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31 Women – March 31st: Kelsey Irvin

31 Women – March 31st: Kelsey Irvin

Kelsey Irvin
Storyline Silk I-V”, 2020                    
Vintage ephemera, gold leaf, oil, acrylic and resin on panel 

Appearing like paintings at first view, Kelsey Irvin’s contemporary collages are a treasure trove of materials upon further investigation. In her process she uses everything and anything: vintage ephemera, fabric from the 1800s, McCall’s dress patterns, Hollywood movie magazines from the 50s, New York Times fashion ads from the 20s, matchbox covers, oil, acrylic, graphite, and sometimes resin. The ensuing works conjure memory and nostalgia. There is crossover between past, present, and future, with unifying themes of independence, adventure, the strength of women, and the innocent imagination of childhood.
Irvin is inspired and challenged by the idea of creating something unique that draws people in, brings people back in time, or propels them forward. She finds these qualities in many artists past and present. A woman artist that exemplifies this for Irvin is Helen Frankenthaler, admired for her uninhibited boldness. She thinks of Frankenthaler’s masterpiece “Mountains and Sea” because of what it represents, both to Irvin and for female artists, she says: “Frankenthaler was inspired, set a new path, stood out among men, and the work is breathtaking.”
Likewise, Kelsey Irvin finds role models in everyday life. “People that are unwavering in their particular passion, highly capable by choice, ‘doers’ because they can’t imagine letting life go by without trying. People who are kind, thoughtful and selfless, but also driven with self-discipline. Women who aren’t afraid to pursue their dream career and motherhood at the same time.” Irvin explains that these aren’t always famous individuals, these are people like her mother and grandmother, and people she meets along the way through life.      

An Interview with Kelsey Irvin

Kelsey Irvin

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

KI: I grew up in Western New York outside of Buffalo.  I was constantly drawing as a child. I submitted cartoons magazines as a child thinking I could be a freelance illustrator in elementary school and middle school – I received very nice rejection letters. Beyond that, I never really thought about art as a career, I just knew I would always love and create art. 

MKM: Why did you pursue art?

KI: In college I fell in love with painting to a level I had not expected. I was a bit over-extended those years and had committed to the equivalent of 3 majors, held 2 jobs (one as a TA for 2 professors, and one as a rock climbing guide for the University’s Outdoor program), all while playing college Lacrosse.  Long story short, by my senior year I was so over-extended that I had to cut something out in order to make sure I didn’t lose time in the studio – the place I wanted to be the most. I thought long and hard. Growing up, I’d always loved the saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” I believe it was because I actually only heard the first part… “Jack of all trades…” which was something that appealed to me. I loved learning about and trying many different things. My senior year in college, after I had so thoroughly explored the idea of “Jack of All Trades”, something hit me like a load of bricks – it literally felt like it knocked me over…… “Master of None.” I finally heard that part. “Master of None.” I really heard it. It haunted me. You can do everything and become pretty good at a lot of exciting things, but you’ll never really explore one thing to the full capacity, that one thing you truly love, if you’re too busy pursuing other interests. Everything changed for me in that moment. I knew that I wanted to pursue and explore painting more than anything else. I didn’t think it could soon become my full-time job, all I knew was that I wanted to paint and be in the studio as much as I possibly could. I loved it that much. So, I started sacrificing other things for the first time in my life; and it was worth it.

MKM: Where did you study?

KI: St. Lawrence University in Upstate New York. A wonderful school that offered me great experiences and opportunities. 

MKM: Did you have any memorable teachers at St. Lawrence University?

KI: Any teacher that encourages your natural abilities is a memorable teacher. In college I had several wonderful professors. Two that stood out most were Tom Greene and Melissa Schulenberg. Tom is an Environmental Psychologist that I worked for and Melissa was my printmaking instructor and an artist herself. They were both so encouraging to me in finding my way, pushing me to pursue my unique interests and helping make a path out of those interests during my college career. 

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? rituals, patterns?

KI: My routines and work patterns have changed a lot over the years. Before kids I could easily work thirteen-hour days and paint until my eyes went blurry. I didn’t have a lot of structure, it was just – go to work. I loved it. Over time more and more structure has slipped into my work routine. A year ago we had our 3rd child. Shortly after she was born I accepted representation into my 7th gallery and wasn’t really sure how I was going to pull it all off. I started setting a specific goal for each week of what I needed to get done in the studio. I try to set realistic goals – but also goals that push me a bit. If I’m working on an exhibition this is how I ensure I have enough time to complete what I need to. 

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums? Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet?

KI: I use everything and anything. I consider myself a contemporary collage artist because collage, specifically vintage ephemera collage, has become such a huge component in what I do over that last 10 years. My work often includes vintage ephemera dating back to the early 1900s, even 1800s, fabric, leather, oil, acrylic, graphite, and sometimes resin. I use collage and assemblage that triggers memories in viewers: Vintage erector set parts, McCall’s dress patterns, Hollywood movie magazines from the 50s, New York Times fashion ads from the 20s, matchbox covers, hand-painted vintage signage; the list goes on and on. The work is meant to be a painting from afar, and a treasure hunt of materials upon further investigation. 

MKM: What themes do you pursue?

KI: Memories, nostalgia; the crossover between past, present, and future. My figures have themes of independence, freedom, adventure, strength of women, as well as the unique and innocent imagination and adventurous spirit from childhood.

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio?

KI: My fabric shears. Collage artists “geek out” over really sharp scissors. I could paint with my fingers if I had to, but I can’t cut with them, or draw with them for that matter. After scissors, I would say a 4H graphite pencil.

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of?

KI: Cornerstone pieces. The pieces that changed my direction because they opened up a new door in my creative world. Magnetique I & II were the first figurative pieces that I did that were entirely collage. A New Daysymbolizes a lot for me and my career. And also, a newer set of panels, Jewels of Narration represents a newer direction in the evolution of my Storyline Panels, a series which I’ve been doing for over ten years.

MKM: What has been a seminal experience?

KI: When I mentioned that in my senior year of college I was overextended, and my studio time was at risk — I ended up making the very difficult decision to leave the college Lacrosse team in my senior year in order to spend more time in the studio. You get very close to team members of a college sports team and I left something very social and exciting to do something rather solitary, but the decision itself was pivotal for me. Without knowing it, I had started down a path of making sacrifices for studio time; Choosing art over many other things. It helped lay the foundation in a career well before I actually knew I would have a career as an artist. 

MKM: What art do you identify with the most?

KI: It’s a wide range. I’m tempted to say collage or mixed media, but that really doesn’t cover it. I think that I identify most with art that is layered in meaning. Art that makes my heart race could be anything. Art that you can’t help but walk up to, get really close to it, and immerse yourself in how the artist created it. I’d like my paintings to be one thing from afar, and another up close. 

MKM: What inspires you? Other artists, women from history, your process, a theme?

KI: The idea of creating something from life, in a way that is different from what anyone has seen before, that draws people in and then brings people back, or propels them forward is inspiring.  Wayne Thiebaud’s landscapes, Andrew Wyeth’s fine detail, Andy Goldsworthy’s leaf and stone formations, Helen Frankenthaler’s uninhibited boldness… There are so many artists from the past and present that are awe inspiring. Making something new and different is more challenging for artists every year, every decade — but that’s what makes it in and of itself an inspiring task, it’s the challenge — and the reality that it’s possible. 

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history? Is there a specific work from this artist that you find interesting?

KI: I would have to say Helen Frankenthaler’s Mountains and Sea because of what it represents, both for her, for female artists. She was inspired, set a new path, stood out among men, and the work is breathtaking. 

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or present day? 

KI: A role model to me is someone who is unwavering in their particular passion; highly capable by choice — a doer because they can’t imagine letting life go by without trying. Someone who is genuinely kind and thoughtful and selfless, but also driven with self-discipline. Someone who isn’t afraid to pursue their dream career and motherhood at the same time. These aren’t always famous individuals, these are people I meet along the way through life that I just want to keep talking to. These are people like my grandmother and my mother. 

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

KI: Trust your first instinct. A painting instructor told me that while pointing out my initial painterly gesture in a large abstract piece. He said, “Build the entire piece around that.” He was right. In painting and in life. My first instinct is usually the best choice, and when I choose to ignore it, I usually regret it. 

MKM: What is your dream project? What can we expect from you in the next year?

KI: My dream project in the future is to complete a very large-scale collage/assemblage figurative work that includes dozens of individuals interacting through time; 30 feet or more. Either a mural or a work that can be exhibited and moved — several large works that come together. My plan for next year is to keep evolving my work by way of materials and technique and eventually take the panels into sculptural form. 

Inspiration and tools in Kelsey’s studio

Kelsey Irvin is represented by: Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX; Exhibit by Aberson, Tulsa, OK; GF Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM; Gardner Colby Gallery, Naples, FL; Jules Place Gallery, Boston, MA; Kelsey Michaels Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA; Studio E Gallery, Palm Beach, FL; and Whitney Modern, Los Gatos, CA

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31 Women – March 30th: Chris Hayman

31 Women – March 30th: Chris Hayman

Chris Hayman
Sea Point, 2018    
Oil on canvas

Chris Hayman

Chris Hayman’s studio

Trained as a classical pianist, Chris Hayman is greatly inspired and influenced by music in her life. Her early interests also included performing arts and she was actively involved in theater and dance at the Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and Baltimore. These creative talents eventually led to her primary focus as a visual artist. 

In her paintings, Hayman concerns herself with space. She is interested in how forms are energized by the space around them, especially when incorporated into paintings with vivid contrasting color and thick painterly textures. Along with music, she is inspired by the natural world, and relies on a practice of constant study and exploration of the rural foothills and open lands near her home and studio. 

Hayman received her BA in Art History at the University of Maryland and a second degree in Art at the University of Reno, Nevada where she began her investigation into painting. She currently resides in Northern California on a farm with livestock, orchards, gardens and beautiful surroundings. 

Chris Hayman’s farm in Northern California

Chris Hayman is represented by Whitney Modern Gallery, Los Gatos; Thomas Deans Fine Art, Atlanta; Desta Gallery, San Anselmo, CA; Judy Ferrara Gallery, Three Oaks, MI; Gallery North, Carmel, CA; Jules Place, Boston; Merritt Gallery & Renaissance Fine Arts, Baltimore and Chevy Chase, MD; Haverford, PA; Kelsey Michaels Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA; Morrison Gallery, Kent, CT; Julie Nester Gallery, Park City, UT; Octavia Art Gallery, Houston and New Orleans. 

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31 Women – March 29th: Kim Frohsin

31 Women – March 29th: Kim Frohsin

Kim Frohsin
A Voile de Decembre, 2018             
Gouache, dry pigment, tempera, ink, pencils on paper
Courtesy of Andra Norris Gallery
 

Kim Frohsin

Kim Frohsin

An esteemed and prolific artist, Kim Frohsin works in painting, drawing, printmaking, and mixed media. Her subjects include the female figure, landscapes and cityscapes, as well as objects, themes and series that attract her attention, and which are most often autobiographical in nature.

Frohsin began exhibiting in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1990s, and in 1993 was included with Nathan Olivera, Manuel Neri and Stephen De Staebler in the exhibit Four Figures from the Bay, establishing her among notable Bay Area Figurative artists. With Wayne Thiebaud as the juror, Frohsin won the California Society of Printmakers’ Award in 1996, and the following year exhibited at the de Young Museum in San Francisco in Bay Area Art: The Morgan Flagg Collection.

After earning BA degrees in Humanities and French, Frohsin received her BFA from The Academy of Art College in San Francisco. For more than thirty years she has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States. Her work can be found in both private and public collections including: The Coca-Cola Corporation, Heritage Communications, Atlanta, GA; The Gap Inc., San Francisco, CA; The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; and The San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA.

