Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Extra Extra Read All About It


It's me, blogging at Logan airport in Boston with 2 hours to spare before my plane leaves, the 4th Annual Encaustic Conference was a whirlwind of waxy adventures. I stayed at the dorms at Monterserrat with 3 other roommates, Patti, Diana, Lyllia, and me, all nice people. Patti said; she is going home and emptying out her head on her desk, that's a great description of my brain currently, I must do that also and sort through all the information we were given and experiences I had.

Artists who work with encaustics are a great and giving group. Joanne Mattera http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/ was everywhere all at once she was very nice and approachable (for the Queen Bee of the Encaustic World).This message stressed again and again is "We are artists first, who happen to use the medium of encaustic wax"

I could not come all the way to Beverly, Mass and not visit Salem, so I ditched one of my lectures and took the train to Salem a beautiful quaint walking town. I went to the Salem dungeon and watched a little play with the actual transcripts of a trial. It was more about mass hysteria, religious fervor, children being manipulated by adults and greedy people taking others land than it was about anyone actually being in league with the devil (although the spirit of avarice and hate were surely at work).
Over 150 were arrested and imprisoned, 5 died in prison, 14 women, 5 men and two dogs were hanged. Giles Cory who refused to plead guilty was crushed to death with rocks, they were not able to take his land. After that I visited the Peabody Museum, The House of the Seven Gabels, I saw the mother of all cemeteries where those poor souls who were hanged were buried, and I had my fortune told by a witchey woman, really not much worth reiterating and frankly a little of a ripp off just like dumping $30.00 into a Las Vegas slot machine and hoping for a huge payoff and getting nothing but a little diversion. Oh well.
That witch put a curse on me also........let me explain.

The next day I was talking to Sheary by the front of the college and inadvertently grabbed her backpack by mistake. I took it up to my room and tossed it on the bed and left for the lecture. Sheary went to use her cell phone and noticed her nap sack was missing and naturally panicked so the women in her vicinity were of course brought into the drama. She remembered that I was the last person she talked to and came looking for me, of course I was gone so my roomie opened the room and there it was! Sheary and Lilia know it was a silly mistake and anyone of us could have done it but others seemed not to believe that it happened that way. What an airhead I can be sometimes, it was very frustrating that I could not remember doing it and unfortunate indeed that in these types of situations others will believe what they want to believe. I had to laugh it off (as best i could) and hold my head up and enjoy the rest of the conference.
Lylia said STOP SMOKING! I said why did you say that and she told me of you link something like that to a traumatic event you will remember the message. Thanks Lillia now I think I can quit these fags once and for all.

My Critical Feedback by Joseph Carroll http://www.carrollandsons.net/artists/index.php was quite interesting my critique came the last half hour of the day so I was not given the time and attention the people had earlier in the day and others wanted to ask him other questions like "Do you feel women are discriminated against in the industry?" excuse me?#! it was my floor time!
He said; my art belongs to a certain cultural spectrum and has a 70's feel example the Byzantine paintings of the era. I got some examples Rodarte http://www.rodarte.net/ Rick Owens http://www.styleite.com/media/rick-owens-bedroom-exhibit-photos/ both fashion designers and Dr Lakra http://contemporaryartlinks.blogspot.com/2010/04/dr-lakra-ica-boston-14-april-6.html a tattoo artist from Ocaxa, Mexico. My question of making my artwork more commercial so I can sell more he said, "artists hold for the culture a respite from the making of money and commercializm".

My post conference workshop Homage to Fayum given by Francisco Benitez http://www.franciscobenitez.com/ was by far the highlight of the conference for me, I learned the techniques that the Ancient Greeks and the Fayum mummy portraits painters used. It was just like painting portraits with oils only you use a variety of heated tools like sculpters use, wood burning tools etc. They used a limited pallete. We had a live model, Francisco gave me and all of us helpful suggestions and loads of information about Greek Art in the short time we had him. He was very complementary of my portrait saying it' has a vulnerable mysterious quality (or something like that).

There was a gathering on Tuedsay night a barbeque with tons of good food it was at Julie's house http://www.julieshawlutts.com/ in Salem WOW on the harbor next to a golf course lots of land handsome home and her studio was a so cool all kinds of antique chachkis, boxes and boxes of wonderful stuff. We all had studio envy.

So after taking the train from Beverly to Boston catching the subway orange line to the blue line, taking a shuttle to the airport, going through security, flying to Houston, Seattle, and Anchorage and driving to Beverly Lake I am home and blogging all about it.

The message I took home with me is: Be true to yourself and your vision. Write an artist statement about your artistic vision and/or process. Write it as if you have completed the body of work you dream of creating.
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1 comment:

Patti Gibbons said...

Is this a workshop done every year? It sounded fantastic and I would love to attend. I missed a lot of parties and art classes due to my being here helping my daughter, but I am sure there will be plenty more to come. And, it will make my freedom even more appreciated (I know now why 50+ year old women should NEVER have babies). xp
PS your story was funny, but not funny. I too do spacey things like that...shrug. SO I killed a few brain cells...and probably will kill a few more.