I Heart WAX!

I paint in a medium that is called encaustic. It is a beeswax-based paint mixed with pigment and kept molten while painting. The word encaustic comes from the Greek meaning to "burn in", which refers to the process of fusing the paint. This type of painting was used in the 5th century B.C. for weathering boats and coloring marble. Encaustic is the most durable of the artist's paints because the beeswax is impervious to moisture.

This is why I love it; the beauty in the paint is found in its immediate drying time. Because it cools immediately, the gesture and brush stroke are captured. Wax has this translucent quality that captures light swirls it around and swings it back at you in full HD color. You can scrap it, paint it, heat it, reheat and melt it into a puddle of color. But it is the brush stroke that captures the motion of head, heart and hand that brings me to the easel. To capture that confidence and where by a single series of marks can make a perfect painting keeps me coming back. As Picasso once said, “There is not one too many or one too few brush strokes that made this painting perfect.” It was something like that. (If you copy and use that…put me as the credit.)

Cheers
Jeff

Blown to Bits...

Unfortunately...I am refering to one of my pieces...oh well...just dirt right? I opened the kiln this morning and was slightly deflated when I got to the bottom. As I took out each shelf and held the pieces proudly...still just a little warm...the kind of warmth you feel when you are holding a sleeping kitten... until that last shelf...aaaah there it was so sad, sitting in a pile of crumbs on that last shelf. The piece that blew was also part of a set too...ouch! Just like adding lemon juice to a wound. So, to my painter friends out there, remember how lucky you are that you don't have to walk into your studio in the morning and hope that your painting didn't explode in the night! Yes, this does make each piece that does come out of the fire all the more special. With the help of Adrian's enthusiasm, I will accept this challenge and get back to the studio to keep working...less than 6 weeks left....nothing else is allowed to crack or blow up..I won't let it.
Rhoda

What is this show about, anyway?

Jeff is doing painting, prints, and a very elaborate installation (as well as brilliantly designing the catalog and postcard). Jamie is an amazing photographer as well as furniture maker. Rhoda is doing "precious" little pots (her words) in clay, functional mixed media pieces as well as truly heroic architectural sculpture. I am exhibiting painting, prints, ceramics, sculpture and furniture as well.

It is a renaissance, not just because we are different from each other, but because we each do such an extraordinary range of work with mastery. In this age of specialization, our commitment to being individually "renaissance artists" is totally subversive. This is the most important thing for people to get their head around. Many times dealers have told me, "Adrian, just paint flowers (or portraits or landscapes etc.). That would be so much easier to market." What we are trying to do is exactly what I was taught in art school was impossible- being a generalist..and a master, not of one thing but many. This would make perfect sense to a 15th century Florentine. Why are we not allowed the same latitude as artists in the 21st century?
Adrian

The Paint is All Dry and Crusty

The paint is all dry and crusty on my pallet. I have not painted for four days and "The Poetry of Craftsmanship" opens in six weeks! Everybody is working like crazy. It's not often I'm so scared and excited at the same time. I'm working on ideas for an engraving. I can visualize the tiny threads of copper curling up in front of my sharp burin. Unlike etching, engraving will print the very finest of lines. Every plate is hand wiped before it goes on the press. I'll do fifty small prints in a day. By three o'clock the palm of my right hand will be sore and no amount of scrubbing will get the ink out.

Adrian

Find a Way, or Make One

At some point in their career, every artist has to ask themselves, "Dare I risk the marketplace?" I don't mean your hometown or your county or even your state, but your country and even (gasp!) the world. You get the stones to contact someone like Cheryl Squadrito Moskovitz (Media Friendly Public Relations) and assure her (1) you've no principles to speak of, and (2) you're ready to ride - whatever it takes. And she says, "But I do, and there are limits, and this is my contract, sign here." At that point you realize (1) Oliver Stone is an ass (random, but I needed to say it) and (2) all you have is your friends, and that net is wide enough to change the world.

Jeff, Jaime, Rhoda and I are ready to get the PR train rolling and the show is only 6weeks away!! The opening reception is Wednesday, November 10 from 5pm to 9pm at West Chester University (Mitchell Hall, McKinney Gallery) and everyone is invited.

Art will happen
Adrian

Genuine

Seriously though, awesome photos. What a tresured friendship you both share. I was looking for a little "friendly banter" last night but I think everyone is too busy painting.

I added 3 feet in height today to my largest piece...I've been looking through Gaudi's eyes and have changed my direction. I had been mentally fighting my previuously "stiff" design. Gaudi used so many nature inspired motiffs in his work. It really makes you look that much closer at your suroundings. I often think about what I want to feel when I see the finished work. I haven't decided how I want this piece to convey. But I do know that I want the genuine feeling of soft plastic clay to be the prominent impression...so much so that you just have to touch it.


Rhoda

Hair

Adrian,
So what is going on here...are those sideburns? I think Jeff should do a painting based on those...or perhaps a sculpture could be found within them...I could use a little inspiration for my bench legs. The one I was working on finally collapsed...I had pushed it too far. I found it when I walked into the studio today...so I will just have to come up with a better design. I felt like the clay just gave me a slap in the face....so I will slap it right back!

Love the burns,
Rhoda

friends

What a wonderful friendship...

LETTER FROM ADEM (TURKISH FRIEND)

Dear Adrian,

Your letters arrived while I was away. Thank you for your extraordinary comments. I felt in a way as if my physical sensibilities were discovered in my work. I am an aged artist but I find my ideas of art have been constantly renewed. Our generation of artists grew with Herbert Reads' On the Meaning of Art. He says, "all art is primarily abstract," so I think that as he defines it, art creates an empathy that transcends reality. Getting my Doctorate on a Fulbright in the U.S. taught me a great deal. I'm now convinced that my core ideas concerning painting will never be accepted in Turkey, only internationally, if at all.

As you stated in your letter I, too, believe there is no progress in art. Art changes but does not evolve. The evolution of technique has never been the focal point of artistic interpretation. But concepts, for example; religious, ideological and philosophical, play an important role in human creativity.

From the point of art evolving, your work does not fit nicely into any sort of category or art movement, and I do not think that that should disturb you at all. You are not a postmodern "genre" painter although it is obvious that you admire 17th century still life's and history painting. No matter how classical your technique and no matter how traditional your work may appear to a superficial viewer, no matter how deeply you study history, your work is not "historical'. Rather, you constantly read, re-read and revise the background of American civilization. What A.C. Danto called, "The transfiguration of the commonplace."

In a way, all artists are storytellers. While you were in Turkey I believe we had a conversation about Marquez and his book Vivir Para Contarla (Living for Telling). We live to make stories, constructing meaning, constantly revising the significance of things. If we do not, we cannot survive.
Alles Gute fur Sie und Ihre Familie mein elemental Freund.
Adem