Kim Frohsin is represented by Andra Norris Gallery, Burlingame; b. sakata garo, Sacramento; Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco and Thomas Reynolds Gallery, San Francisco.

https://www.kimfrohsin.com

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31 Women – March 27th: Carole Rafferty

31 Women – March 27th: Carole Rafferty

Carole Rafferty
In the Mission, 2019                      
Oil on gallery wrap canvas

Carole Rafferty has sat behind the easel, and in front of it. Her grandmother was an accomplished portrait painter and as child she spent many excruciating hours posing for her. Rafferty recalls that “I had no appreciation whatsoever for what she was doing, and I dreaded her visits because it meant I’d have to sit still for hours on end without even being able to even talk.” Despite this, Rafferty developed a passion for art, painting in high school and taking life drawing classes at night. During these formative years the women in her life planted the seeds for her growth as an artist. Rafferty says, “all my art teachers at that point, from my grandmother to the teachers in high school, to my aunties in India who ran fabric dying and printing companies, were all women. Looking back now – even though I didn’t appreciate ANY of them at the time – but they all had an enormous influence on how I was to turn out.”
Rafferty moved to London for college and when she graduated, she moved to California to begin a professional master’s program at UC Berkeley in Asian Studies and journalism. From there she became a reporter, working for the New York Times in San Francisco, and eventually the Mercury News in San Jose.
Deciding to take art classes again became a completely life changing experience. Rafferty threw herself into art and pursued it all. She says, “you name it, I took it!” After several years of study with number of local teachers, she eventually came to the realization that “you can’t spend all your time in classes, you’ve got to just do it!”
Today her art practice follows a regular routine. Starting most days with a brisk walk around the Stanford Dish, she returns home to go straight into her studio for a day of art making. Other days she explores the city with her iPhone, sketch book and watercolors, looking for new ideas and new scenes.

An Interview with Carole Rafferty

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

CR: I grew up in a very rural community in Wales and later in a small village on the south coast of England where the road was covered twice a day by the sea when the tide came in. My grandmother was an accomplished portrait painter (I was told that she had paintings in the National Gallery of Scotland and also the Tate Gallery, but I never saw them). As I child I spent many excruciating hours posing for her. I had no appreciation whatsoever for what she was doing, and I dreaded her visits because it meant I’d have to sit still for hours on end without even being able to even talk. I’m not sure if I was creative as a child or not. I know I had a fierce imagination, I traveled quite widely, and I lived for a while in India where my mother’s family were from. I loved reading and I was interested in languages and history, and yes, art too. 

MKM: When and how did you pursue art? Did you have creative role models?

CR: I studied art in high school and loved painting, especially from life. I went to life drawing classes at night in the nearest town and had to catch the last bus home and walk more than a mile with all my art materials along country roads with no streetlights, so yes, I was interested in art. Very much so. All my art teachers at that point, from my grandmother to the teachers in high school to my aunties in India who ran fabric dying and printing companies, were all women. Looking back now – even though I didn’t appreciate ANY of them at the time – they all had an enormous influence on how I was to turn out.

MKM: Where did you study after high school?

CR: At 18, I moved to London and began a four-year degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England in Asian languages and history. Ancient Indian history is really a history of art because a great deal of it is known through sculpture and architecture. I learned Sanskrit to be able to translate the inscriptions. I learned the differences in symbolism and style between the early Indian dynasties and the later ones. When I graduated, I moved to California to do a joint professional master’s program at UC Berkeley in Asian Studies and journalism. And from there I became a reporter. I worked for the New York Times as a stringer in their San Francisco bureau for five years, I covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and eventually, after having twins, I settled down into a staid, full time job at the Mercury News in San Jose (in the days when it was a good newspaper and even won a Pulitzer Prize!). But after several decades of cradling the phone between my head and shoulder and typing notes into my computer, the discs in my cervical spine gave out and I was pensioned off because I couldn’t use a computer anymore. 

MKM: How did you transition to become a fine artist?

CR: I sat around for a while, profoundly depressed. I had identified myself as a writer, a reporter, and now that [this job] was gone, who was I? There was no creativity in my life and so, desperate, I decided to take a beginning drawing class at Foothill Community College in Los Altos. It was as if a small bomb had exploded inside me. I realized that this was what I wanted to do and that most probably it was what I should have been doing all along. I threw myself into art, every single thing you could think of – oils, watercolors, sculpture, plein air, portraiture, landscape painting, encaustics, you name it, I took it!  I took classes, too, from a number of local teachers.  

MKM: Who were your memorable teachers at this time?

CR: The most memorable was Rebecca Alzafon, a renowned Redwood City-based artist, who taught a series of year-long workshops in the French academic style of life drawing and portraiture. The workshops were incredibly structured, and they were conducted in a small grey cloistered studio, where every single sliver of light was blocked out so the scene could be completely and utterly replicated day after day. Artistically there was no such thing as going ‘off-piste’ in Rebecca’s workshops. Sometimes students became so frustrated they would burst into tears. She was relentless in her teaching of the methods and practices of the Old Masters. At times I felt like I’d rather open a vein  than sit through another session on light, half tone, shadow, and cast shadows. But my God did I learn a lot!  I credit Rebecca with much of what I know about oil painting.  And even though we disagreed at times and there were times when I swore I couldn’t take another session, I’d always go back and I’m so very glad I did. With those credentials and understandings under my belt, I felt I could experiment. I took classes from Randy Sexton and Bob Gerbracht in San Francisco, as well as a number of different workshops from various American and UK artists. And then I realized that what I needed to do was just DO MY OWN THING. You can’t spend all your time in classes, you’ve got to just do it!  

MKM: Now that you are well established in your practice, what themes do you pursue?

CR: I decided to concentrate on the landscape. Growing up in the countryside I was always profoundly moved by landscape and light. I don’t know why I decided to concentrate on urban landscape, that’s a mystery to me. The only explanation I can muster is that the natural landscape is so beautiful on its own I can’t do it justice, but urban landscape is something else. Especially San Francisco! Here the light changes rapidly, the fog rolls in, the clouds come and go, it’s an ever-changing palette and sensibility.

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? rituals, patterns?

CR: My art routines are fairly set in stone. On the days I spend in my studio I get up  and take a brisk walk around the Stanford Dish, I come back home and go straight into my studio. I usually start painting around 9am and on a good day I’ll continue until about 4:30. Other days I spend wandering around the city with my iPhone, sketch book and watercolors, looking for new ideas and new scenes. Sometimes I go to the beach and paint a seascape.

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio?

CR: The one thing I can’t do without in my studio is my bluetooth speaker because as I’m painting, I listen to  podcasts, some educational, some French podcasts, but the ones I enjoy the most are true crime podcasts. Don’t ask me why because quite frankly none of these have anything to do with art but maybe it’s because of all the years I covered crime and the courts as a reporter.  

MKM: What art do you most identify with?

CR: I suppose that representational art is the kind I identify with most, which doesn’t mean I’m not profoundly moved by abstract art, and even installation art sometimes too. One of the most memorable and moving pieces of art I ever saw was an installation piece in the Saatchi Gallery in London looked at from above of a series of wheelchairs careening crazily around a circuit like bumper cars each wheelchair containing an ancient person of a different ethnicity or nationality, showing the futility of tribalism and nationalism. 

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of?

CR: I’m not sure which canvas I’m most proud of, it really depends on which day you ask me. I go through an entire emotional process with each of my paintings, rather like giving birth to, raising, and then waving goodbye to a child as they set off for college.  When a canvas is in its infancy I encourage and am devoted, in adolescence I’m proud of them and adore them, but once they’ve gone, I don’t think that much about them at all. It’s a cycle really, one that keeps me going as a painter. Always the next thing….

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

CR: The best piece of advice I’ve ever been given regarding my craft came from my husband, who is a writer. He said, “You should stop each day when you know what’s coming next so when you start next morning you know where you’re going.”  He was talking about writing but it’s equally true of painting. My best paintings all start from a vision. I need to know what I’m going to create before I start… I need to have a vision and clear image of the finished painting in my head before I even touch a canvas especially when it’s a large canvas because it’s so easy to waste valuable time trying to find your way when you should know where you’re going before you even start out. 

https://www.carolerafferty.com

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31 Women – March 26th: Ivy Jacobsen

31 Women – March 26th: Ivy Jacobsen

Ivy Jacobsen        
“Sweet as Spring”, 2019                 
Oil, resin, & collage on wood panel 

An Interview with Ivy Jacobsen

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

IJ: I spent my early childhood living on a farm, amongst fruit orchards, in the countryside of Kingsburg, CA, in the Central Valley of California. I spent a lot of time outside in nature with my siblings. I moved to Pacific Grove, CA in my high school years, and I became aquatinted with the beauty of the natural flora, ocean and landscapes of the Central Coast. 

MKM: Why did you pursue art?

IJ: I’ve always been into art and using it to express myself. It was in 1997 that I took my first painting class and I instantly became hooked; it solidified by major in college. Two years later I earned my BA in painting and printmaking from SFSU and I have not stopped painting since. It’s my passion.

MKM: Where did you study?

IJ: I studied at SFSU and continued taking painting classes at The Art Institute in SF. I also continued taking printmaking classes through City College of SF at Fort Mason Center.

MKM: Did you have and memorable teachers  at SFSU and SFAI?

IJ: My memorable teachers include the artist Paul Pratchenko, painting instructor at SFSU, and the late painter Glen Hirsch, painting instructor at SFAI.

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? rituals, patterns?

IJ: My studio practice is Monday-Friday from 9am – 3 or 5pm. I treat my studio practice (my art making) as my “job” and love it. Monday is my favorite day of the week, as I get to go back to the studio!

Ivy Jacobsen’s studio

MKM: How has your practice changed over time?

IJ: My practice as changed in that I am more focused now. I have a family and children and I have less time to devote to the studio. However, when I’m in the studio now I’m way more productive and diligent and seem to get more work done now than I did when I had no children. I realize that every studio hour counts, and I try to use the time wisely. 

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums?

IJ: I use oil and acrylic paint and 2-part epoxy resin in my current work. I layer my oil and acrylic paint in between a layer of 2-part epoxy resin, to give the illusion of atmosphere and depth. Recently I’ve also been incorporating collage into my paintings.

Studio supplies

MKM: What art do you most identify with?

IJ: I identify with Japanese art, some Chinese art, and botanical illustrations.

MKM: What inspires you? Other artists, other women from history, your process, a theme?

IJ: I am inspired by nature in all of my art making. Since I am painting from my imagination, I am focusing on my memories of nature and plants. I paint them in my own stylized way, not so much relying on accuracies but more on the essence of different species of plants in the natural world. Painting is a meditative process for me, and I hope that the peace I feel while making my work radiates into the viewer. 

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history? 

IJ: I’m particularly interested in woman artists who balance motherhood with being a full-time artist. It’s been a huge issue in my own life, and I find artists who balance other demands inspiring. Many people expected my art practice to diminish after having children. I can say that it has only become stronger as I find that this career is extremely flexible (my studio hours) and I feel blessed every day that I make a living from my art. 

As far as a particular woman artist, I’ve always loved Georgia O’Keeffe and early works by contemporary painter Yvette Molina. Georgia O’Keeffe’s expressions of flowers are so unique and original for their time; they still are! She forged a path of her own that was quite revolutionary at the time. 

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

IJ: Good advice I was given randomly in college by painting instructor Paul Pratchenko. He said that you need to be okay with being alone for long hours a lot in order to be a studio artist. He’s totally right with that one!

MKM: What is your dream project? What can we expect from you in the next year?

IJ: My dream project for 2020 (in addition to my solo show in March at Patricia Rovzar Gallery in Seattle, WA) is to find more representation from a highly respected gallery.

Ivy Jacobsen’s studio

Ivy Jacobsen is represented by Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA and Momentum Gallery, Asheville, NC

https://www.ivyjacobsen.com

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31 Women – March 25th: Michelle Gregor

31 Women – March 25th: Michelle Gregor

Michelle Gregor   
“Odalisque”, 2017
Multi-fired to stoneware temperatures with glazes and underglazes

An Interview with Michelle Gregor

Michelle at work in the studio

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

MG: I was born in San Francisco (third generation San Franciscan) and moved to Tahoe City, CA at a young age. Raised by a single Mom, I’m the second of four children. I have a younger sister that I entertained by making drawings, puppets and toys. I’ve always been creative and originally thought I’d become a writer. I ultimately found my creative voice in the clay studio during my first year of college.

MKM: Why did you pursue art?

MG: Why did I pursue Art? I’ve always had a vivid imagination and loved to draw and make things with my hands. My Mom encouraged me to study what I loved and so I took many art classes in college. The communal aspect of the art studio felt like my spiritual home. I’ve always been drawn to creative people, they are the source of my greatest wealth, my artist family.

MKM: Where did you study?

MG: I studied first at UC Santa Barbara and transferred to UC Santa Cruz for my BFA. After completing the degree, I moved to SF and worked at a ceramic cooperative studio (Ruby O’Burke’s ) for about 7 years. I decided to go back to graduate school so I could have access to better studio facilities and attended SFSU where I earned my MFA. I had the opportunity to study with Stephen De Staebler there. 

MKM: Did you have any memorable teachers at SFSU, UCSB and UCSC?

