree bark, and the coastline constantly find their way into my work. My family hikes and visits the beach frequently, rain or shine! Where I live in the Pacific Northwest we are so easily confronted with stunning wilderness: it is beautiful and so generously accessible.

I don’t make it happen as often, but reading poetry also feeds my process, especially that which attempts to contain the mystery of place and belonging. I read David Whyte’s essay collection Consolations throughout the production of my last series, and felt so at home.

There Is A Certain Quietness, acrylic on panel, 12 x 16 inches, 2022

PH: What's the first ever piece of art you remember making?

AW: I had a really profound art education experience when I was about five years old. The result was a collaged brooch, made with mod podge and plastic gems. But the context is what made it so memorable. My parents had signed me up for classes at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and I remember being so captivated by the neoclassical building and commanding, well-lit collections.

Even at that young age I was really impressed by it all and perceived my museum-based art class as this very elevated aesthetic experience. I think I’ve wanted to be an art educator ever since, and provide these sort of special and “elevated” aesthetic experiences to very young children.

PH: Finally, and you can answer this in any way that's meaningful to you: why are you an artist?

MH: Separate from the desire to teach art, I believe my compulsion to create art stems from a longing to both understand others and be understood. Marks and images are one universal language that I can speak and comprehend, and they convey meaning so powerfully. The things which I must (but am not certain how to) say in words are best expressed in my art, and I hope to have a relational experience with others through it.

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe to my Artist Newsletter via the link in the right-hand column? Thanks, and keep creating.

Six of the Best: Helen Reynolds

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 18:21:00 +0000

Phthalo + quinacridone + azo 1.4.16, watercolor on paper, 75 cm x 53 cm.

Part 38 of an interview series in which artists reply to the same six questions. Helen Reynolds is a New Zealand artist whose work in many media explores systems, layers, and translucency. Her recent watercolour pieces push the boundaries of what we normally expect of that medium, often emerging as large-scale abstract pieces that focus on a single gesture carried as far as it can go. Her website is here. Other interviews on this blog are available here.

Philip Hartigan: What medium/media do you chiefly use, and why?

Helen Reynolds: I’ve been working almost entirely in watercolour for five years now. Watercolour is translucent, treacherous and delicate - I love it.

I started using watercolours when my daughter was quite ill and I was spending most of my day looking after her. Watercolour fits into women’s lives when those lives are constrained to the domestic. You can put watercolour down quickly, it doesn’t smell, make a mess and ruin your brushes. Now my daughter is well again, I love experimenting with using this ‘women’s’ medium - so often used in a mild and traditional way - and pushing it out into bold, brave, strong shapes.

PH: What piece are you currently working on?

HR: I’m still exhausted from covid - and covid has also interrupted supplies of watercolour paper into New Zealand. The long supply chain from the European paper mills to this side of the world is a bit fragmented. So I am making my turning lines in Indian ink on drawing paper. It’s really different from watercolour - immediate and definite. I don’t have to work hard to get a feeling of strength. It’s just automatically part of this black/white, ink/paper thing.

A recent commission asked me to be more deliberate in my colour choices, which I found difficult at first, but now I really want to make singing, clear colours all the time - just waiting for the paper to be shipped in!

Practice line A, ink on paper, 201 cm x 208 cm.

PH: What creative surprises are happening in the current work?

HR: With watercolour, its always got surprise built in! The pigments flow with the water and end up where the water takes them - not where I intend them to go. I make this surprise part of the process by building up layers that emphasis the way colour emerges from the process.

PH: What other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

HR: I love gardening - which led me to studying landscape architecture a while ago- and inspires me to work with systems. In the landscape, the systems of plant’s needs for sunlight combined with a need to reproduce create this infinite beauty around us. So I try and let the processes and systems take over my art, let them have creative control.

The other big thing for me is yoga. To paint the way I paint, I need to have both focus and physical mobility. My studio days start with yoga followed by painting in ink on paper, just practicing over and over. In my pyjamas.

Phthalo + Quinacridone + Azo 1.4.15, watercolor on paper, 75 cm x 53 cm.

PH: What's the first ever piece of art you remember making?

HR: I so vividly remember what felt like a huge explosion and opening up for me at Kindergarten. I painted a strong red line and I knew I had changed the world a little bit. I remember the feeling of having created something stimulating and rich visually and also at the same time creating a representation of a path, a journey. I remember putting a series of blue brush marks next to the red line, the sort of mark where the splayed brush shape pushed into the paper looks like foot prints and being so happy that these ‘foot prints’ boosted the ‘path’ story of the red line.

