Dizzy and Suse

Last week was a special week. We were hosts to Dizzy and Suse Krisch. We have begun a friendship. It's a good feeling.

Dizzy and Suse were strangers, here as part of an exchange between sister cities Ann Arbor, Michigan and Tübingen, Germany. Suse (Susanne Höefler) is showing her artwork at WSG Gallery in Ann Arbor. Dizzy plays the vibraphone and treated a few people to his talent while he was here. Next year some of us from WSG Gallery will visit Tübingen and complete the circle.

Here is some of Suse's artwork. They are painted with water soluble crayon on paper and are 50cm x 40cm.

Waxing Well: Encaustic Painting at the Wenniger Gallery

This is Beach 5. It is encaustic wax on cradled panel, 12" x 12" x 2" by Lynda Cole.

The Wenniger Gallery in Rockport, MA will be showing the work of three painters who work in wax. The three painters are Lynda Cole, Chris McCauley and Mari Marks Fleming. This exhibit will be up during the Second Annual Encaustic Conference being held at the Montserrat School of Art in the next door town of Beverly, MA . The exhibit at the Wenniger Gallery runs from June 7 - July 8. There will be an opening celebration with music, refreshments and the artists on Sunday, June 8, 4 - 7pm.

Lynda Cole and Chris McCauley will both be working, in different styles, from the same photographs taken at Wingaersheek Beach in Gloucester, MA during the First Encasutic Conference in 2007.

Second Annual Encaustic Conference

This is an image of "White Weather" a piece of mine that was juried into the exhibit at the Second Annual Encaustic Conference being held at the Montserrat College of Art this June. Using infrared film, I snatched this composition from the length of the film strip, waxed it and paper engineered it to this geometric, 3 Dimensional shape. The folded pattern works with the printed pattern like weather components layer upon diurnal rhythms to give us each unique, meteorological day. I took the photographs in 2005. I created this piece in 2008.

The juror was Laura Moriarity, Director of Exhibitions at the Gallery at R&F Handmade Paints. Laura is a painter and sculptor, beginning with multi layered flat wax which she builds into very 3 Dimensional forms.

another good color family, including black and grey - ISU

These colors are made of Indian Yellow, Sepia and Ultramarine Blue. They are all encaustic sticks from R&F Paints. Sepias can be quite different across brands so using another brand of Sepia might make quite a difference. This is a kind of low key color family. The sepia lowers the brilliance but it's still an interesting bunch of colors. There is some white, probably Titanium, in a few of the last four swatches.

the blacks -




the 3 original colors -






some interesting stops -

wax and encaustic I'm working on now

The wax shells are pretty delicate. I mentioned them with a photo in a previous post and said I'd find something to do with them. I have. This is the first way I have found to commit the wax shells. The details on this piece are
19"h x 33" x 2 1/2", wax shells on encaustic on panel. The panel is mounted in a steel, fabricated L bar frame.

Here is a bit of a statement about this work -

"Bass Notes"
The luminous, delicate, 3 Dimensional, round shells of wax against the flat, irregularily lined background constrast the variations to be found in some music. The bass rhythms float and seem almost airy - thus the pale colored bass notes that anchor the piece - while the rest of the music cavorts in its various, intersecting paths.



and a detail of the shells -

some favorite visuals -

So, what do you see in the world and say to yourself, "That's really beautiful."? Here are some of my favorites -
- big flakes of snow coming straight down - no wind
- the architecture of trees in winter
- the line of a water horizon
- the soft fogginess you see while riding a chairlift in a cloud
- screen behind screen - ya gotta love those moire patterns
- the clear, icy pink color of a perfect Cosmopolitan
- first seasonal view of Orion, early morning in the late fall
- raindrops on a lotus leaf
- the view while standing on a mountain above the tree line looking at the blue sky and other snow capped mountains
- the Huron River when the water is silver and smooth like mercury

another great black/grey - CPR

I found another nice black using combinations of Cobalt Yellow, Pthalo Blue and Rose Madder. This gives a more regular range of colors - from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to violet - with a nice black and light black, of course. It would be good for a subject that wanted pretty pure versions of all the primary and secondary colors. The nice thing about using just these three colors is that the full range that they give you will all look good together since they each (except for the orignal three) have a bit of the others in them. Again, these were all made from encaustic sticks from R&F Paints.
the blacks:


the original 3 colors:


various colors made from the 3 originals:

Samples of the colors I discovered yesterday - EIU

Yesterday I found a good combination of colors to make a nice black, light grey and many other colors. They were all from Egyptian Violet, Indian Yellow and Ultramarine Blue. I'm going to call this grey EIU after the first letter of each color name. This is kind of an off beat color palette but one that would be useful for earth colored paintings. You get nice brown reds, olive type greens, a good warm yellow and a deep black. Here are some samples of the colors.