MG: Stephen De Staebler at SFSU, David Kuraoka at SFSU, Sheldon Kaganoff at UCSB and Sandra Johnstone at UCSC. These teachers were all important to me. I feel very fortunate to have been a college student in California during the golden age of education. I have been deeply influenced by each.

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? rituals, patterns?

MG: Ceramics is a process-oriented art form. There are many steps and phases an artwork goes through from beginning to end. Much of the work isn’t glamorous. There is the wedging and preparing the clay, recycling the clay, hollowing the form etc. etc. Always many tasks to accomplish! I work on several pieces at once and move back and forth between them. Clay takes time to set up, to hold its shape. It’s easy to overwork a sculpture which may cause it to slump or fall. By moving back and forth between pieces, I can allow works to stiffen up and hopefully retain some of the fresh mark making as the sculptures progress. Deep looking is also an essential part of my process. I sometimes just take a cup of tea into the studio and look. I’ll rotate the artworks and return to my chair and look some more. 

Michelle at work in her studio

MKM: How has your practice changed over time?

MG: I include a lot more drawing in my daily practice. I sketch from works in progress. I allow myself more freedom and am more generous with experimentation and mark making. Now I paint and draw as well as sculpt.

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums? Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet?

MG: Clay is the most familiar medium and I hold a great love and respect for it. With clay, I can explore form and surface. It’s a generous medium. Over the past 7 years I’ve painted, sketched and drawn more on paper, canvas and board. I’d love to learn encaustic and oil painting.

MKM: What themes do you pursue?

MG: Themes of pursuit are both figurative and abstract. The figure provides a vehicle to explore form, shape, texture, color and space. I will never tire of it! Abstraction has limitless potential to describe emotional and spiritual states. Together the two themes encompass our human existence. My work explores what it is to be inside our human containers.

MKM: What is your most important tool?

MG: My most important tools are my hands.

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of?

MG: There are artworks that I’m prouder of than others but in general, I’m never fully satisfied with anything. I am in pursuit of something that is just out of reach.

MKM: What has been a seminal experience?

MG: A seminal experience might be having first seen the work of artists like Cy Twombly, Joan Mitchell and Auguste Rodin. Being brought to tears by a canvas covered with scratchy marks and not knowing why. My relationship to looking at art has brought me profound emotional experiences.

MKM: What art do you most identify with?

MG: The art I most identify with is abstract expressionism.

MKM: What inspires you? Other artists, other women from history, your process, a theme?

MG: Inspiration comes in so many forms; a poem by Mary Oliver, a canvas by Joan Mitchell, a story by Haruki Murakami… I am deeply inspired by artists of all kinds. I never lack inspiration. It surrounds me both in culture and in nature.

Michelle at work in her studio

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history? 

MG: When I was a young girl, I spent a lot of time in our small town library. I recall being particularly interested in the art section and was perplexed why there were so few books on women artists. I remember counting only three books with women’s names on the spine (O’Keeffe, Imogen Cunningham and one other). From that day on, I have relentlessly pursued finding everything I can about women artists and their creative processes. I still recall the thrill of discovering Artemisia Gentileschi. As far as specific artists and their work, I’m deeply enamored of Joan Mitchell’s paintings. 

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or present day? 

MG: My female role models are many and they have shifted places as the years progress. My earliest heroine was Georgia O’Keeffe followed by Anaïs Nin and Colette. Now I look to the Abstract Expressionist painters like Mitchell and Lee Krasner for inspiration. Artists like Kiki Smith, Phyllida Barlow and Kara Walker also are part of my pantheon. 

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

MG: The best piece of advice I’ve been given is from my Mother who told me to “follow your heart”.

MKM: What is your dream project?

MG: My dream project is to have a one person show in Paris.

MKM: What can we expect to see from you in the year ahead?

MG: What you can expect to see from me this year is the creation of new works both three dimensional and two dimensional. I have a couple of exhibitions lined up and a lot of work to accomplish. 

https://www.michellegregor.com

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31 Women – March 24th: Sara V Cole

31 Women – March 24th: Sara V Cole

Sara V Cole           
Cyclone Series No. 2. C, 2016        
Acrylic, gesso and graphite on Arches Cover Paper mounted on canvas, on wooden bars 

Sara V Cole

Sara V Cole is a nationally represented, internationally exhibited author, teacher and fine art painter with a full-time art making studio practice. Cole earned her BFA in  ceramic sculpture and installation/performance art with a minor in art history. She then completed her MFA in painting and drawing and went on to study graduate level Non-Western Contemporary Art History, all at San José State University. 

When considering women in art and history that have made an impact on her life, Cole listed dozens of women, from artists to politicians. In the category of women artists, she says, “I could name fifty I love, but here are ten that I am obsessed with: Adrienne Piper, Alice Neel, Julie Mehretu, Shahzia Sikander, Käthe Kollwitz, Hung Liu, Artemesia, Ann Hamilton, Marlene Dumas and of course who doesn’t love a little Frida!” In addition to this top ten, Cole recalled seeing the SFMOMA Eva Hesse exhibition in 2002. She says she still responds to the memories of this exhibition and that fragments of those works continue to resonate in her own work today. 

Sara V Cole’s studio in San Jose

Thinking back to her childhood, she described growing up with a radical hippie 1960s mom and cannot remember a day that “I didn’t know about Gloria Steinem, Dorothy Pitman-Hughes and Ms. Magazine.” Her favorite female authors include Maya Angelou, Joy Harjo, Mary Oliver, bell hooks, Audre Lorde and Sylvia Plath. She says other “badass women” also inform and inspire her life, such as: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Angela Davis, Shirley Chisholm, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Michelle Obama. 

Cole has placed work in the permanent collections of The Triton Museum of Art, Hilton Hotels, the Microsoft Collection, Stanford University, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel, the Grand Hyatt in Atlanta, Iberia Bank in Louisiana, and De Anza College in Cupertino. Her work can be found in the private collections of many patrons including that of Actress Sela Ward and the New York based National Art Buyer for One King’s Lane. She has an extensive exhibition history including New York City’s Asian Cultural Center Gallery and group exhibitions from Seattle, Washington to Metz, France.  

https://www.saravcoleart.com

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31 Women – March 23rd: Brigitte McReynolds

31 Women – March 23rd: Brigitte McReynolds

Brigitte McReynolds                       
The Intelligence of Water, 2019
Oil on canvas

Brigitte McReynolds

Brigitte McReynolds

Brigitte McReynolds’ practice is a continuous investigation of abstraction and exploration of the human form. It is her visual diary, a “paper trail” of a process that is both spontaneous and deliberate. Working in layers of paint, she merges luminous color and palpable texture. For McReynolds, painting is a dynamic, intuitive process. A drip or smear reveals part of that process. 

McReynolds works in series that start as a concept in her mind, or as a vision of a finished work. It can also begin as an emotion or process of the heart. When she develops a theme, she explores it in multiple materials: oil, acrylic, and encaustic, working figuratively and abstractly until the idea exhausts itself, or leads to another theme. McReynolds applies what she learns from shape, form and line in her abstract paintings to find the simplicity that is needed for abstracting a figure. Similarly, her abstract work profits from her figurative experience.

Brigitte in the studio

Her works often have a recurrent pattern or an illusion of repetition. However, not one shape is the same as the other. Similar to life, where we have days, hours and minutes that create a pattern, yet not a single moment resembles the next. McReynolds explains “Although I enjoy working with the ‘shapelessness’ of stripes I also love to work on abstract paintings that maintain shapes and forms. A shape in a painting is like a figure in a landscape. For me the abstract shapes are alive. They have a heart, an area with vibrant color; intense brush strokes, the limbs.”

When contemplating inspiration, McReynolds finds the mystic works of Hilma af Klint breathtaking and has never forgotten her visit to the Italian Tarot Garden designed by Niki de Saint Phalle. Inspiration also comes to her from women speaking out for justice through the #MeToo movement, and from the work of public figures like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Senator Nancy Pelosi. McReynolds is most inspired by her mother, whom she describes as a creative, kind, humble and generous woman. She admires her mother’s strength, hard work and devotion in raising McReynolds and her siblings – nine children in total, while she managed her busy restaurant and hotel business.

Brigitte McReynolds is represented by Whitney Modern Gallery, Los Gatos; Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA; Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA; Jules Place, Boston, MA; and Eminent Design, Sonoma, CA.

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31 Women – March 22nd: Karen Gallagher Iverson

31 Women – March 22nd: Karen Gallagher Iverson

Karen Gallagher Iverson                
Gilded Dunes, Bodega Bay in Crimson, 2019
Pochoir and drawn colored pastel on wax on 3 panels

An Interview with Karen Gallagher Iverson

Karen Gallagher Iverson

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

KGI: I was born in Queens NY, within a very large extended family, mostly based throughout the five boroughs of NYC. We moved upstate to a commuter area when I was a kid. My mom always drew and painted and easily took on most any other creative craft she found interesting. Including her intense knitting habit today. Art supplies, and “the good watercolor paper” were always around and waiting for us kids to make something. I was extremely lucky to attend also a public school district that had a robust arts program. Something I didn’t fully appreciate then, and recognize as being even more significant now that I’m a parent in the Oakland Unified School District. It was easy to be creative when you didn’t have to try too hard to gain access. Both at home and in school. We had a kiln in our elementary school, welding and wood shop in middle school, dark room photography in high school. It’s amazing to look back on it.

MKM: Why did you pursue art?

KGI: At first I didn’t. I wanted to work in scientific illustration as early as the 6th grade, but was advised by my academic counselors that that field was dwindling, and suggested to become a nurse – which is a good field for women after all. That suggestion seemed absolutely ridiculous to me. Looking back I should have been directed toward graphic design. I originally went to college for Archeology and Anthropology, with a minor in Studio Arts (quickly a double major, then a complete switch in major to Studio Arts). My first apartment in my early 20s caught fire and burned down. I realized after fleeing a burning building, after the frenzy of trying to escape, that what I was studying in the ground wasn’t necessarily the truth of life, but was the record of what wasn’t important enough to take when braving the flames of change. You grab whats alive when you flee. In truth (or at least in my truth) the vibrancy of a culture is what lives on with you, and I realized that semester that I wanted to sink into that vision of the world. Visual art served that best.

MKM: Where did you study?

KGI: For my undergraduate degree I went to SUNY Albany, and my MFA was at the San Francisco Art Institute.

MKM: Did you have any memorable teachers at SFAI?

KGI: I consider my undergraduate printmaking instructor, Thom O’Conner to be my first major mentor. At the San Francisco Art Institute my most memorable Instructors were Jeremy Morgan, Tim Berry and Gordon Kluge. Even this year, 17 years after graduating, random remarks by Kluge ring true to some process I’m working on. Usually things that made no sense at the time, even things I whole heartedly rejected, I now think “oh… thats what you were trying to tell me!” From grade school through High School Wendy Feman-Pernice and Peggy Ellis always provided safe places to land. Those early years are so socially awkward for young creatives who haven’t found their voice yet.

Karen’s studio

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? Rituals, patterns?

KGI: A typical Studio Day: My studio is right below my home, so before I go downstairs I make coffee, and I try to take care of some household chore, like start a load of laundry or defrost dinner. Once I enter my studio – I’m on the clock and don’t take care of family things until I return with my kids after school. I guard this time jealously. So much so that I set an alarm to go off at 1pm to remind myself to eat lunch. I turn on my Computer. Assemble my studio planner, studio notebook, process notebook, source material (sketches, print outs, photos, etc.) and I put on some continuous sound in the background – either a series on Netflix that just plays in the back ground, streaming music radio, or even a song on repeat when I’m close to grabbing hold of something and can use the repetition). I look at my notebooks and planner and see either what tasks need to be done today (like melt wax or gesso panels) or where I left off the day before on some imaging task. I keep notes on everything. Colors I mix and use, material ratios, when I begin using a blade in my cutter, exposure times if Im working on a photo print project, even the edit chain in photoshop of my photo source images. I also log random thoughts and ideas that come up while I’m working and keep it with the project at hand. Even when I was a teenager in beginning print classes I had a similar way of working. The way I approach printmaking is very methodical. Not a lot of emotive in the moment romance. I basically design a concept and idea, lay out a plan and get it done. Much of what people consider the ‘in the moment creative expression’ happens for me in my mind, in the way I plan things to layer, through the choices I make along the way, and when I’m drawing into my final layers. 

