I am a painter . I paint with encaustic . I love color , form , drawing , texture , translucency , and luminosity — all qualities that keep me excited about working in encaustic .
I fell in love with the technique when I saw it in a gallery in Portland , Oregon 14 years ago . The surfaces of the abstract paintings were like nothing I had ever seen . I left that gallery thinking , “ I must find out how to do that .” There was little technical information about encaustic available at that time . I went to a Barnes and Noble bookstore searching the shelves looking for information on encaustic . I realized later that the technical information that I found was wrong . It was the formula for cold wax , lots of stuff that should never be heated . I made mistakes , even using acrylic gesso on the supports and then having whole paintings slide off the surfaces when I returned to my Oregon studio on a sunny day .
Now we are inundated with encaustic info , some of it illuminating and beneficial , and some of it just wrong . I shudder at some of the “ how to ” encaustic videos I have seen . Anyone can post a YouTube video , or an online class after taking a workshop and become an instant teacher , but some of these people are not making archival work or using true encaustic . There are excellent books and videos available by experienced artists that are informative and professional .
I received my degree in painting many years ago but continued studying . I wanted to expand my artistic experience as much as possible . I ’ ve worked with oil , acrylic , mono printing , engraving , woodcuts , etching , and mixed media . My sculpture experiences include ; welded steel , clay , plaster , stone , bronze and wood . Now encaustic allows me to use almost all my experience in one technique .
I have been a working artist for over 50 years . Right out of school I started working in the art departments of 2 publishing companies ; I have owned and directed 2 art galleries , one in Scottsdale AZ and the other in Ashland OR , and have exhibited my work internationally . My work is in both private and corporate collections . I consider myself a classical artist who now is painting in encaustic . Because of my traditional training , ( I always drew , but in art school I improved my abilities ), I move from encaustic figurative painting to abstract and back again . Both take me on journeys of discovery about the medium and myself .