PH: Finally, and you can answer this in any way that's meaningful to you: why are you an artist?

HR: At first I was an artist because I loved the feeling -a feeling which to me is almost literal - of reaching up into a universe of infinite possibility (a universe of things that exist only in some future/alternative reality) and pulling down a new idea, and create that idea in this reality. In a way, that is kind of mind blowing enough and fun enough for one lifetime! That was enough for me for many years. But my art fairly suddenly moved into a more productive space when I went beyond thinking of art as something wonderfully fun and exciting I did.

I started to realise art is work . Real work that the world needs and I had to get into the studio and make art well, make lots of it, and make sure it got out into the world. Because I now think of art as the act of transmitting one person’s experience to another person (through visual means, through the eyes). So if I could learn to generate meaningful, important states of experience within myself, and then learn to intensify how these states are communicated visually, that’s work that needs doing. I need to do it not just when it feels fun, but I need to do the work when I feel a bit lazy, I need to do it when I am confused about everything, when I am worried and when I am happy.

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe to my Artist Newsletter via the link in the right-hand column? Thanks, and keep creating.

My interview for The Art Biz podcast

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 17:52:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I was invited onto The Art Biz podcast to talk to host Alyson Stanfield about my past and current work as an artist and an art writer. We talked about this blog, too, and how I started it in 2009, posted almost daily for a few years, and then leveraged the blog into paid writing assignments for art magazines.

Here is the link to the page. The podcast recording is about halfway down the page.

How To Teach An Online Drawing Class

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 16:43:00 +0000

Since the pandemic began in early 2020, all my art-related classes have moved online. In terms of the subject of each class, the transition from in-person to online was seamless. Collage, handmade books, and the at-home sketchbook all worked out, mainly because the participants were making things with their own hands in their own space, while the teaching was demonstration followed by a friendly "show and tell."

One class I was skeptical about was the first-time drawing class, which I taught for the Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago). The challenge: if I asked the students to set up their own individual still lives to draw from, the class might end up as a seven-way free for all, and it might be impossible to make the instruction general enough to cover all the different arrangements of objects. On the other hand, if I used a still life in my space as the model, they would be drawing from a 2-d image on their screens, as opposed to the in-person class where you see things in three dimensions.

But to my delighted surprise...it worked!

Here are some of my thoughts about why:

As you can see in the first photo, I used good lighting to illuminate both my teaching station (the laptop) and the still life table.

The ring light in front of the still life table has a camera holder, so that camera was part of the Zoom call and I could pin it so it filled the Zoom screen for everyone.

On day 1, I made sure to say that of course drawing from life was preferable, but that we could still learn a lot about proportion, line, tone, and volume.

I checked in every 20 minutes, asked people to hold up their drawings to their webcam, and gave them pointers about improving their drawings, if necessary.

Here is one of the drawings made by a participant, based on the still life in photo 2 above. I hope you'll agree that they did a great job!

So what made it work: a high speed internet connection, good Zoom skills, professional lighting, and (I hope) teaching experience.

But the chief reason, I think, is that I encouraged the students to have fun, and to take joy in the simple act of making marks with charcoal on paper, and in taking time away from the stress of the pandemic to sit in silence and use their hands and their eyes to make a drawing.

Artist Sarah Stolar Dismantles the Patriarchy

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 21:44:00 +0000

"More", oil on canvas, 60" x 48", 2018

Artist Sarah Stolar's large-scale paintings are currently on show in a group exhibition at the Elizabeth Jones Art Center for Social and Environmental Justice, in Portland, Oregon. The title of the exhibition is Power Positions: A Dismantling of Phallacies, and as the pun in the title suggests, each of the artists presents work that questions patriarchal power structures by concentrating on women and female expression. In the words of the exhibition prospectus, they "explore themes of misogyny, intersectional feminism, body politics, sex and sexuality, power/empowerment, and systems of oppression."

Stolar contributes eleven paintings that nearly all share common themes and method of making. "More", from 2018, is a good example of this style: a woman staring directly at the viewer, her pose and gesture indicating confidence, possession of her own body, even defiance (for example, the gesture of the right hand could be self-pleasure, or it could be a version of the male "junk-grab" that means "fuck you"), the figure of the woman isolated against a flat colour, background emptied of objects, and the subject painted larger than life size so that she seems to tower over you.