Karen’s studio

None of this would probably work except I compulsively take photos throughout my day, especially when in family mode adventuring around. I also journal in a notes app on my phone. A few words that catch me, things I’m thinking of, random impressions during the day like “huh this is the 3rd day in a row when the hills look pasty and gray, but its sunny and hot … gray during full daylight” then it later turns into a lithograph series. I also sketch with watercolors regularly. Sometimes just pushing material around because it feels nice. I often print out photos and colors that are catching my eye and just cary them around to look at. Think on whats grabbing my attention and why. 

If I’m playing around with a new series, its a little different. I’m not sure why, but I work better on beginning something new at night or the end of the studio day. Even if its on my phone while getting my kids to sleep, I’ll look though photos and notes and begin to reduce whispers of ideas into concepts, and indulge in what’s visually appealing to me. Its important to me to tie materials and processes to the overall content of the work and how I can filter concepts through media; whats gained or lost by it. I also will keep the remnants of my art making if they catch my eye. Sometimes i’ll like the visual quality and years later it will show up in a completely unrelated project. That’s how I arrived at my current encaustic landscapes. It was a random out take from work I did back in 2005 with carbon paper. I harvest all those bits and later use them as seeds. Once I settle on those basic components – I make a plan then get to work in the coming weeks. 

More views of Karen’s studio

MKM: How has your practice changed over time?

KGI: My process is very much linked to my innate personality. Many things have always been here. I was 12 or 13 when I started collecting compelling (to me) images in sketch books. Something I basically still do, only now digitally. I always enjoyed collaging and working with photo source material. Integrating some poetic thought process into my concepts has remained the same. Albeit it was more illustrative when I was young, and more about finding universal themes now. I now have a more interconnected way of working. Perhaps a more holistic way of living within my studio practice. One significant area where I differ is with time management, that changed completely once I had children. I’m more targeted and less wasteful with my days.

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums? Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet?

KGI: Integrating some aspect of printmaking as a process is integral to my practice. Once I realized it could take me where I wanted to go, I didn’t really falter from print. Although, as a medium it really can incorporate a whole host of other mediums. Painterly approaches, line drawing, photography, sculptural cuts, even all the new maker technology dovetails perfectly with printmaking. Hmm, maybe I picked printmaking for its position as a middle ground? I’ve not worked much with wood, either wood cuts, wood type, mokulito (wood lithography).  I’m not sure why. I’ve been looking in that direction lately. I’ve also never made an artists book. I can’t easily wrap my head around it, but keep thinking it could really be a great format to experiment in. 

MKM: What themes do you pursue?

KGI: The common theme in most of my current work can be reduced to catching, or translating, light and dimension though pattern. It’s been really wild to see just how endlessly I can play and recombine these basic elements across all the different materials and processes at my disposal. 

(Detail) Gilded Dunes, Bodega Bay in Crimson, 2019

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio?

KGI: Probably my computer. So much of what I do is touched by it. If we entered into a period of global black out, I’m sure I’d figure something else out, but at the moment, I think its a common tool within everything I do. 

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of? Why?

KGI: Probably my Variable Horizons work. Its my largest work to date, at 2 ft by 12 ft long, which is a considerable large work for encaustic. It took roughly 4 to 5 weeks of continuous daily work, and I was 7 months pregnant with a 3 year old up in the house. The sheer size and time was an endeavor. But, it’s also the only work I’ve ever made in response to the death of my infant son, about 9 years ago. I was invited to create a work in response to a theme, Corporeal Chronologies. The organizer of the show was familiar with earlier work of mine that was very body focused, he didn’t know that I was working pretty exclusively with landscape imagery. It was a wonderful way to incorporate my current work with such a delicate concept. One that could easily turn dark and abrasive. I was pleased with the way place, and life and grief through time came together in that work. 

MKM: What has been a seminal experience?

KGI: For sure becoming a parent, is a major event to most. Since my first baby died as a newborn, I’d say that was a seminal an experience for me, on many levels. It was a reset professionally. I was printing and making art, teaching, and I had been working as a studio manager for an artist of international acclaim.  When my son passed away, it all stopped. I stopped making art, I stopped teaching, and I never returned to a full time day job after that. It also opened the world back up to me in a bizarrely fresh way. My role in the world was completely severed and rebuilt from scratch. I was able to grow my studio practice back into my daily life in a way I never was able to do before. 

MKM: What art do you most identify with?

KGI: Abstraction and conceptual. People often think I’ll be drawn to representational imagery since I currently work with recognizable landscapes. I find more affinity with the poetic exploration in conceptual work and abstraction. 

MKM: What inspires you? Other artists, other women from history, your process, a theme?

KGI: Sudden shifts in light. Driving down a road and having the light flip suddenly. 

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history?

KGI: Louise Bourgeois. Everything I’ve read on her points to a person of skill, whose tenacity and prolific activity slowly erodes at the life she’s built into. Ultimately really great work is able to  emerge.  

MKM: Is there a specific work from Louise Bourgeois that you find interesting? 

KGI: Her drawings and drypoint etchings. They could easily be overlooked. With the volume of them that exist, they demand to be looked at, given attention. And when you do, all the exquisite subtlety and conceptual interconnectedness comes to light and you cant unsee it.

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or present day?

KGI: Agnes Martin. The rejection of it all. I never see her work as an exploration or justification of gender. I never saw her career as an avenue to fame or celebrity. It was just honest, beautiful art work; and work that was able to rise with success in a very male art world. 

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

KGI: There have been two that continually inspire, and seem to work for any occasion. When I was working on a print edition with Kay Bradner, she let out “Reckless Abandon!” At the time she said it when using an enormous c-clamp to crack walnuts, because that’s what was handy on her kitchen table. But I find, when used responsibly, it’s often the right rallying cry to make. Plus, it’s good to make do some times without over thinking. The other is “You can boss me around as long as you boss me to victory” a friend exclaimed when given unsolicited advice during a card game. Nothing wrong with taking direction if it helps get you where you want to go. Also, a reminder about remaining humble. Is what I want to suggest really going to bring someone further to their victory? Or, maybe an off-putting remark I received needs to be let go of, because it was never going to serve my initiatives generously.

MKM: What is your dream project? What can we expect from you in the next year?

KGI: My dream? I want to make gigantic  wall sized landscape watercolors with hand painted photo halftones. Like, really big. “Only wall big enough is in the de Young” big. Thats a bit far out there. I’m already starting on large watercolors, but not that big yet. They take forever and have zero room for forgiveness. I’m planning to work more on paper this year. Both press work and hand painted work. More seascapes, too.

Karen’s studio

https://www.gallagheriverson.com

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31 Women – March 21st: Sawyer Rose

31 Women – March 21st: Sawyer Rose

Sawyer Rose
Lyra, 2017
Silver solder, copper, fiberglass
18 x 18 x 18 inches     

An Interview with Sawyer Rose

Sawyer Rose

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

SR: I grew up in Charlotte, NC, middle kid of three. My mom had all of us in art lessons from a young age. It was just at the nice lady’s house a few streets over, but as the creative kid of the family, I ate it up. At home I had three or four unfinished craft projects lying around the house at all times. 

MKM: Why did you pursue art and where did you study?

SR: I went to Williams College which has a wonderful Art department. It took maybe 6 weeks of my first year to decide that I wanted Art to be my major. Fortunately, the department required both Art History and studio classes, so I ended up with a well-rounded experience.

MKM: Did you have any memorable teachers at Williams College?

SR: My senior year painting professor was completely comfortable with my odd studio hours and wild experimentation on canvas. So was my photography tutor at Glasgow School of Art. I learned loads in both of their classes, but the most valuable takeaway was that it was ok, even encouraged, to let my practice develop outside of the academic box.

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? Rituals, patterns?

SR: Daily routine? No. All work patterns conform to the elementary and middle school calendars. 

Sawyer in the studio

MKM: How has your practice changed over time?

SR: I began my practice as an oil painter, but I kept wanting to add a third dimension to my 2-D works. After many years I decided to try my hand at true 3-D sculpture and found it suited me much better. It’s only in the past year that I have started making 2-D works again, but now I make them by choice rather than by default.

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums? Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet?

SR: I work in metal, wood, and fiber mostly. I find natural, earthy materials to be the easiest for me to wrap my mind around. Metal is a finicky, willful material to work with, which I have learned to enjoy. Metal does as it pleases.

MKM: What themes do you pursue?

SR: I like to make work that shines a light on social and environmental topics that are important to me. My metalworks are based on the native flora of California and ask viewers to consider what plants would look like if they could grow armor to protect themselves. In another vein, my work on The Carrying Stones Project takes a deep dive into women’s work inequity. I look at women’s paid and unpaid labor, but also at the wage gap, representation of women the workplace, and other ways in which people who identify as female are fighting an uphill battle at work and in their communities. 

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio?

SR: Does whiskey count? (Kidding!!) I love my belt sander. It’s powerful and versatile and can solve a lot of sculpture problems quickly. 

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of? Why?

SR: I’m most proud, seemingly counterintuitively, of the pieces I make that don’t feel like they came out of me. It’s a thrilling way to get a glimpse of what my subconscious might look like.

MKM: What art do you most identify with?

SR: I’m attracted to art that highlights repetition and pattern while still maintaining an organic sensibility. Near-symmetry and flawed reproduction are mainstays of my production process. 

Lyra installed in 31 Women at Whitney Modern

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history?

SR: Lee Bontecou’s sculpture work is stunning. It takes my breath away every time.

MKM: Is there a specific work from Lee Bontecou that you find interesting?

SR: Bontecou’s steel and canvas wall pieces are particularly inspiring for me, as I also work in metal. Her armatures are the stuff of dreams.

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

SR: “Never assume anyone else’s motivations are the same as your own.” My high school Spanish teacher told me this, apropos of what I can’t remember. When I’m trying to decide how to best educate my audience about a particular topic, I try to remember that every viewer comes with their own history, their own learning, and their own prejudices. I want people to feel comfortable starting their learning from where they are right now.

MKM: What can we expect from you in the next year?

SR: In the next year I will be building a new group of installation sculptures for The Carrying Stones Project that tell the stories of some truly fascinating working women. Eventually, I’m going to publish a book of all the work from the project.

http://www.sawyerrose.com

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31 Women – March 20th: Elena Zolotnitsky

31 Women – March 20th: Elena Zolotnitsky

Elena Zolotnitsky  
HER (Extinct Series), 2018               
Oil on mylar mounted to panel
Courtesy of Andra Norris Gallery

An Interview with Elena Zolotnitsky

A visit to Elena Zolotnitsky’s studio

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative? 

EZ: I grew up in Moscow. My father worked as a free-lance illustrator and a set designer at the major Moscow Movie Studio. While growing up I was always encouraged to do art: draw, paint watercolor, attend special art classes, et cetera. I became serious about art at the age of 14 and was passionate enough to focus on pursuing it.

MKM: Where did you study? Did you have any memorable teachers?

EZ: I started to study with tutors and get to ready to pass the exams at VGIK (All State Institute of Cinematography) majoring in the Art of Animation. I graduated in 1987 with a 10-minute hand animation movie as a creative director. The movie is titled From 9am to 6 pm. The director, the screen writer and the creative director (myself) were women. I was hired a year before I graduated, and it took our team exactly a year to finish the project. Oddly enough I have to mention two things that might be important, that surfaced years after that movie was done. The movie itself is about one day in the life of a woman architect and about her juggling her creativity, career, her family and everyday life. This movie can be found on YouTube and it is still shown on Russian television around 8th of March every year – International Women’s Day. In a way we were breaking the ground rules, [because we were] the first women’s creative team, and one of the first animations with “adults” in mind. Until then, animation was mostly a “children’s” affair. And the second important thing was the celluloid. The transparent plastic sheets that were used as a surface for painting and drawing. And you will understand why later. My most memorable teacher was Vadim Kyrchevskiy. He taught animation courses and he taught us life mostly. 

MKM: When you are creating what’s your daily routine? Rituals, patterns? 

EZ: My day starts with a 10-mile walk around Lake Merritt in Oakland. It’s a must. When I do not have that my whole day is thrown off. It clears my head, I can daydream about the day ahead, think about my new projects, et cetera. 

Work in progress in the studio

MKM: How has your practice changed over time?

EZ: My practice changed with the deepening of understanding of what painting is, and about what it means to me. For years after finishing college and already living here in America, maybe because of the editorial illustration I was working on, maybe because I was still trying to “find” myself – my paintings were super “controlled”; with the elements of design and very stylized. Now, I call them “coloring between the lines”. Something was missing and I couldn’t figure, or wasn’t mature enough to figure out what it is. Gradually, after a period of ups and downs, the creative blocks and changing coasts in the 30th year of my career, I started to understand what the painting was about (for me) and how to make it alive. And it continues to change, I am always growing and evolving….

