Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i Artists Magazine

“Writing is play in the same way that playing the piano is ‘play’ or putting on a theatrical play is ‘play,’’’ says Margaret Atwood. “Just because something’s fun doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.” In this issue, we are delighted to showcase the work of artists who take play seriously: Sally Strand’s theatrical evocations of daily life (“The Moment In-Between,” page 28); Julio Reyes’s sporting desire to try new materials (Drawing Board, page 14), and Candice Bohannon’s exultant, abundant imagination (Brushing Up, page 22). And two artists, who still love to dress up, Patti Brady and Teresa Oaxaca, demonstrate that the origins of art often lie in the joys of childhood. Brady loved sitting on the floor as she cut out paper dolls and costumes (“The Barb Beneath the Beauty,” page…

THE MOUTH isn’t typically the first thing we think of when viewing or creating a portrait; it regularly plays second fiddle to the eyes and is often overlooked. Let’s take a moment to celebrate the mouth and all of its expressive potential. If the eyes are windows to the soul, then perhaps we can consider the mouth to be the gateway, the threshold through which the body is nourished and the mind expressed. Food, sustenance, air; words, laughter, moans of pleasure and pain—all these pass through the mouth’s parted gates. A person’s mouth can reveal a dour personality, inherent optimism or inveterate anger; it can express sadness, joy, sensuality, frustration, disapproval, desire, deception, doubt, suppressed emotion, disgust, dishonesty, anticipation, anxiety or concern. Its various forms of communication, verbal and nonverbal,…

“My work is about pleasing the eye,” says Teresa Oaxaca. Indeed, though her oeuvre includes conventional portraits in charcoal and oil and straightforward still lifes, Oaxaca’s portfolio is dominated by large canvases where every centimeter is filled with a riotous array of objects (many from her collection of antique dolls, Venetian masks, nutcrackers, China teapots and skulls that have become repertory players in these paintings) and her trademark cascade of flowers in full bloom strewn carelessly around a central figure, which is often costumed in period attire and makeup. At first glance, these paintings seem like an amusement park for the eye. With time for contemplation, however, the visual overload, the unusual pairing of objects and figures, the high-key saturated pigments and hyper-expressive subjects in sometimes inelegant poses find a…

Q As a plein air artist, I’d like to know more about tick-borne diseases. How are these diseases contracted? Is the risk restricted to certain seasons or regions? A Ticks are small, eight-legged creatures that live on grasses and other vegetation. As they grow bigger during the warmer months of April to September, they go through four stages, from nymphs, which are almost too small to see, to adults. For each of these stages, the tick must have blood. Ticks sense people by their breath, vibrations, moisture or body odor. Since these insects can’t fly or jump, they climb plants and grab onto people who brush by. Seeking warmth, ticks climb up arms and legs looking for cozy spots to settle in for a feed. Some ticks attach to the…

My advice for other artists is just to keep working. Don’t expect every piece to be perfect. IN MY CHILDHOOD I LOVED TO DRAW and even dabbled in oil painting. After college I worked as a lab technician and took drawing classes at night. Eventually, I decided to study art more seriously and attended Paier College of Art in Hamden, Conn. Creative people often make great models, and Carla, a fellow painter, is a perfect example of this. I planned the composition before I began painting Carla in the Gallery, but I didn’t do a detailed drawing. Instead, I sketched right onto the canvas with a brush and then laid in colors and values using paints thinned with odorless mineral spirits. I kept the underpainting simple, adding more details and…

A MATTER WORTHY OF ATTENTION is why some artists, already at highly accomplished and successful points in their careers, choose to make a dramatic change of method or style and set out in a new direction. Perhaps even more intriguing is when those changes result in a new, higher pinnacle in their art. Sally Stand is one such artist, and her recent work offers elegant solutions and insights into the purpose of art. Metamorphosis “I had painted for decades, but I was feeling increasingly restless. I sensed that there was much, much more to know about art than I knew,” Strand recounts. “So I decided to enroll part-time in a nearby MFA program. Laguna College of Art and Design has one of the very few graduate programs in the country…

Organizing the Palette I prefer to lay out my colors from light to dark and warm to cool. I’ve become used to this arrangement, so I can send my brush or palette knife to the appropriate pile for mixing without having to think about it too consciously, thus freeing my mind for drawing and for working on values. Earth Colors I use a large number of earth colors, umbers and lead pigments. The earth pigments, as well as the oils that bind them, have quick drying times. In Darkness Visible My palette has been getting larger and brighter, in part due to all my colorful props like flowers and fabrics and face paint, but also to a change in style from tenebrism (from the Italian tenebroso, murky and the Latin…

TAM: What is your history in art making? Rachel Kroh: I discovered printmaking as an undergrad at Sarah Lawrence College. After getting a master’s degree in art and religion at Yale Divinity School, I realized that printmaking is my true calling and returned to school for an MFA in print media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. TAM: How did you get started with woodcuts? RK: I always came back to relief printing because it works well with my drawing style, and I love the meditational aspect of carving. I chose wood-block printing for Heartell cards because the obvious mark of my hands in the images is a good fit for the relational, personal nature of stationery. I think woodblock is the most elemental and intimate of…

WE LIVE IN A TIME of great technological innovation, and I feel fortunate to be making art when so many new means and materials are at our fingertips. The trick is to understand what you want out of your materials and what it is you’d like to achieve by using them. Learning how to use traditional materials (paper made of cellulose, wood panels, real gesso, etc.) and traditional approaches makes a good foundation for understanding how to experiment in the studio and how to incorporate innovative new materials into your body of work. Learning to make things well is paramount. Many of history’s masterpieces are the result of innovations in thought and execution, but they’re made so exquisitely and with such expertise as to survive the centuries. Hence, in order…

MINE IS A SIMPLE AND UNIVERSAL ARTIST’S STORY: I would sit on the floor as a child, scissors in hand, surrounded by cheap paper—cutting snowflakes or paper dolls, for which I had a stronger obsession than for weather or nature. I am still playing with dolls, just doing it with more expensive materials. I have a magpie’s eye, obsessively collecting patterns, colors and just about anything with a glint of glitz. I am not restrictive about what I collect: My fixations roam through Alexander McQueen’s baroque fabric sculptures with their beautiful folds and gilded embellishments; historical and midcentury wallpaper; 14th-century Netherlandish paintings (must be the brocade and ermine); vinyl toys—and I have a thing about rabbit heads, too. Dichotomies in Design I will admit to being unabashedly feminist about my…

BEFORE I LAUNCH INTO MY APPRAISAL of two of New Wave’s (newwaveart.com) new palettes, I should discuss my own history with palettes, in order to give this Road Test a context. I’ve used hand-held palettes in the past, but they put pressure on my thumb. For that reason, I’ve been using tabletop, disposable paper pad palettes for years. New Wave is a family business, operated by two brothers who oversee product development, production and marketing, while the idea for an ergonomic palette originated with their father, an artist. Handcrafted by the Amish in Lancaster County, Penn., the wooden palettes have a satin finish that is easy to clean; palettes are available in both handheld and tabletop models. DISPOSABLE PAPER TABLETOP PALETTE The wooden handheld palettes are beautiful, but I first…