Exhibition view

In other paintings, we see a woman holding a mirror up to a breast (this is a portrait of artist Balitronica of the radical performance art group La Pocha Nostra). Her semi-nudity is not at all an erotic invitation but a private moment where the concentration of the picture space again forces the viewer to concentrate on the gesture, on what is happening in the painting, on what may be happening in the mind of the sitter, rather than on their own assumptions as (male) viewers. In "Sex Goddess", Stolar uses that same focus and intensity of representation in a portrait of the disabled performance artist Jessica Blinkhorn. The title of the painting is presented without irony, the bare breasts and the stiletto heels claiming the right of this body to the universal expression of self in eros.

"Sex Goddess", oil on canvas, 72" x 72", 2021

Technically, the way Stolar positions the figure on the canvas and the handling of the paint brings to mind old magazine covers, ones in which the image is more hyper-real than strictly representational, almost lurid in the combination of acid-toned colours and direct lighting. The women in pulp magazine covers were often grotesquely sexualized, either as victims or as over-aggressive threats. In Stolar's interpretation, her work presents women as figures of utmost strength, freed from male attention and approval, freed into themselves.

Power Positions: A Dismantling of Phallacies continues at the Elizabeth Jones Art Center for Social and Environmental Justice in Portland, Oregon, through March 18, 2022.

New Interview

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 18:42:00 +0000

A new interview with me is now live on Vimeo via Multiple Arts, a series curated by Liana Voia, who lives in Canada and France. It's a really well-edited piece, with me mostly speaking directly to camera about my life, art, influences, and plans, with detours into the history of twentieth century French art!

The interview is part of a series of dozens of similar interviews that Liana has conducted with artists in the United States and Canada:

Here is the video (link here if you want to watch it via Vimeo):

Process Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 18:03:00 +0000

Beginning shortly before Christmas, I have been regularly uploading short videos showing me (or at least my hands) at work in my studio. Many of them are short hyperlapse videos, condensing hours of work into fifteen or thirty seconds, to fit the Instagram format and recommended length. Ai imagine that by the end of this year I will have quite an extensive archive of my painting and printmaking sessions.

A Successful Online Exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 17:25:00 +0000

In my last blog post, I talked about a virtual exhibition of my work that I created via the Kunstmatrix hosting site, and which can be viewed on my website. Last week, I held two online events to inaugurate it -- a preview for the VIPs on my mailing list, followed two nights later by a public event -- and I am pleased to report that both were a success.

Both events were broadcast via Zoom, and a recording of the public event is available via my YouTube channel, website, or here:

About 27 people attended, and I sold ten pieces from the show. But most satisfying of all, perhaps even more than the sales, was the question and answer session conducted by artist/curator Joanne Aono. We agreed that I wouldn't see the questions in advance, and it made for an incredibly interesting and stimulating back and forth.

I hope you look at the virtual exhibition, but I also urge you to watch the Q & A, which begins at around the 30:00 minute mark.

Online Exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 17:14:00 +0000

Exhibition opportunities are limited for me due to the pandemic, so I've put together an online exhibition which opens on Friday March 265th. Here is a short video preview of it:

The app I used to create the show is called Kunstmatrix, and it enables you to set up virtual rooms through which people can move in a siimulation of 3-d movement, similar to how one looks around Google street view in 360 degree panorama.

People can join the opening by signing in to a Zoom call, and then I just share my laptop screen within the Zoom call and perform the virtual walk-through by moving my mouse around. I've "attended" similar online events, but this is the first time I am trying it myself. Report to follow...

Another Life

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Hartigan) — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 19:23:00 +0000

I took this photo ten years, in February 2011. There are so many things about it that are so different from now that I feel I'm looking at something from someone else's life:

The location is the living room of an old farmhouse that my wife and I owned back then, in a very small town in northwestern Illinois not far from the Mississippi River.
The old fireplace, the old wood pocket doors, are all original, but I repainted the walls and put up a faux tin ceiling.
The watercolour over the fireplace is something I did back in London in the 1990s. The ceramic vase was from a ceramic artist who had a small workshop and store on the little high street in this town.
Finally, I took the photo on a Samsung flip-phone, so it was probably 160 Kb, as opposed to the multi-megabyte photos we all take with our smartphones now.

I imagine this is true for all of us: the older we get, we can look back at more than one time in our lives with the amazement of people discovering the ancient Egyptians for the first time.