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums? Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet?

EZ: I work with oils on different supports. Have been favoring MYLARS (remember the celluloid!) lately. It is the hardest to “control” super slick surface. Very challenging and engaging. Keeps me totally focused….

MKM: What themes do you pursue?

EZ: I can paint everything – flowers, cityscapes, landscape, nudes, still-life, portraits. I have been focusing on the latter. Maybe because a face can be all of those things, plus. I favor “oneness” as a theme; for now….

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio?

EZ: Day light, my art books and a palette knife…

Inside Elena’s studio

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of?

EZ: Yes, many. Because I can’t copy them or repeat them. They are truly one of a kind with the life of their own. Also, if they were created (“channeled”) at a pivotal point of my career. One of those points was a heart break, and another – my mother’s death.

MKM: What art do you most identify with?

EZ: The one that I don’t know how it was done. It intrigues and mystifies me….

MKM: What inspires you? Other artists, other women from history, your process, a theme?

EZ: Oddly enough, the older I become – the less enchanted I become by others. I still look for the holy grail of mystery in the museums. They are harder to find. My focus shifts at different times. Apart from Dutch, Early Netherland and Flemish – like Hans Memling, Pieter Bruegel and Rembrandt, my favorite are Paul Cézanne, Richard Diebenkorn and Gerhard Richter. The female artist being Berthe Morisot and Agnes Martin. 

I do get inspired by a face. Either live or a photo of it. I like to paint androgynous – they are the most mysterious to me. Beautiful, ubiquitous. I consider my painting a success if I got lost in it. And it’s a bonus if I have something reasonable to show for it, or at least learn from it…

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history? 

EZ: I feel connected not to anything specific. I admire strong point of view, a craft, a deep understanding of the media, a voice, a vulnerability, a mystery. And there are so many. I come across them practically every day – those revelations that make my day. They tweak my creativity in this or that way, very slightly. They stay with me on my early morning walks. And it has nothing to do with the gender. It everything to do with the “goodness” of their art.

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or present day?

EZ: My female role model from history is Hellen Keller for obvious reasons. And my role models from present days are some of my girlfriends. They live in different parts of the world. Some of them have been having a very hard life – poor health, insufficient funds – but they keep it together. They persevere. They grow old as I do. They have their problems. But they never give up. They inspire me.

MKM: What is the best piece of advice you have been given?

EZ: The best piece of advice? I don’t think I have the answer. The best advice is usually the one that you get when needed the most. Sometimes, when I am stuck, I spend hours going through Goodreads Quotes looking for answers. It’s all there – the wisdom of enchanted humanity.

MKM: What is your dream project? 

EZ: My dream project is Artists Residency in Bellagio, Italy. Or American Academy in Rome.

MKM: What can we expect from you in the next year?

EZ: I do not know what to expect today. And you are asking about next year!

INSPIRED FOR LIFE
When I was 6 or 7 years old growing up in Moscow, some 30 years before  the experience made its way into the consciousness of my journey, I liked to “play secrets”. As an only child I had to occupy myself somehow and that game was as good as any because I could easily do it on my own. It involved wrappers for chocolates. The ones that you’ve managed to consume of course! The better chocolates – the more intricate the wrappers were. The best were the ones with the picture in the middle (it could even be a tiny replica of some famous Russian masterpiece hanging at Tretyakov Gallery) and the silver lining. After spending hours on folding them, still smelling of chocolate,  just right, completed with the silver design of the lining leaf, you had to hunt for another necessary element of a “secret”. That would be a piece of glass. The beer bottled ones, amber in color were the most magical. Then you had to bury the folded rapper with the glass on top in the shallow grave of the playground’s dirt. That was a “secret”. The magic happened when the young “artist”, on all fours and with her nose close to the ground, started to push the dirt away with her single finger in a slow little circular motion, clearing the tiny window of colored glass…. What a transformation! In the first shock of discovery it takes you a while to comprehend what you were actually seeing….Then it sinks in:a mystery of familiar….And the feeling! Of wonder, of revelation. I think that all my life I am chasing that feeling – the mystery to be discovered. That instantaneous shift of reality, the recognition of magic.  – Elena Zolotnitsky

Elena Zolotnitsky is represented by Andra Norris Gallery in Burlingame, CA

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31 Women – March 19th: Josette Urso

31 Women – March 19th: Josette Urso

Josette Urso         
Echo, 2018             
Paper collage

Josette Urso

Josette Urso

Working in multiple mediums, Josette Urso makes paintings, drawings and collages in direct response to her immediate environment. Large windows in her Brooklyn studio space afford her expansive views of the city, the weather, the light and colors, which all inform and inspire her work. Art making materials, in their variety, also nourish her practice. Urso’s approach to painting involves “moment-to-moment extrapolation where the contrasts and cross-fertilizations are cumulative, non-linear, free flowing and interpretive.” For Urso, space is “ambiguous and malleable” and she delights in the resulting acrobatic “mark making and image collision” on the canvas. With her collage works, Urso explores the dualities of information overload as it fuels our minds and creativity, but also desensitizes our attention. Her collages are packed with imagery that could both intrigue and overwhelm, but the information is ordered in a mandala like circle that conveys a sense of meditative peace amidst the spinning chaos of life.

Josette at work on a painting in her Brooklyn, NY studio

Growing up Urso’s parents brought creativity into their everyday lives; she describes her mom as “resourceful and fearless”. Her father, a math professor, also played the guitar. Both encouraged Urso’s artmaking, arranging lessons with students at the nearby university where he taught. Spending three semesters in New York during her undergrad years inspired her and made a profound impression. Urso immersed herself in the art, seeing everything she could, while becoming familiar with works by a wide range of artists. Women artists that have left a lasting impression on Urso include: Lee Krasner, Florentine Stettheimer, Anne Truitt and the choreographer Pina Bausch.

Collage materials and works in progress in Josette’s studio

Urso received her MFA from the University of South Florida in Tampa. Her work has been exhibited extensively, including exhibitions in New York at Markel Fine Arts, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, The Painting Center, The Drawing Center, The New York Public Library, The Bronx Museum of the Arts and in California at the Museum of Los Gatos and Chandler Fine Art. Urso has received grants and residencies including those from the NEA, Basil H. Alkazzi and the Gottlieb, Pollock-Krasner and Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundations as well as the Camargo Foundation, Ucross and Yaddo. 

Paintings in progress in Josette Urso’s studio

Josette Urso is represented by: Markel Fine Art in New York, NY  https://www.markelfinearts.com/ and Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont , NY and  Litchfield , CT  https://www.kbfa.com/

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31 Women – March 18th: Sandy Ostrau

31 Women – March 18th: Sandy Ostrau

Sandy Ostrau
Encountering Light Through the Fog, 2020                                   
Oil on wood panel

An Interview with Sandy Ostrau

Sandy Ostrau

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative? 

SO: I grew up in Palo Alto. I enjoyed art making from a very young age. You could often find me surrounded by my treasured art supplies, drawing and coloring for hours at a time. One of my bedroom walls was covered entirely with bulletin board so I could hang my art. 

MKM: Why did you pursue art? 

SO: I started a business selling my designs on textiles and clothing and that launched my career of selling my art. I moved into painting because I was interested in learning to use oils. I found them to be a perfect medium for my style of art. 

MKM: Where did you study art? 

SO: I studied Art History and took drawing classes at UCSB. After college I have taken numerous drawing and painting classes at the Pacific Art League and Palo Alto Art Center. 


MKM: Did you have any memorable art teachers?

Jim Smyth and Brigitte Curt have both been incredible teachers and mentors throughout the years. Brigitte Curt teaches impressionist plein-air painting and Jim Smyth is a drawing and figure painting instructor. They are excellent teachers and both accomplished artists.

Sandy Ostrau’s studio

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? Rituals, patterns? 

SO: I arrive at my studio by 10 am and I begin my day by mixing colors. I find the rhythmic movement of using the palette knife to mix is a great warm up and I then have a palette to work with for the day. It’s a wonderful ritual to focus my attention and loosen me up. Most importantly it switches my thinking to a work mode. 

MKM: How has your practice changed over time? 

SO: It hasn’t changed much over the years other than I used to spend more time painting outdoors and now I do most of my painting in the studio. 

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums? 

SO: I paint with oil paint, but I often sketch with graphite or ink and sometimes paint with acrylic on paper. I use paper and acrylic for studies. 

MKM: Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet? 

SO: Print making. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and in the near future I’d like to try it out. 

MKM: What themes do you pursue? 

SO: Mostly I work at integrating the figure into my paintings, whether interiors or landscapes. I’m mainly a landscape painter but I use figurative elements to connect the viewer to my work and to instill a feeling into the painting. 

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio? 

SO: My favorite tool is my large rolling palette cart that my husband built for me. I can wheel it around and it’s a big area for mixing a lot of paint. I use brushes and palette knives. I don’t really prefer one to the other and can transfer from one to the other easily. Also, Viva paper towels are essential. 

Sandy Ostrau’s studio

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of?

SO: I did a painting that was exhibited in an exhibition called Inspired by David Park a few years ago. I sold the painting after the show to a couple that moved to Santa Rosa with that treasured painting a few months before their home (and the painting) burnt down. It was so tragic for the family to lose everything. They kept telling me how much they missed the painting too. In addition, I think my early small outdoor landscape paintings are very special because they allowed me to paint the same scene over and over and experiment with value, color and shape in a way that you just can’t working large in a studio. Working from nature not from photos I think produces the best work and really trains your eye. 

MKM: What has been a seminal experience? 

SO: Painting outdoors. It allows you to work directly from nature, make a lot of small works so you can learn the painting process without worrying about making a great painting, and work quickly. I came to love outdoor painting and working from nature. I actually prefer it to painting in the studio. 

MKM: What art do you most identify with? 

SO: The art of Nicholas De Stael, Edward Munch, Joan Brown, Kim Frohsin, David Park and Richard Diebenkorn are painters I greatly admire. Also, Masaccio from the early Renaissance. 

MKM: What inspires you? 

SO: Nature is what inspires me primarily. More specifically, I am always astounded by the beauty of California. 

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history? 

SO: I am particularly interested in the work of Joan Brown. I love how she depicts her scenes with such simplicity yet she captures the gesture and persona of her subjects. The impasto paint and expressive brush and knife work is thrilling. 

MKM: Is there a specific work from Joan Brown that you find interesting? 

SO: Girl Standing, Girl Sitting 1962 

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or present day? 

SO: I have always admired Kim Frohsin for how dedicated and her accomplishments as an artist. She follows her own voice, which I admire. Her work is entirely original and expresses her own interpretation of the figure or any subject. She is also highly skilled as both a draftsperson and a painter. 

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given? 

SO: There are two things my teacher Jim Smyth taught me that have been instrumental in my work. First, paint what the subject is “doing” rather than “what it looks like.” This is a way to shift your thinking so the work will express what is happening rather than just depicting a scene like a photograph; the work will have more feeling. The second is that value (light and dark) is more important than color, and the relationship and patterns created by dark and light is the basis for composition.

MKM: What is your dream project? 

SO: I love creating a body of work for an exhibit, especially a solo exhibit. 

MKM: What can we expect from you in the next year? 

SO: More exploration of figure work and possibly some portraits; also larger works.

Sandy Ostrau is represented by Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA; Gallery North, Carmel, CA; Sue Greenwood Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA; Thomas Reynolds Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Anne Loucks Gallery, Glencoe, IL; LeeAnn Brook Fine Art, Nevada City, CA; Anne Neilson Fine Art, Charlotte, NC; Peterson Roth Gallery, Bend OR; and Meyer Vogl Gallery, Charleston, SC.

http://www.sandyostrau.com

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31 Women – March 17th: Jen Cole

31 Women – March 17th: Jen Cole

Jen Cole        
Face of the Mirror, 2019                   
Monotype

An Interview with Jen Cole

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

JC: I grew up in Southern California, the only girl in a four-sibling household. Because of that I had my own room for the most part. My parents encouraged my natural making proclivities and put an old door on sawhorses in my room to use as a table. It gave me a place to make and experiment without interruption. It was a place away from brothers and a place to learn to be with myself. Looking back, I realize I never really acknowledged what a wonderful and supportive situation that was!

MKM: Why did you pursue art and where did you study?

