Paula Roland at Anya Tish Gallery this month

PAULA ROLAND:
Sizzle! Hot Wax Prints
 ANYA TISH GALLERY
4411 Montrose Blvd.
Houston, TX
Opening Reception June 22, 6-8:30 pm 

Paula Roland
Fire and Ice (Detail)   Layered Encaustic Monotypes, fluorescent lights    42" x 104"    2012
Exhibition continues through July 28
During the events of
PrintHouston

Anya Tish Gallery is happy to announce the exciting new exhibition of experimental printmaker Paula Roland in Sizzle! Hot Wax Prints. An expert in encaustic wax printing, Roland has originated many of the techniques used in this method of making art. Through the combination of the historic practices of encaustic painting and experimental printmaking, a new form of art is developed: encaustic wax printing. With encaustic printing, molten pigmented wax is applied to a heated metal plate and lifted off of it onto paper. No press is used.  

As paper and wax are combined, Roland navigates the sea of shifting shapes, colors, depth and translucency in each mercurial encaustic print. Due to the process, her prints share an unpredictability and unique similarity to the New Mexican landscape that she calls home. The interplay of the heated wax and colorful pigments move in diverse ways slowly revealing an artistic narrative that is then transferred onto paper. Roland's most recent installation, Fire and Ice, reflects her concerns about the results of climate change. Although Roland is in charge of each print she creates, the underlying level of uncertainty brilliantly creates monotype prints that can never be re-created or foreseen.

Fire and Ice consists of eight large free-hanging translucent wax prints in two layers. Lit from behind the fluid wax shapes and patterns emerge, blend and recede in mystery. Also shown are works from two of Paula Roland's encaustic print series, Language of Beauty, and Taiko.


PrintHouston 2012                                                                                www.PaulaRoland.com
                

Anya Tish Gallery
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday - Friday 10:30am - 6:00pm
Saturday 10:30am - 5:00pm
and by Appointment      Phone 713.524.2299                                       

Encaustic Monoprint Demo Today at Art Supply on Main Street

Art Expo is on again at Art Supply on Main St. here is Houston. I will be demonstrating Encaustic Mono-printing using Fine Art Store's Enkaustikos brand Paint Sticks and anodized aluminum plates. All day beginning at ten o'clock this morning. Do stop by.

HOT! HOT! HOT! Art Exhibition at Bosque Gallery, LoneStar College, CyFair

Houston member artists of TexasWAX  exhibited their work this summer at Bosque Gallery, LoneStar College, CyFair campus. The exhibition closes next week. 

Exhibiting artists were Steffani Frideres, Jennie Kimbrough, Julia Koivumaa, Caroline Marcos, Hayes Parker, Gwendolyn Plunkett, Suzanne Shield-Polk and Linda Walker.

L - R Large orange diptych by Julia Koivumaa,  two small pieces by Jennie Kimbrough and five piece series by Steffani Frideres

Caroline Marcos

 Linda Walker 

Jennie Kimbrough

Steffani Frideres

Left wall of gallery looking towards lobby. 

Right wall of gallery: Works by Julia Koivumaa, Hayes Parker and Suzanne Shield-Polk

Hayes Parker

Hayes Parker

Hayes Parker, Julia Koivumaa, Jennie Kimbrough, and Steffani Frideres

Hayes standing next to three of his pieces.

L -R Julia Koivumaa and Hayes Parker

Suzanne Shield-Polk, her large ceramic bottle with encaustic

Suzanne Shield-Polk

Close-up of Suzanne's bottle

Linda Walker

Member News

 Steffani Frideres is showing new mixed media pieces in her exhibition Waxing and Waning at Lone Star College, in Tomball  through May 15. 

The works featured in the exhibit are augmented photographic images which, as the artist describes them “are made, not taken.” Each piece is a black and white silver gelatin print, mounted on wooden panels. Each photograph is coated with an mixture of wax and damar resin, then fused with high heat in order to bond the wax to the photograph. Images are then hand painted with encaustic wax and oil pigment in subsequent layers and fused. “It's a labor intensive process,” Frideres says, “that takes time, and more time.”
Frideres feels this collection illustrates her internal reflections and memories. “Like a slightly fogged or soft focus photograph, these waxed images are reminiscent  of another time and place, forgotten yet uncovered,” she says. You can see more of Steffani's work on her website here.

She has also just published a catalog to go with the exhibition. You can view it here.


Admission to the gallery is free of charge. The LSC-Tomball art gallery is adjacent to the Beckendorf Conference Center, near the college entrance at SH 249 and Zion Road.

College address is:
LSC-Tomball College Gallery
30555 Tomball Parkway
Tomball, TX 777375
______________________________________

Gwendolyn Plunkett has two works in the Pulp Fiction exhibition at the Encaustic Art Institute in New Mexico coming up in April.

