More photos

Here is Joanne Mattera, artist, originator of the international encaustic conference, and artist supporter extraordinaire, speaking at the recent conference in Provincetown, Mass. She sets a tone of mutual support, respect, and help among the artists who attend- really quite amazing. She continues that attitude all year long at her informative blog:  joannemattera.blogspot.com/

Joanne Mattera

"Black and White" is a painting of one of the cows who live across the road from the VCCA in Amherst, Virginia. Someone recently said I should show my cow paintings in Vermont because they love cows there. I answered that there must be hundreds of cow paintings and they surely don't need more. She said, "But this one has so much soul."

Black and White, encaustic on wood, 6x6"

Work by Sondra Arkin at Longview Gallery.

openings

 Me with Betsy Damon and Sue Collier at my Ceres show

Woah, I've been to a few lately, just a few. My own at Ceres April 28, several in Provincetown during the Encaustic Conference (I had a piece in the Beeline show at Kobalt), and one at Longview Gallery in DC, just the other night. Each is its own scene. Some openings make me ill, and I'm determined to attend enough to figure this out. Maybe if you're in the "in crowd" it's fun, and if you're not, it's not.

A tiny part of the crowd at the Beeline show at Kobalt Gallery in Provincetown

View from the tip of Cape Cod, near the conference site. Yum.

Longview Gallery owner and admirer

I am a romantic

Here is a link to a youtube video. It's short and gorgeous, to me. I took the footage with my little canon sure shot camera, up in Cape Cod several months ago. My husband is at the piano.
The violinist looks like my painting mentor from NYC, and when he closes his eyes and plays - ahh, he reminds me so much of my violin teacher from grade school, Mr. Lang.
I did a painting once called Maybe. I wrote on it - can I remember? - "Mr. Lang was my first music teacher. He played with all his heart and soul. Maybe I had a soul too."
I wonder if feeling is out of style now, or if hectic perfectionistic technique passes for art. Art is the middle of things. Comes from the middle, goes TO the middle. Well, that is too simple sounding. If people really responded to blog posts, this would make an interesting conversation. I guess I believe that "technique" has to be in the service of the heart, the soul, the spirit, not just the head, and certainly not of fashion!

Press Stuff

I am finally focusing on my upcoming show at Ceres Gallery in NY. I often ask myself, why a NEW YORK co-op, and not a DC one, like Touchstone? Touchstone is looking good. But New York is my heart's home. So there it is.

 

I have a nice press release draft which I'll post right here, along with the image that will go with it.

This is called Autumn Light/Blackfish Creek (encaustic on wood, 14x14"). Someone will buy this eventually. I can tell. Here is the text of the press release, so far at least. I may edit it.

”A Sense of Place”, a one-person exhibition of encaustic paintings by Marilyn Banner, will be on view at Ceres Gallery from April 26 – May 21, 2011. In this work, Banner combines drawing and painting in the luminous and tactile medium of encaustic, creating richly layered and highly textured works based on landscape. Energy, rhythm, and light predominate.

All the works at Ceres are inspired by a particular place. The artist uses a broad range of techniques, from careful and subtle layering of glazes to active, energetic brushwork, incised paint filled lines, scumbling, and scraping. Evocative, semi-representational imagery is imbued with a strong sense of abstraction and brings to mind the work of Turner, Soutine, and recent paintings by David Hockney. The visceral and active surface, though never the main focus of the work, appears to be alive.

Banner’s approach is both poetic and contemporary, reaching for depth and resonance in the viewer and creating a sense of longing. The paintings in “A Sense of Place” ask us to slow down, to breathe, and to recall our often forgotten and deep human connections to the earth. They nourish on that deep level.

The opening reception will be held on Thurs. April 28, 6:00 - 8:00 pm.

Frames and Supports

Yesterday I ordered frames from my favorite frame maker, Jesse Goslen. Jesse lives in North Carolina and he builds floater frames made to order. They are constructed as well as top notch well-crafted furniture and are gorgeous. I was going to show my new work at Ceres unframed. New Yorkers are so good at seeing ART, they really don't need that frame to prove anything. I, however, have decided that these encaustic paintings need and deserve the best protection and the best in general. So I'm going for it.
I love having the support of Rodney Thompson in California, who builds my wood supports, and Jesse in North Carolina. I am thinking now that support is all around us - we just need to believe that, notice where it might come from, know we need and deserve it, and then ask!

New York overnight

Next month I will put up my show at Ceres Gallery in Chelsea. I haven't been able to tune into it, to write a really good listings release, press release - or to really THINK myself there. So I had to get my body there. Since I love New York - I scrambled to finish my taxes and do a lot of stuff to get there. Art making has been elusive; somehow this art biz stuff can just take over. Well, so I will just let it do that for a while. There are ways and ways to get behind one's work, and that is a good one.
The best business thing that happened - was meeting two women who have just started something called Art Walk New York. They are super sophisticated tour guides at the best museums in NY, and were there at Ceres to do some business with the director. More later if I am able to get onto an Art Walk tour. That would be a VERY good thing, and a fantastic result of my NY business jaunt.

Visiting Vieques

Well, we got back from Vieques when? almost 3 weeks ago!!! That's amazing - one week to figure out where I am, 2 more to feel the crazy intensity and scheduling of everything here. In case you haven't heard of Vieques, I will upload a couple of photos. It is a little island right off the coast of Puerto Rico.
There are a lot of roosters on Vieques, and horses roam the streets eating mangos. The roosters crow all the time. 

We visited a couple of galleries while there in paradise. One was a new gallery, Galleon, started by a Westchester woman in a big open space that used to belong to an artist/gallerist. The work is by non-residents, some from NY. I'm always checking potential galleries out - but though the work was decent, the place was not right. For me at least. We then went to Siddhia Hutchinson's Gallery across the island in Isabel 2. Right, Isabel 2! Interesting name for a town.

That was a different story, as Siddhia herself was there. She is an artist and gallerist, shows her own work, work by local artists and by visitors inspired by the natural surroundings. There were some lovely landscapes, unusual abstractions, drawings of roosters ....  hard to not love roosters after hearing them at odd hours every night! We had a great, long, and inspiring talk with Siddhia about following one's path when the path is art. What we sacrifice, what we have, how important it is to go for your vision, for what you love. I actually can't remember it all, but I do remember feeling that Carl and I and Siddhia are of the same species. What a lift.

We hope to return to Vieques for a much longer stay next year. Fingers are crossed. Art sales will get us there. (that's the plan.)