the blacks:

the original colors:



made from the original 3 colors:

wax - a beautiful new grey

I just discovered a beautiful new grey. I'm always looking for greys. My theory is if I begin with a color that interests me then search for the one or two colors that will grey it, I'll end up with two or three colors that will include a wide range of combinations and won't go muddy. This combination was rather a surprise - Egyptian violet, ultramarine blue and Indian yellow. There isn't an official red in this group but the violet and the blue are both very warm and must supply enough red - because it greys very nicely. These are all encaustic sticks from R&F Paints.

I'd rather be in the studio

Have you thought much about where you're going in your art life? What's important to you or why you create? I've heard those questions before but I've actually begun to answer them now. This came about because of an Artists Self Promotion Workshop I attended led by Alyson Stanfield. She brought up many things to think about and act on. One of the early issues that continued to come up through the weekend was deciding on your goals - prioritizing what's important in today's reality. The answer had to pertain to this political world and these economic times. I'm guessing the answer for me may change as the times change.

The four things that lead my list are:
- selling enough that my art pays for itself
- extra money for a little travel
- showing my work in museums
- doing work that leads to peace, for myself and others

That list may sound pretty general and hey, who wouldn't want that but it actually does eliminate some avenues. For instance, I can't do fast, commercial output if I want to end up on the wall of a museum. I will avoid the pollitical art that promotes hatred and polarization. I need to spend time on my self promotion.

And for that I'm back to Alyson. She sends a free, weekly newsletter that is helpful and she has written a book - I'd rather be in the studio - I love the title. I read it and thought she meant this book would tell me how I could quickly do my self promotion so I would have more time to be in the studio. But no, she is listing "I'd rather be in the studio" as one of the excuses artists use to avoid self promotion. So now I say to myself, "What are you going to do to promote your artwork today?"

WSG Gallery Grand Opening in its new location

I'm one of the artist/owners of WSG Gallery. Last week we opened in our new location on Main Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This was the first exhibition in the new space. The interior was designed by the Ann Arbor firm of Penchansky Whisler Architects. The long side of the gallery faces an interior atrium and is glass. It gives a broad look into the gallery space with its 51' long, white wall which angles across the space. The long wall is 8' high at one end and 10' high at the other end so the top of the wall also angles.

Here are some photos from the opening.







The Community High Jazz Band played in the atrium



This is a link to more photos from the opening.
The photography is by Paul Malboeuf.


Here is a small sample of some of the art in this exhibition -

Lynda Cole: "untitled (pink and palladium): 72" x 24": encaustic, palladium leaf on plexiglas



Michelle Hegyi: "Tides 3", "Tides 2", "Tides 1" each 1/5 in edition: each, 24" x 18": encaustic and pigment ink on rag paper: mounted with magnets on plexiglas strip



Valerie Mann: "Evening Bags for the Midwestern Woman, #8 w/ Matching Pumps"



Elizabeth Schwartz: "Melange" 24" x 20": acrylic on canvas



You can find more images and information about WSG Gallery on our website -

Slideluckpotshow - Detroit, 31 January, 2008

Some of my digital paintings were part of the Slideluckpotshow in Detroit at the Ladybug Gallery. The website for this event that happened on 31 January, 2008 isn't up yet. Here is the bit that I submitted. It lasts about 2 1/2 minutes.

round, wax and hollow

Why am I so attracted to geometric forms in art and nature? I wish I knew. These are round, hollow and made of encaustic. They're not quite as delicate as they look. They are transluscent. I don't know where I'm going with them but I know I like them.

new inspiration

I just visited the website of Elizabeth Perry. Her drawings may inspire me to pick up my notebook and set pen to paper on a somewhat regular basis. She leaves a lot of space around her subjects - very nice.

Sculpting air

Beautiful work. Tim Prentis

Roatan, Honduras with family

With other family members I went to Roatan, an island off the north coast of Honduras, over Christmas 2007. The sun and sea were beautiful, the snorkeling was great but the best was the wide, water horizon. What a perfect line.


These are photos from that trip.

minimalism in wax

I found an interesting mid career encaustic artist, Joseph Goldberg, on The Museum of Northwest Art. I went to another website, Greg Kucera Gallery, to find these images. Goldberg gives you mood without story - nice.

inside the black brush

There is some beautiful black and white work by French painter Laurent Koller. It looks like calligraphy very close up. I found the reference to Koller's website on art only art. Here are a few examples.