Set in Stone II, Encaustic, various burned papers, oil bar on panel, 16 x 16 inches

Set in Stone I, Encaustic, various burned papers, oil bar on panel, 16 x 16 inches

OPENING-April 2: "Pulp Fiction" (works on paper) 
EAI Gallery, Cerrillos, NM   1-6 pm

Body Language Exhibition at Encaustic Center in Richardson, TX. Through April 3, 2011.

, originally uploaded by theencausticcenter.

My thanks to Bonnie and Deanna at The Encaustic Center for this exhibition.

Encaustic Workshop at Lonestar College CyFair Campus

Here are the numbers you need to register for the Spring Encaustic Workshop at Lone Star College, CyFair.
You will have to register on campus in the CE Department, MOD 1 building.
Encaustic Painting - ARTS C - 3800059   5011-2011 Spring

The class meets in the Arts building Rm 115.
Class begins on Sat. Feb 5 and runs for six consecutive Saturdays.
Class time: 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Paint, medium,  small wooden panel substrates, some oil bars and oil paint, some paper for collage,  and all equipment are supplied by school.
Students should supply their own drawings, photocopies, objects for embedding, extra collage material compatible with wax, shop towels, and oil bars of your choice of colors.

There are some excellent books on the market today about painting with encaustics. Most can be found on Amazon. Although I have my books available during workshop,  but I suggest you get your own.


This workshop covers the following:
Brief history of wax/encaustic as a medium for art making
Safety precaustions with equipment, tools, and studio ventilation
Types of substrates appropriate for use with wax
Several ways of priming substrates

At end of workshop, participant should have at least 12 paintings that demonstrate a working knowledge of the following techniques:
transparent and opaque uses of encaustic paint, collage with wax, image transfer, embedding objects, pouring techniques, smooth and rough textures, stencils and masks, and dipping methods.

Click here to see more images of some student paintings from previous workshops.

HIVE Revisit

Below are Cheryl McClure's and Carolyn Fox-Hearn's paintings that didn't make it into my previous post.  My apologies to Cheryl and Carolyn for not getting their paintings in there. 

Cheryl McClure (DallasWAX group) They Paved Paradise, Encaustic Collage

Carolyn Fox-Hearn, Man and Bee, Encaustic Collage

Below are different views of Denise Stringer Davis's collaborative book and the list of artists who collaborated on this project.  

Denise Stringer Davis, Collaborative book

Alex Brewer, Pat Burton, Denise Stringer Davis, Molly Davis, Zoe Davis, Loretta DiStefano, Alex Dupre, 

Claire Dupre, Lindsay Hill, Corinne Jones, Heidi Lingamfelter, Linda Pinkston, Hazel Shepherd, Jane Shepherd

I  would also like to mention that besides having Laura Tyler's film stream during the exhibition, getting lots of attention I might add, during the panel discussion, I  shared some of the images Laura sent me of a new project she has underway. Another collaboration but with the bees. She and the bees are creating a kind of quilt. Her idea, but the bees  are helping. Below is some information about Laura. Click here for Laura's web site. Thank you, Laura.

Laura holding up one of her frames that is placed inside the hive. It is a timely process she says, and much depends on the bee's schedule.

"Laura Tyler, producer and director of the documentary film Sister Bee, is a painter and filmmaker who speaks nationally about beekeeping and honeybees.  A co-founder of the Boulder, Colorado based honey company, Backyard Bees, she manages up to 20 colonies of honeybees. She earned a BFA in filmmaking from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1993 and is a lover of sunlight, flowers and alizarin orange."

SISTER BEE, SHORT SYNOPSIS

Sister Bee is a lyrical documentary about six beekeepers who find beauty and wonderment in their work with honeybees. Beekeeping is more than a hobby for the beekeepers of Sister Bee. It's a source of laughter, learning and connecting with the natural world.  Sister Bee follows the arc of the beekeeping year beginning with spring queens and ending with the fall honey harvest.  Each beekeeper's outlook is revealed through shared thoughts and gestures.  Expressive sound effects and a score of vocal music, antique whistling songs and acoustic guitar unify Sister Bee into a celebration of honeybees, beekeepers and the changing seasons.  Mortality, sisterhood and the palpable sense of connectedness some beekeepers experience while working with honeybees are addressed.

Lastly, I want to say a bit about the Bee Book I put in the exhibition. As I said earlier, it is a book we (my siblings and I) found in when we were going through my parents house after my mom passed. I remember my step dad keeping the bees, the honey and comb in jars, and seeing him in his protective gear when he was working. I think he had trouble with them surviving through the winter and finally he stopped. I don't know when or how he got the book. It was sealed in a zip lock bag on the book shelf when we found it. The book is C. C. Miller's Fifty Years Among the Bees originally published by A.I Root Company, Medina, Ohio in 1915. The copy I have is too fragile to read but I did take pictures of some of the pages. Dover republished an unabridged edition in 2006 which I have now and am reading.  Miller has a charming way of describing his life and his attitudes and it is a fun read so far. Not knowing much about keeping bees myself, I thought it would be boring and too technical but so far, that hasn't been the case. 