JC: I pursued art because it was what I found enjoyable. I also got encouragement for my efforts. But it wasn’t really until college that I discovered the type of art that I wanted to pursue. I went to undergraduate school at several places- first Reed College where I was not a good fit and then at UCSB, and then at Stanislaus State in Turlock CA! It was at UC Santa Barbara that I happened to take a printmaking class, not really knowing anything about it. I had a wonderful (and handsome) TA and I was hooked.

MKM: Did you have any memorable teachers?

JC: In graduate school at San Francisco State , I had memorable teachers. (The handsome TA was great but mostly handsome!) John Ilhe really inspired a kind of technical appreciation that printmakers seems to get wrapped up in. There is so much technical jargon and protocol – printmakers can spend hours discussing the merits of wheat paste and paper. After graduate school I was lucky to meet Kay Bradner owner of Katherine Lincoln Press. Working for Kay is where my real knowledge of printmaking took off. I learned to print all kinds of prints, wipe all kinds or ways and appreciate printmaking in an entirely new way. From the “grunts” perspective to the distinguished printmakers proof. I believe Kay was the best teacher I ever had, and I still call her occasionally for help.

Jen Cole in the studio

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? rituals, patterns?

JC: My daily routine is relaxed now as I retired my jewelry business when my husband retired. I usually manage to get to Kala three days a week and other days I work at home or do “laundry” (the symbolic word for home activities). But mornings are always devoted to a meditation practice and walking the dog or/and yoga. If I can do these activities before arriving at Kala, I am ready to work.

I love the process of printmaking so much that I often let this take a long time and finishing a print is a nice outcome that sometimes happens. It means I go to work and really just enjoy whatever problem presents itself during the making of a plate. I work with very little premeditated imagery. My prints evolve and transform a great deal over time. Physical labor is definitely part of my process- scraping, burnishing, re-etching, re-aquatinting. For monotypes this means many layers and covering up parts of images that don’t work and tearing images down, whatever it takes to discover what I am looking for.

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of?

JC: Being proud of artwork is a relatively new experience. When I started teaching monotype at Kala about five years ago, I realized that I was actually very well informed. Students give so much, and I have learned to become a better teacher as well.

MKM: What has been a seminal experience?

JC: Most of my seminal experiences have been of the internal kind of work–which most definitely is expressed in some way through my art. Maybe my most seminal experience was to finally understand that what I was learning through meditation and internal self-exploration was actually expressed visually in my art. It’s hard to verbalize but the joy that comes when working on printmaking is such a lovely and opening experience and that experience becomes the image.

MKM: What inspires you? Other artists, other women from history, your process, a theme?

JC: There are many artists whose work I love- Paul Klee, Kiki Smith, Kazuko Watanabi, Sean Caulfield, Golbanou Moghaddas… so many more. I like so many kinds of images. But I love prints most of all – above all other forms of art.

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

JC: The best advice that was ever given me was when my kids were young and a colleague of my husband said, “be flexible”. Buddha has a lot or good advice too like “things change”.

MKM: What is your dream project?

JC: My dream project would be to have a year to just work away on prints; actually I am living my dream now!

Jen Cole in the studio
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31 Women – March 16th: Elizabeth Barlow

31 Women – March 16th: Elizabeth Barlow

Elizabeth Barlow
The Time is Now, 2020
Oil on linen
Courtesy of Andra Norris Gallery

An Interview with Elizabeth Barlow

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

EB: I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of an artist father (Philip Barlow, 1932-2018).  I was always drawing as a child, our parents took us to art galleries at home and everywhere we traveled, and our walls were filled with my father’s paintings as well as the work of many other artists.  I was always absolutely certain I would live a life creating SOMETHING, but it took me a while to find out where my true voice lies.  In college, I studied theater as an actor, then journalism and finally history.  For a while, writing was my passion.  It wasn’t until I was a young adult and living in San Francisco that I woke up (I truly feel as if one day I awoke and knew what I wanted to do) and began practicing the craft of being an artist.  

MKM: Tell me more about that day you “woke up”, why did you pursue art?

EB: One day, I was sitting on a bench in Tiburon, looking at the Bay and literally out of nowhere I thought “I am going to paint clouds.”  This came out of nowhere, but I knew instantly that I needed to heed it.  And it was at that moment that I understood that I had an intense desire to paint (not necessarily clouds though!). 

I immediately told my father, and he said, “Well, then take a drawing class,” which I did.  I can still vividly recall the sensation I had in those first art classes.  I was by no means whatsoever the best student in those early classes, but I could FEEL in my hands and mind that I was going to be able to be good at this.  My eyes, hands and brain needed some time to learn how to work in this new dimension — but I somehow knew in my bones  that I was going to be able to make what I wanted to make — long before I actually COULD make it.  I believe that this intense desire to create is the most potent proof of whatever “talent” anyone possesses.  Yes, an acquired technique and experience play a part, but I feel that a desire to create and a daily devotion to the practice are the most important aspects of “talent.”  

MKM: Where did you study art?  

EB: My father was a huge influence on my development as an artist, although I never formally studied with him; he was a constant presence in my life with encouragement and critiques.  I studied at UC Berkeley and obtained a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Studio Arts there.  I also studied one semester at the Art Students League in New York City.  

MKM: Are there any memorable teachers from your studies?    

EB: Again, my father was one of my great teachers.  My other greatest influences as teachers were Donald Bradford and Eva Bovenzi, both are well-known Bay Area artists.  I took many classes with them at UC Berkeley and am grateful for their examples as working artists, encouragement, critiques and sharing of knowledge.  

A few photos of Elizabeth’s studio

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? Rituals, patterns? How has your practice changed over time?  

EB: I’ve always been very disciplined in my practice.  Since I am a realist, there is the stark fact that my artmaking requires a lot of time.  For many years, I had a day job, and I rose every weekday morning at 5am and drew or painted in my studio apartment.  For a time, I shared a studio with the artist Liz Fracchia, and I worked there every Saturday and Sunday.   

Eventually, I began painting full time, and now my days revolve around a very devoted studio practice.  I work 6-7 days a week in the studio, depending on deadlines.  My studio time is spent drinking green tea, staring at the canvas, mixing the day’s palette, more staring at the canvas, breaking to check email or to have lunch, followed by more staring at the canvas, and of course, working on the canvas!  I try to leave the studio each day at 5pm for a beach walk and an evening with my incredibly supportive husband.  I believe that being a painter is like being a ballet dancer or a pianist — it requires a daily devotion to the practice.  The great cellist, Pablo Casals was asked why, at 90, he continued to practice every day.  He replied, “Because I see some improvement.”  

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums?

EB: I am in love with oil paint — I love the lush sensuality of the paint.  I love drawing with graphite, ballpoint pen, wax pencil and conté, but alas the pull of the canvas and the luscious quality of the oil paint keeps calling me away from the sketchpad.  

MKM: What themes do you pursue?   

EB: At the present time, I continue to create my series called Portraits in Absentia.  In this series, I create still life “portraits” of people using cherished or symbolic objects rather than their faces to illuminate their characters and lives.  I am also working on a series called Portraits of Gardens in which I gather flowers and branches from a particular garden and then create a deconstructed still life that celebrates the character of that particular garden or gardener.  

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio?  

EB: Ah, there are so many!  Here are three:  First, my late father’s brushes and palette knives.  I don’t actually use them for fear of wearing them out — but they are talismans that speak to me whenever I see and touch them.  Second, my Hughes easel — it was a birthday gift from my husband.  Some women ask for jewelry or clothes, I asked for a custom easel.  It is made of mahogany and is counter-weighted so that it glides up and down with just a touch of my hand.  Third, my hundreds of art books.  They are my daily companions, teachers; an oasis of calm and inspiration. 

A few of Elizabeth’s beloved art books and her magnificent Hughes easel

MKM: Among your works, is there a piece you are most proud of? 

EB: My painting Portrait of a Marriage is a still-life of two pairs of mens’ formal dress shoes arranged as if they are in an embrace.  They are the wedding shoes of my friends Jake Heggie and Curt Branom, who were married in San Francisco when gay marriages were first allowed.  When I created the painting, my intention was to paint a celebration of my dear friends’ marriage.  It was only later that I realized the painting carries a historical and cultural message as well.  The painting has won awards in several national exhibitions and I’m happy to say now resides with Jake and Curt in their home.  

MKM: What has been a seminal experience in your development as an artist?  

EB: Studying at the Art Students League in New York City for one semester.  (Former students include Georgia O’Keeffe and Mark Rothko.)  Just to enter the building on West 57th Street is to inhale the wisdom and practices of over 100 years of great teachers and students.  I studied there all day, five days a week for a spring semester — on easels covered with decades of paint, and by the light of the same skylights used by countless great artists — and came away from that experience feeling somehow anointed by the atmosphere and spirit of that place.  

MKM: What art do you most identify with?  

EB: The work of Georgia O’Keeffe, Claudio Bravo, Philip Barlow, Vanessa Bell, David Ligare, Martha Alf, Alison Watt, April Gornik and Rachel Ruysch.

MKM: What inspires you? Other artists, other women from history, your process, a theme?  

EB: I am inspired by all art — dance, theater, painting, poetry — that speaks of the hidden, mysterious inner essence residing in each of us.  In my own art, I continue to seek to find a way to express this hidden inner aliveness.  The poet Mary Oliver always reminds me to be awake, to look and listen and perhaps then I will at last SEE into that inner mystery.  

Whenever I need an energy boost, I turn to my books about ballet.  The great American ballerina Maria Tallchief told her students “Ballet is like a religion.”  What she meant is that it requires a religious devotion — to show up at the barre every day, no matter how much your body hurts and no matter what else is going on in your life.  Just reading those words gives me energy and reminds me that my first duty is to show up at the easel — because it is in that showing up that the muses reside. 

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history? 

Georgia O’Keeffe is my pole star.  I believe that I own every book written about her.  When my husband and I were first dating, he arranged for us to have a private tour of her home at Abiquiu — and that’s when I knew what a special man he is.  O’Keeffe’s fierce devotion to her way of seeing, to her sense of self, and to the practice of her art are daily inspirations to me.  

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or present day?  

EB: Georgia O’Keeffe, Vanessa Bell, Anne Truitt, Mary Oliver, Suzanne Farrell, Rachel Ruysch, the Queen Elizabeths I and II (seriously!).  

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?  

EB: When I first began taking art classes, my father said, “Decide who you think is the best artist in the class and sit next to her or him.”  This has a double meaning for me:  it means to not shrink back but to take one’s place next to “the best artist in the room.”  And of course, it also means that I strive to continue to seek inspiration and wisdom through friendships and connections with artists whose work I admire.  Artmaking is a solitary existence and I cherish my connections with other artists.  

MKM: What is your dream project? What can we expect from you in the next year?   

EB: I am just now completing a dream project — a 6-foot commissioned painting with a fascinating back story.  It’s by far the largest painting and most complex painting I’ve done, and it’s whetted my appetite for big, complicated paintings!   I dream of more opportunities to create big paintings with that tell amazing stories.  

Elizabeth Barlow with a recently completed “dream project” – a commissioned painting: “The Phoenix Rose”, 2020
Oil on canvas

Elizabeth Barlow is represented by Andra Norris Gallery in Burlingame, CA

http://www.elizabethbarlowart.com

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31 Women – March 15th: Astrid Preston

31 Women – March 15th: Astrid Preston

Astrid Preston      
Reflection of the Trees, 2019           
Oil on canvas    

An Interview with Astrid Preston

Astrid Preston at her recent solo gallery show at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, CA

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

AP: My parents were both architects who met at the University of Riga, Latvia. In 1944, with the Germans retreating and the Russians advancing on Latvia, my parents, separately, escaped to Sweden and were reunited in Stockholm around the Christmas holidays in 1944; I was born some 9 months later. I was a very physically active child and always had to stay busy. Fortunately, there was loads of paper to draw on; lots of old blueprints around.

MKM: Why did you pursue art?  

AP: One day after graduating college as an English major at UCLA, I realized that I didn’t want to be bored and the only pursuit that I found was challenging and enjoyable enough was art. Even though I didn’t study art at school, when I was 17, I started taking classes in figure drawing which I continued for many years.

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? rituals, patterns?

AP: I basically spend all my time in the studio, which is in my home. Since I am retired from any other job, that is more than full time. Weekends are especially productive since my husband is also busy and often goes to his office. I do exercise daily, cook, shop, etc., the usual things, but even when busy with life I spend time looking at the work.

MKM: How has your practice changed over time?

