I began primarily using encaustics because I was captivated by its ancient history and was challenged by its process of heating and cooling which captures the dynamic of chaos and demands control unlike that of any other painting medium. If one tries to fight wax’s essential characteristics to harden the instant it leaves it heat source, one will be defeated. In encaustic painting one needs to literally go with the flow and let the wax find its place. That means working quickly to place your stroke, even if you have to contemplate for twenty minutes on precisely where to place it.
This medium reflects how my mind processes and stores the environment around me. Encaustic is a layering process. Layering the surface of the painting with beeswax is much like the way that my memories are layered and reworked in my mind. Beeswax preserves brilliant pigments and adds luminosity for thousands of years just like how my mind preserves my memories as colorful and fresh as the day that they were created.
What I value most in this medium is its inherent qualities to withstand the test of time. What I value most in my work is my ability to preserve the vitality of the preliminary sketch. Each finished wax painting is embedded with its original beginning charcoal sketch and then fused into the wax to preserve each line, displaying where the image started from.
The process of encaustic demands a confident hand that can control the medium as well as a hand that can allow the spontaneity of the flow of the wax. This balance of discipline and disconformities are reflected in my work as well as my life. I try to let life take hold and just go with the flow instead of worrying about everything all the time, and unlike life, encaustic is forgiving. If you don’t like what you put down, just scrape it off and start over.
If only life were as easy.
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1816 McCulloch St. I am a self-taught encaustic painter (beeswax). I began primarily using encaustics four years ago because I was captivated by its ancient history, and I was challenged by its process of heating and cooling which captures the dynamic of chaos and demands control unlike that of any other painting medium. Education: Graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts May 2006University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Awards and Grants -2007- Current Galleries
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