At one point, Miller had a job in another state and his beekeeping was being done long distance with the aide of his wife and some neighbors. He says, on page 36, "Clearly, keeping bees at along range was a very unsatisfactory business. City life was also unsatisfactory; a traveling life was worse. So in spite of the reduced chance of making money, I decided for a life in the country." Further on, he says, "If I had kept my other job I would have, no doubt, made more money, but I would not have had so good a time, and doubt if I would be alive now. "   Reminds me of how I felt when I quit my high school teaching job. 

HIVE Exhibition

Telling Bees by Denise Stringer Davis

Above Paintings are top: Entomphily and Zoophily: Birds and Bees, etc by Deanna Wood

Next down: Vacant by Jennie Kimbrough

Next down: Decline by Hayes Parker

      

Sara Cooney's work

Work by Suzanne Shield Polk

Close up of Collections, collaborative book by Denise Stringer Davis

Above and below are images from the HIVE exhibition at the Cole Art Center in Nacogdoches this month. We had good attendance at the reception and panel discussion on Saturday. This project was conceived to promote a greater awareness of the importance of the honeybee to our society and create discussion about  causes for the current problem with the bee population called Colony Collapse Disorder, referred to as CCD.  

A major part of the exhibition is the wall of hexagon-shaped  Encaustic paintings by Houston and DallasWAX  member artists. Content of the work needed to pertain to bees in some way.  We have Laura Tyler's film Sister Bee, streaming in the gallery. A collaborative accordion-fold book conceived and assembled by Denise Stringer Davis with pages made by friends, family and artist members is also on display. Many of the members have bee keeping in their family history. I found a old hardback copy of C.C. Miller's Fifty Years Among the Bees in my dad's things after he passed. He had stopped keeping bees a long while back and given all his equipment to another family member but for some reason kept the book.  It is on display  as well.   Below is Denise's Honey Dreams which sits on a pedestal in the gallery. Honey is in the mouth.  

The panel discussion was a lively conversation with good audience participation. Marie Kucyen, president of the Pineywood Beekeepers Association presented interesting facts about our dependence on bees for much of our food supply. She cautioned that  even with the recent news about identifying the cause of CCD, there are still questions that have not been answered surrounding this disorder. There is still suspicions that  certain pesticides lower the immune systems of the bees so that they are unable to fight off the affects of the two suspected causes. 

Panel member Melanie Brakie gave suggestions for garden plants that bees and other pollinators love as well as good suggestions on better products to get rid of garden pests that don't harm bees nor the environment. Dr. David Kulhavy was very enthusiastic about the coming together of art and science. He spoke of his book A Forest Insect Alphabet which has just been printed and will be on exhibition this week. Animated, he read/sang some of the songs that he wrote in the book about the wiggle dance of the bees. There is more about his book at the bottom of this post.

Honey Dreams by Denise Stringer Davis

Honey Dreams by Denise Stringer Davis

HIVE exhibition L to R at far end L work by Sara Cooney, Deanna Wood and Denise Stringer Davis

L to R: Collections, Denise Stringer Davis, and other works in HIVE

Pollen Puffers by Larry Kitchens

Old book from Gwen Plunkett's collection handed down from her Dad. Book is an original copy of C.C. Miller's Fifty Years Among the Bees.

L to R Collections, Far left: Denise Stringer Davis; Untitled by Hayes Parker; Vacant by Jennie Kimbrough; God's Nectar I and II and Queen's Lair (A Room of Her Own) by Gwendolyn Plunett

Swarm I and II and Star's Tears by Gwendolyn Plunkett; Harmony  and Heartbroken by Carolyn Fox-Hearn and further down works by Linda Walker

Diaspora, Empty Nest Syndrome and Cast Aside by Linda Walker

L and R -  Harmony; Center-Heartbroken by Carolyn Fox Hearn

Panel: L to R- Gwendolyn Plunkett,  Marie Kocyan,  Dr. David Kulhavy,  and Melinda Brakie.

In the picture above, Dr. Kulhavy is holding up a copy of his latest project,  A Forest Insect Alphabet, a book consisting fifty-one original woodcuts and text printed by LaNana Creek Press. This book is a result of an SFA faculty research grant awarded to Charles Jones, retired professor of art and director of SFA's fine arts press, and Dr. Kulhavy. It was printed and bound by hand during the summer and fall of 2010. The 72-page book includes woodcut prints of forest insects created by Charles Jones and descriptions and texts are written by Dr. Kulhavy.  Included in each book is a compact disc of songs that are the actual texts set to music by Nacogdoches musician Miki Lynn. Click here to read more. 


The book and 26 selected framed pages will be exhibited Wednesday, Nov. 17 in Griffith Gallery on the SFA campus. 

Q is for Woodcut by Charles Jones

You can see more four more pages of images of the HIVE exhibition on my Flickr page here.