AP: I worked full time until I was 40 when I had a son, so I used to do art every evening and weekend.  When my son was born it was chaotic at first but then with some help, I was able to work longer hours, every day.

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums? Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet? 

AP: I love oil on canvas and also drawing, but I am not very fluid moving between the two.  I would love to take the time to see if I could make acrylic paint work for my ideas and feelings, but the desire isn’t strong enough.

MKM: What themes do you pursue?

AP: My subject has been nature since about 1978; I used to call it landscape. After that I have ideas and feelings about certain images and art history and technique. Themes come out of the working, but the movement in the work has always been shifting from realism toward abstraction and the play between the two.

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio?

AP: Very good fine sable brushes with good points.

Astrid Preston’s studio

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of?

AP: Well, never proud, but fond of several large paintings that took between ½ a year to a year to paint. So much thought and emotion is invested in them that they are very special to me. I also love the experience of looking at large paintings.

MKM: What has been a seminal experience?

AP: Having a child, and later visiting Japan affected my work strongly. The work always has a strong personal message that I usually discover years later.

MKM: What art do you most identify with?

AP: Most art throughout history, but I have always loved Renaissance painting and that has influenced my technique. Only some of the paintings I respond to deal with nature.

MKM: What inspires you? Other artists, other women from history, your process, a theme?

AP: Usually a sunset, or a tree, or a forest, or a color. Something tangible and if possible, I take a photo to remind me. I do get excited when I see great art. Much of the most interesting painting now uses the figure. I am always interested in what makes work surprising and of the moment – it can be technique, image, composition, color combinations, etc; all the usual painting issues.

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history? 

AP: At the moment Louise Bourgeois still surprises me. I like the strong emotions I feel when looking at her work. The paintings of Hilma af Klint and Agnes Pelton have been more recent pleasures. I was happy to discover how good Hilma Klint’s landscapes are.

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or present day?

AP: As I get older I have a few female role models, but when I was starting out it was usually the men. I liked Mary Cassatt, but Matisse and Durer and Van Gogh made a stronger impression. Vija Celmins, as a brilliant Latvian artist, was a possible role model.

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

AP: Keep going.

MKM: What is your dream project?

AP: I don’t have a dream project; just hope I can stay healthy enough to work to my end. It is such a pleasure to be an artist.

Works in progress in the studio

Astrid Preston’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Asia. She has had articles and reviews of her work published in the Los Angeles Times, Art in America and ArtForum. Preston received an NEA Fellowship Grant in Painting in 1987 and an artist residency from Lux Art Institute in 2008. Her work is held in many public and private collections, including the Orange County Museum of Art, Long Beach Museum of Art, UCLA Hammer Museum, McNay Art Museum, Oakland Museum and Nevada Museum of Art. She is represented by Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica.

http://astridpreston.com

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31 Women – March 14th: Pantea Karimi

31 Women – March 14th: Pantea Karimi

Pantea Karimi
Healing Gardens, 2019
(left to right: Buttercup, Cinquefoil, Asparagus)
Digital illustration and print on aluminum

An Interview with Pantea Karimi

Pantea Karimi

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative? 

PK: I grew up in Iran (Shiraz and Tehran) during turbulent times of revolution, war and family tragedy. My father is a civil-engineer and architect and my mother is a retired history and literature teacher. Despite all the hardships, I managed to take regular classes in painting and classical music, which led to my decision to pursue art professionally. My parents supported my decision to go to art university and my father built me an art studio, in Tehran, where I taught drawing and painting to both youths and adults. 

MKM: Where did you  study? How has your practice changed over time?

PK: I got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Graphic Design from two prominent art schools in Tehran and worked as a graphic designer for design firms and as a freelancer. While I was studying graphic design, I continued taking professional painting and drawing classes and exhibited my works in Tehran’s galleries. 

In 2001, I moved to England, where I studied printmaking, worked as a studio assistant for a British landscape artist and exhibited my arts in Hastings and London in different venues. My residency in England provided creative time and allowed me to explore new media and printmaking techniques. This experience created a foundation for my art practice, which I continued in 2005 at the San José State University, where later, I also obtained (2009) a second master’s degree in painting and printmaking. 

My first artistic inspiration as a 5-year old was my mother’s German fashion magazines and other intriguing publications around the house. I was fascinated with their layouts and the use of photos, and colors. I used to draw on those magazine pages, thinking that I was making good changes to the layouts. As an artist, I am naturally driven by my deep feelings and childhood experiences that have shaped my perceptions of the world. This fascination with print publications and their layout and design continued to my adulthood. I gradually developed a strong interest in their history as well. To complete my master’s degree in Graphic Design at the Art University in Tehran, I researched the beginning of print industry in 19th century Iran. I gathered reproductions of those newspapers (originally were printed in lithography) and studied their illustrations, layout, and design.  I became fascinated by the ways in which text and image complemented one another in novel ways and communicated meaning. In 2014, I began a new research project which revisited my earlier investigations in the history of Iranian print media. Since then, my work has been an exploration into the pages of medieval Persian, Arab and early modern European scientific manuscripts. The scientific books from these periods offer nuanced understandings of the relationship between form and text, and above all, between scientific concepts and their myriad manifestations in visual forms. 

MKM: Do you have any memorable teachers from your years as a student?

PK: Three female teachers have been very influential in my practice: In Iran, drawing and painting: Minoo Asa’adi; in England, printmaking and use of creative process: Joanna Kerr-Smith; and in the United States at SJSU, printmaking and the importance of content in art: Erin Goodwin-Guerrero.

Pantea’s studio

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? Rituals, patterns? 

PK: I get to the studio at around 10:30 AM and leave at 7:30 PM, 4 days a week. Each day could be different in terms of how I start my routine; sometimes I start by checking emails and working on digital files, other times, I start with printing and painting. Every week, I create a list of projects I need to do. I go through the list and cross things out when they are done. That has created a working routine and has helped me to be organized. 

MKM: What themes do you pursue in your work?

PK: My work as a multidisciplinary artist explores the intersection of art with history and science, and examines how the broader aesthetic considerations of science are closely related to art. I am captivated by the correlation between abstract ideas and their visual representations. I research illustrations and texts of medieval Persian, Arab and early modern European scientific manuscripts in five areas: mathematics, medicinal botany, anatomy, astronomy and cartography. 

For me, these manuscripts provide a unique platform for investigating the influence of past scientific concepts and their manifestations on our contemporary perception of the world. They represent world cultures, their values and the progression of scientific ideas throughout history.

Utilizing conceptual and visual interpretations from my research, I create individual bodies of artwork using interactive installations, VR, silkscreen, digital illustrations, and prints. Collectively, my art highlights the pivotal role of epistemic images in presenting and communicating knowledge and generating new vision. It also represents my culture, identity, life-experience, and journey of self-discovery through science and history.

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums?

PK: I usually work with prints: digital (illustration) and manual (silkscreen and monotype). I enjoy working with interactive installation and various substrates such as paper, fabric, wood and metal. Some of my works also use mixed-media techniques, such as silkscreen combined with ink or watercolor. 

MKM: Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet?

PK: Animation

A few more views of Pantea’s studio

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio? 

PK: My computer (digital graphics applications) and silkscreen equipment 

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of?

PK: My medieval and early modern scientific manuscript series. To me, the topic is unique and provides many opportunities for the creative process and artistic endeavor. It also presents some challenges, such as interpreting a scientific idea in visual form or gathering information about certain scientific subjects. But I see the challenges as an undeniable part of the process and in fact a positive factor; it keeps my curiosity and interest going!

MKM: What has been a seminal experience?

PK: Perhaps immigrating has been the most inspiring experience and has influenced my work strongly. I am a two-time immigrant from Iran to the UK and to the USA. On a personal level, immigration provided challenges in the beginning, but at the same time, it presented great opportunities for my art practice and creative path; traveling experiences and living in diverse communities have informed my art content and identity as an Iranian-artist woman. It has broadened my world view.

MKM: What art do you most identify with? What inspires you? Other artists, your process, a theme?

PK: I am influenced by the works of modern avant-garde artists. In terms of abstraction and arrangement of my own forms, I draw inspiration from the Russian Suprematist artists El Lissitzky (1890-1941) and Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935). These artists were in search of a style of abstract painting based on geometric shapes, which they believed promoted the supremacy of pure artistic feeling over the depiction of objects. In my art, I also draw inspiration from artists from around the world, my peers, and art genres; I am an avid museumgoer, often visit local artists’ studios, and watch art documentaries on regular basis.  Among male artists, I appreciate the technicality and creativity of William Kentridge’s work. I have seen many of his animations and exhibitions in London and San Francisco and his recent Opera, which was wonderfully performed and staged. His work is very inspiring to me!

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or the present day? 

PK: Strong and independent women from any age group, any race or nationality who rise above their assigned stereotypes always inspire me. When it comes to female artists, I am usually inspired by their biographical narratives such as their struggles, achievements, and creative paths. My list is quite diverse; here are a few from various cultures and times:   Artemisia Gentileschi: Her female perspective was highlighted in all of her paintings. Louise Bourgeois: Her thought process and artistry. Louise Nevelson: Her use of materials and composition. Barbara Kruger: Her use of bold images and texts as well as the message of her works. Sally Mann: Her work, creative process in general. Marlene Dumas: She draws inspiration for her works’ imagery and content from published media, such as newspapers and magazines. Her female figurative paintings have elevated the subject from its roots in vanity, using it to depict personal, psychological, social, and political concerns. Her works are emotional and make me think. Es Devlin Her most amazing, creative theater and stage-sculptures. For her confident thought process and outcome. Marina Abramović: Her persistence; the power of performance and feminist art. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: (Iran) Her beautiful use of her Iranian heritage techniques and materials: mirror-mosaics. Her work  is a perfect marriage between Iranian and the Western culture while keeping her Iranian identity dominant.

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been  given? 

PK: I have not been given many pieces of advice but one I cherish: “Balance is the key to happiness in life.” I am very committed to my work; I always set goals and work towards them. In this process I try to strike a balance when I can, however, I haven’t been that good at it. 

MKM: What is your dream project? What can we expect from you in the next year?

PK: My current project (medieval and early modern scientific manuscripts) is my dream project. I am lucky that I have had the chance to do it. Next year, I will continue my research; digging into more of these amazing archival materials.  I am also working on solo exhibitions and new projects in the areas of astronomy and botanical.

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31 Women – March 13th: Laura Gurton

31 Women – March 13th: Laura Gurton

Laura Gurton        
Unknown Species #215, 2017     
Oil, alkyd, ink on linen


An Interview with Laura Gurton

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative? 

LG: I was born in 1951 in Brooklyn, NY, into a family of artists. My childhood was filled with museum visits, art books, the theater, ballet, foreign films, music, and art classes at the Brooklyn Museum. When I was young, my mother was enrolled in an art education program at Brooklyn College and became an art teacher. My father was a pianist and, when he was not working, he would be home practicing; our home was always filled with his music and he always tried to share with me and my sister his love for classical music and jazz. I also had an uncle who was a painter and printmaker. Everyone in the family had his and my mother’s paintings, etchings and linocuts hanging in their homes next to Picasso reproductions. I have fond memories of
creating art with my cousin in my uncle’s studio and drawing trees in Prospect Park with my mother. My artwork was always encouraged, validated, and displayed; my mother saved a lot of what I created then and I still have those early pieces. Actually, one painting that I made in the 6th grade won the honor of being exhibited in a children’s art exhibition at Lever House Gallery in New York City. I never saw that painting again, but I remember the feeling of seeing my work framed and on display in a gallery space, of watching strangers stand in front of it, observing, studying, and praising my work. 


MKM: Where did you study art in college? 

LG: For my first year of college, in 1969, I attended Philadelphia College of Art (now called University of the Arts). Although I loved the foundation year, I decided to transfer to The School of Visual Arts in NYC. In the early 70’s, SVA was not an accredited college and, although I had many well-known artists as teachers, I finished my 4th year of art school without a degree. SVA only became accredited the year I finished and by then I did not have the right credits for a BFA. So, when I was in my forties, I decided to return to SVA to complete my degree and to take art education courses to become a high school art teacher. A few years later I earned a Masters in Supervision and Administration in the Arts from a joint program run by the Bank Street College of Education and Parsons School of Design—an amazing experience that allowed me to work as a vice principal and the head of the art department at the high school where I taught. 


MKM: Did you have any memorable teachers? 

