Meanwhile Back at the Farm Studio, I have been very busy.

• Archiving my work has taken much longer than I ever expected. The process of selecting and culling, the schlepping of work and supplies to and from storage, the wrapping and detailing of work, the database work, photographing and Photoshopping...has been a monumental task. That says nothing about the emotional roller-coaster that many of the works generated for me.
• I responded to an RFQ. That is really time-intensive!
• I was selected to participate in Creative Capital's Professional Development Program (a weekend immersion in career matters for working artists). Creative Capital was brought to Nashville by our Arts and Business Council. My experience at the Capital PDP workshop stimulated a rethinking of my art practice, and I'm working through various iterations of it.
• Life and death matters, family, and just plain living took time, too.
• And, I have continued to show up in the studio. These quick drawings are meant to tap into that ever present ticker tape of information running in my mind. They are meant to be Brain-Drain work, but there is little doubt that reviewing past artwork has reprised some shapes and forms from deep in my memory bank.

Here are three:

Study 4

© 2011 Kathryn Dettwiller

Charcoal,acrylic,conte on paper

26 X 20"

Study 14

© 2011 Kathryn Dettwiller

Charcoal,acrylic,on paper

26 X 20"

Octopi

© 2011 Kathryn Dettwiller

Charcoal,acrylic, on paper

20 X 20"

Paint, Paint, and More Paint

In an earlier post I remarked that I was ready to paint again with vigorous, big strokes. That meant OIL PAINT.
I haven't used oils in years.

When I began using encaustics in 1996, I was smitten. I left my old medium, oils, for a new one. I loved encaustics then and I still do, but the limitations of the hot wax make it challenging to work in a larger scale. The wax hardens before I can make a long stroke of paint.

Then I unpacked my oils. Yikes! Absence did not make my nose grow fonder. The odor was so pungent that my allergies rebelled.

But, I reasoned, oil paint is compatible with encaustic paint.

So I squeezed out some oils, heated up the wax, and painted. The painting was awful. The surface of the painting was gobby, the design poor, and the smell of the oils made my head hurt! I'd been away too long, and now the odor was a problem. I put the painting away.

Still yearning to paint boldly, I remembered an old stand-by of mine---black and white tempera paint. Powdered tempera is a liberating medium since it is quick to dry, can be made thick enough to have some heft, and it's cheap.The flip side, though, is that it can be brittle when dry. The first "Brain-Drain" painting, Study #2, was crumbly and fragile when it dried.

©2011 Kathryn Dettwiller  Study # 3, Charcoal, Acrylic on Paper,

26 x 20"

Since I had acrylics on hand, I thought they could substitute for the tempera. Here I worked some black and white as well as colored acrylic into the charcoal base layer. The finished work is now mostly acrylic paint without the brittleness of tempera.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Page

Richard Serra, September

Intellectually, I know that there's nothing new under the sun. But the scope of visual influences astonishes me. My last post image bears a too-canny resemblance to a photo in April's issue of  ARTnews, featuring Richard Serra's drawing retrospective exhibit at the Met in New York.


When I saw the magazine last month, I saved the article and put it aside. In it the writer detailed Serra's choice of media...ink, charcoal, paint stick...which are materials that I use quite often. Obviously, the visuals imprinted my brain.
Alas, Alack!!

Granted, I thought I was sourcing from my unconscious when I stepped up to my page. I guess in a way, I was. But today, when I sat down at my studio table, it was clear: Richard Serra's drawings spoke to me in a visceral and compelling way. He is quoted as saying that drawing is nothing "less than a language and a way of seeing and thinking." I understood his language.

Why I Don’t Draw Much in a Sketchbook

Artists are supposed to keep sketchbooks. I do. But mine is filled with more words than pictures. I discovered a long time ago that I like to work with shapes and lines that flow into and out of shapes. Plus, I really like to work standing up and with some degree of size, so that I have to use big arm movements to fashion an image. Using paint to make those big shapes is a better fit for me.
This spring I have made a number of quick drawings/paintings that represent a kind of brain-drain. The paintings are spontaneous with no preconceived imagery. They are mixed media on paper, generally about 26” x 20”.

©2011 Kathryn Dettwiller, Study #2, Charcoal, Tempera, Acrylic Medium  
26 x 20”

Water, Water Everywhere

 © 2010  Kathryn Dettwiller    Flood  Encaustic on Claybord  12 X 12"

Water can be so destructive. The people in Japan know that firsthand. Nearly a year ago, Nashville was flooded...not by a tsunami, but from torrential rain.The Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission put out a call for submissions for their juried show, Spirit of the River, and my painting (above) was accepted.It will be on display in their Metro Arts Gallery until May 6th. Stop by and see what 14 area artists visualized about the Nashville Flood of 2010.

Life Turns on a Dime

There's an old saying that life turns on a dime, and that is quite clear to me. Three friends that are about my age have cancer. For two of them it is a recurring cancer. Another friend had a massive stroke last week and died. An elderly relative of mine fell in mid January, was hospitalized and now is in a nursing facility. His apartment and belongings had to be dissolved, his bills canceled, and his future care arranged.

I have a favorite saying: life has run away with me. Sometimes our best laid plans get blasted by grim realities, personal responsibilities and demanding health issues. We can dream, plan, and forecast, but sometimes that train derails.Attention to something else demands our energy. So we put the plans aside to take care of immediate business. And when the coast is clear we begin again. That's where I am today. Beginning again. To blog, to paint, to muse.