LG: I was lucky to have had a few women artists as teachers: May Stevens was so generous with her time and her willingness to share her experience, inviting my class to her loft in Soho; Marsha Tucker, who had just started the New Museum, taught a class about the art world; Audrey Flack and Alice Neel co-taught a painting studio. Having these women as teachers and role models made it seem quite possible that I could succeed as well. There were some male instructors who were also very memorable: I had Robert Pincus Witten and Monroe Denton for art history; Don Eddy and David Mann for painting studio; Sonnenberg, Bunnell and Blackburn for printmaking, all of whom were great teachers. I was happy to have Whitfield Lovell for art education and Leon Dylan for a technique class. The person who affected me the most was Lucio Pozzi. When I went back to SVA in my 40s, the fine arts department had a new procedure: in addition to regular coursework, students also had to meet with another artist to be evaluated at the end of each term. So, I had to present my work to Lucio Pozzi who encouraged me more than anyone else had until then. He loved my work and asked about my goals. When I told him that I planned to work full-time as an art teacher, he just shook his head and said “no, you must continue with your art.” 

Laura Gurton’s studio

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? rituals, patterns? Has your practice changed over time?

LG: When I am about to start a new piece, I clear my schedule and prepare to work uninterrupted for as long as I can. Sometimes I paint for 10-12 hours straight, working continuously. I usually do not answer the phone and only stop for short breaks. The next day I’m usually exhausted and need to rest, and then I start all over again. 

For many years, when I was home with my daughters, I had no choice but to work for only a couple of hours here and there. It was difficult to have to stop when a certain part of the process was incomplete. When I was teaching high school art, it was almost impossible to paint at home after a full workday. I always tried to be a working artist, but it was not until my children grew up and I was able to figure out how to support myself without teaching that I was I able to concentrate full-time on my work. 

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combinations of mediums?

LG: I have worked with oil paint mixed with alkyd on linen and on panels. I have also painted on top of panels on which I have first made reliefs with thick paper and matte board. That technique was inspired by the collagraph plates I used in printmaking. I have worked with acrylics on canvas and on clay board panels. I use the clay board like a scratch board, using a fine point to create textures with cross hatching and fine lines. I’ve experimented with encaustics, painted with textured gels and pastes, and, in the past few years, I’ve also developed a portfolio of digital art. I digitally manipulate photographs of my oil paintings, print the images on paper, and then work on top of the image with a variety of mediums: colored pencils, ink, gouache, metallic paint, sequins, rhinestones, beads, so as to create one of a kind mixed media pieces. I also recently added animation to the mix, and I am starting to collaborate with various musicians to create videos of my animated shapes with a musical score. I will always paint, but I have plans to exhibit the videos in galleries on a screen or projected on a wall. Right now, they are on Instagram and Facebook. 

Inside Laura Gurton’s studio

MKM: What themes do you pursue? 

LG: My paintings consist of concentric circular lines and colors that mimic pieces of agate, rings inside of trees, mold, other patterns in nature and—most importantly—microscopic cells. I once read that when humans are born, they have an instinctual attraction to the shape of concentric circles, which makes sense since the nipple is the first shape they need for survival. I have always been fascinated with the idea that we have instincts towards shapes. My paintings are titled the Unknown Species, a phrase that suggests that my shapes are alive. Since all of the paintings have multiple shapes varying in sizes, I see them as families that have gone through the reproductive system and are related to each other. 

My way of applying paint remains constant from painting to painting, and yet, as in nature, there is still a variety in the work, revealed by the choice of colors, the relative density of the circular forms, and the overall flow of the imagery. Some paintings seem tranquil, while others I find highly energized. Some of them are reminiscent of landscapes, reinforcing the theme of the shapes in the natural world. I see the shapes with their concentric circles as representing time itself, displaying their growth like the rings in a tree which come with age. 

My digital art, the Bits and Pieces Series, developed directly from photographic images of my paintings. I became intrigued with the complex patterns that developed by manipulating the image and I liked being able to see how the same image looks in various color combinations. The cellular shapes in all my paintings, digital art, and videos, which echo naturally occurring shapes, repeat the rhythms of life and existence. 

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of? 

LG: My Unknown Species paintings are executed on the floor and I need to be able to reach the center of the canvas to be able to paint. For a while, none of my paintings were larger than 36” wide. I then realized I could do multiples, with three or more panels that were each 60” x 36”, but I would need to paint them all at the same time for them to look like one painting. The first time that I completed a triptych where the panels all looked like they belonged together was a challenge that I was proud of. 

MKM: In your art career, what has been a seminal experience? 

LG: After four years of painting in my present studio, a gallery I was connected to told me they received a request for applicants to exhibit in the Pallazzo Bembo, a collateral event of the 2013 Venice Biennale. I applied and got into the exhibit Personal Structures. I knew that the Venice Biennale was the first worldwide art fair and very prestigious, but what I loved the most about it was being part of an international project with artists from all over the world. It will always be one of the most amazing experiences that I have had in my career. 

Laura Gurton’s studio

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history or present day?

LG: I first learned about Paula Modersohn-Becker in an art history class in 1993 and I felt a connection to her because she painted many portraits of children, pregnant women and nudes, some breastfeeding. At the time I was painting portraits of my daughters and their friends. I was intrigued by her abilities, the beauty of her paintings, and the short synopsis of her life that my art history teacher presented to the class. I then found the book Paula Modersohn-Becker: The Letters and Journals and learned more about her life—that at times she left Germany, her husband, and her stepchildren to paint in Paris. The more I read, the more connected I felt to this German woman who died in 1907. She wrote about her life as an artist and the struggles she had with the expectations her family, her husband, and society put on her as a woman and as a wife; I identified with her struggles. She was incredibly brave for the time period. 

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or present day? 

LG: I came of age during the 60s and 70s and was influenced by Gloria Steinem and Andrea Dworkin, among others. I was interested in the suffragettes and in women’s history, joined women’s support groups, and tried to raise my daughters thinking about what they were up against. Today I appreciate the Guerrilla Girls, women’s marches, and my daughters, both very amazing and powerful women. 

MKM: What’s the best advice you’ve been given? 

LG: Although I get accepted to many exhibitions, I still get rejected at times. The best advice that someone once gave me is to not take rejection personally and to just keep working… and know how lucky I am just to be able to create and be part of a community of worldwide artists. 

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31 Women – March 12th: Ellen Heck

31 Women – March 12th: Ellen Heck

Ellen Heck
Girl with a Blivet Pendant Wearing a Möbius Strip as a Hat, 2016
Woodcut, drypoint, and watercolor on Somerset Velvet paper 

   

An Interview with Ellen Heck

MKM: Tell me about your childhood, where did you grow up? Were you always creative?

EH: My family moved often until I was 10, but then I grew up in Austin, Texas. There are several artists in my family, and I always had access to a wide range of materials. I would often use art as a tool for meeting people in a new school.

MKM: Why did you pursue art?

EH: I have always enjoyed the process. If art had not developed into a career, I would still be making things.

MKM: Where did you study?

EH: Brown and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

MKM: Who were your memorable teachers?

EH: My mother is a commercial artist and my most influential teacher/enabler. I was able to work freelance for her for several years in art school and at the beginning of my professional life. This allowed me to work at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley during the day and make more reliable money doing graphic design at night.

MKM: When you’re creating what’s your daily routine? Rituals, patterns?

EH: There are many steps involved in my printmaking practice. Usually, I am working on several prints at a time, each at different stages of completion. In this past year, I’ve been working on oil paintings with multiple layers of glazing, so this has been the case with the paintings as well.

Ellen Heck

MKM: How has your practice changed over time?

EH: My work changes most significantly when life presents a certain constraint, or I have access to new materials. But generally, I try to keep my practice balanced carefully between intentional conceptual planning and an openness to chance.

MKM: Do you focus on a specific medium or combination of mediums?

EH: For the past decade, I have been predominantly a printmaker, but in the past year, I’ve been painting much more.

MKM: What themes do you pursue?

I am interested in making work that shares a sense of wonder. I also like to use a body of work as a way of exploring an abstract question or concept. Generally, this gives rise to more questions, which become the foundation for the next body of work.

MKM: What is your most important tool? Is there something you can’t live without in your studio?

EH: I have an agate burnisher that works as an eraser of drypoint on a copper plate. If you make a scratch into the copper with a drypoint needle and decide that it is too deep, or misspaced, this burnisher can remove it to any degree without leaving a gray shadow on the print. It allows me to work deep into a plate and then remove the majority of those lines.

Ellen’s studio

MKM: Is there an artwork you are most proud of?

EH: There have been a few pieces that I love because they were the origins of a discovery.

MKM: What has been a seminal experience for you?

EH: Working at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley for nearly seven years was the foundation and formation of my career. I was part of a critique group of artists who became mentors and close friends. They are role models and demonstrate a variety of ways that one can sustain an art practice.

MKM: What art do you most identify with?

EH: I like to look at all types of art, but I find myself most frequently connecting with work that has some aspect of representation or a focus on harmony.

MKM: What inspires you? Other artists, other women from history, your process, or a theme?

EH: I have been deeply inspired by the work of Mary Cassatt, Dieter Roth and David Hockney. I also frequently get ideas by reading and teaching.

MKM: Do you have a sense of connection to a particular woman artist from art history?

EH: Mary Cassatt

MKM: Is there a specific work from Mary Cassatt that you find interesting?

EH: The set of 10 color prints are my favorite works by Cassatt and my favorite works of printmaking in art history. My first gallery solo show was based on this series.

MKM: Who are your female role models from history or present day?

EH: Mary Cassatt, Audrey Niffenegger, Maria Popova

MKM: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

EH: Keep making work. Make more work. Persist.

MKM: What is your dream project? What can we expect from you in the next year?

EH: I’ll begin the year at the printing press if all goes well!

Ellen at work

        

Ellen Heck is represented by Wally Workman Gallery, Austin, TX; Davidson Galleries, Seattle, WA; Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN; Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA and Baker Schorr Fine Art, Midland, TX.

https://ellenheck.com

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31 Women – March 11th: Lisa Noonis

31 Women – March 11th: Lisa Noonis

Lisa Noonis
Crisscross, 2019
Mixed Media (acrylic, graphite, collage, latex) on paper mounted to panel
28″ x 18″

Crisscross began as a drawing from a live model; it developed over time. I began simplifying lines into shapes. Then added some unexpected color through collage and paint. For a while there wasn’t anything in the background. I had been working on several still life paintings at the same time, and decided to suggest a still life in the background. For me, it put the figure in an space. I aimed to keep the figurative feel while pushing it toward abstraction. – Lisa Noonis
Lisa Noonis

Lisa Noonis

Lisa Noonis grew up in a large, loving Greek family and is still inspired by the memory of her Yia-yia (grandmother) who was patient and present, teaching her that life was like sorting rice – you have to pick out the bad and keep the good. Noonis discovered art early in life, winning first place in a children’s art festival and showing so much talent that her high school art teacher insisted that she go on to art school and pursue a career in the fine arts. After a detour as an engineering student her first year of college, she went on to earn her BA in art, communications and advertising.

Noonis worked at a communications firm, then embarked on her own as a freelance graphic designer and art director, eventually forming her own successful advertising, marketing and design company. Despite this achievement, she sensed that something was missing, and always felt the need to express something “more personal and more permanent than ads, logos and brochures”. This feeling spurred her to ultimately make a leap of faith by renting an art studio and committing to seriously pursue a fine art practice. Noonis took workshops, studied with masters and became dedicated to painting every day—still life, portraits, landscapes, and anything that would “sit still in the studio or in front of her canvas”. 

When interviewed for 31 Women and asked about her inspirational women, Noonis named “late-bloomer” artist Katherine Bradford as a current day heroine, noting “she’s 78!! and just hitting her stride.” In looking back, Noonis’ early work and vision were visibly influenced by such masters as Cezanne, Modigliani and Morandi. However, she cites Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler as inspirations for their courage and for the sheer scale and energy in their work. Similarly, Noonis often works in large scale. A 9’ x 19’ span of paper may stay on the studio wall for a while, allowing her the time, freedom and space for continuous thought. Once the concepts are complete, she cuts and crops into individual works to be mounted on panels. 

Lisa Noonis at work in her studio

Lisa Noonis’ creative practice has changed over the years as her work shifted from advertising to fine arts; and within in her fine art as realism evolved into abstraction, painting from life moved into painting from memory, and small canvases grew into large. Today, she continues to evolve and grow as an artist as she “explores the objects, people and places in her world”. 

Lisa Noonis is represented by Blue Gallery, Kansas City, MO; Carver Hill Gallery
Camden, ME; Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA; and Whitney Modern, Los Gatos, CA