"Bubele, you are not making bombs here-it is just art"

16 x 16 encaustic LpressmanStill on the subject of influences, I was thinking about artists that I know or have known personally who have the ability to help my work grow and change. One teacher comes to mind quite often and I repeat his advice to my students every time I teach and occasionally to myself when I am fussing around on my work.
Jake Grossberg, sculptor, was trying to show me something with Plaster of Paris and I was very hesitant and timid. He looked at me and in his Jewish grandfather way said

"Bubele, you are not making bombs here-it is just art"

Later after I had graduated he was encouraging me to go around NY with my work and I told him I wasn't ready.

His words were "Do you think you will ever think you are ready? He suggested that I think of promoting my work like I was selling salami's. Some people like salami, some don't."

He taught me to separate my work from myself and get into a different mind set when promoting......invaluable advice. Thanks, Jake

Notes from a Critical Feedback Workshop

14 x 11 encaustic L Pressman
Last year at the Second National Encaustic Painting Conference I was selected to participate with 9 other artists in a Critical Feedback Workshop given by Kay Walkingstick.It was a full day of looking at our work and discussing it as a group and privately with Kay.

Here is a compiled list of questions and comments that Kay made that day: All worth asking, thinking, discussing,and arguing about..............

1. Do you spend at least a couple of hours in the studio every day?
2. What is your goal for your art career? (Have your work shown in a
museum, pay your bills and feed your family or somewhere in between —
it’s all valid)
3. What are you looking for when you go to look at art? Does your work
fulfill that need?
4. Who is your favorite artist and what do you expect their art to do
for you?
5. What subject do you want to investigate?
6. How to do conceptualize your work? How do you begin (through color,
image, idea)?
7. How are your pieces related to one another, if at all?
8. What symbolism are you trying to convey?
9. Who is your audience? What do you want your audience to see?
10.What does surface signify? Does it carry meaning?
11.Do you fully understand and know what you are doing?

Draw every day, natural things that interest you.
Collect stimulus, draw them. Focus, find out as much as you can.
Stimulate yourself. Journal what you love, what you hate, what's in your
head, what's important. Journaling organizes your thoughts; allows you
to see things in concrete way that otherwise you might not see.

Focus on what you think you need to find in your art.

Art can be close to the bone, but we are not our work. Try not to
identify your core ego with your art.

On Preciousness: Get rid of your little darlings......
"Destroy your duds"...said by someone else.

Real success is making art all your life.

Don't be afraid of expressing what you really mean in your art, what
you really feel. Say it visually, as strongly as you can. Push as far a
reach as you can, then go all the way!

Avoid methodology. If what you're doing is about technique, that's not art.

I expect of abstraction as much as what imagery does for me...to carry meaning.

Art has to be incredibly layered. Symbols, signifiers...layers that
relate. Combine signifiers with more abstract notions. Push! Vary lines.

"Ya wanna be an artist? Make art!"

Tell the viewer something that they need to know.


It is important to know:

1) You are OK just the way you are. You need a strong stomach, a tough
hide, and to be able to take rejection well.

2) Do your homework. Check out galleries. Don't just walk in with your
work. Be as professional as you can.

3)....there is a gallery for everybody."

"Be of good cheer, miracles do happen."

Kay Walkingstick


14 x 11 encaustic 2009 L Pressman

What artists have influenced you ? Nancy Tobin

Nancy Tobin is an artist living and working in Maplewood, NJ. She was recently in a show at the Parlor Gallery in Asbury Park, NJ and exhibits with Rupert Ravens Contemporary. She has a great new gig as a writer for the New York Times Local Blog interviewing artists in the Maplewood area. Bionic Fizz mixed media on panel 30 x 30 Nancy Tobin Here is what Nancy says about her work: My work deals with the power of memory. The human mind holds millions of snippets of visual memory. From the moment they are stored, memories become fiction; remembered, they become narrative. My art draws the viewer through that process. Organic forms (drawn out with scissors, paint, ink and pencil) are suspended in an atmosphere comprising layer upon layer of medium; the eye literally plumbs the painting’s depths in pursuit of meaning. My work spans cultures and media to include organic forms from nature, Asian art and textiles, cartoons, and decorative elements from around the world. Drawing is the genesis of my creative process; drawn forms imbue the work with organic unpredictably. It’s the most magical part of my paintings, representing a loss of control and an invitation to the viewer to follow. Representation is as powerful as it is futile. 1. Walt Disney- Love him or hate him, it's hard to deny his influence on our culture today. Saturday matinees at the local theater in Grand Rapids allowed me my first glimpses into the world of art. While the action was playing out in the foreground, I would find myself entranced by the captivating world created by the studio's background artists. 2. Hayao Miyazaki- Also inspired by Disney, Hayao Miyazaki weaves tapestries of make-believe where humans roam with fantastical creatures in glorious landscapes — with just enough creepy darkness to keep your teeth from rotting. 3. Islamic Miniatures- I'm amazed at the intricacy put into these tiny jewels. Oh, and WOW — the colors! 4. Richard Diebenkorn- I pored over his work when I was learning to paint in San Francisco. His color, his layering, his strokes seem effortless. Looking at his work makes me homesick for the Bay area. 5. Ernst Haeckel- His Art Forms of Nature is my Bible. 6. Paul Cezanne- I taught myself painting by copying his. 7. Andy Goldsworthy- His work is like a conversation with the Earth. 8. Chuck Close- His life-long commitment to the portrait provides continuity as he reinvents and challenges himself all along the way. 9. Mark Rothko- For his exploration into the dark — a place I'm happy just to skirt the edges. 10. The Universe- Maybe a cliché, but one of my biggest inspirations is what I see when I look out my window.

Something New From the Studio

12 x12 encaustic L Pressman


10 x 10 encaustic, oil L Pressman


18 x18 e ncaustic,oil L Pressman


18 x 18 encaustic ,oil L Pressman

What artists have influenced you ? Pam Farrell

Here is the work of Pam Farrell, her list of influences and her statement. She lives and works in Hunterdon County, NJ. Her work was recently exhibited at the Morpeth Gallery, N.J. and she is currently included in the Encaustic Works '09 show sponsored by R and F Encaustics, Kingston, NY.



Hypnotist Collector ochre 2 encaustic 18 x 18 2009 Pam Farrell
Just a note: As you scroll through the lists of influences you will find links to artists that you may or may not be familiar with- I have been introduced to a few, so far.

Pam says:
"Here's my list, in no particular order. Ask me again tomorrow and I'll likely give you a different list. Some of these are names of artists whose work I've looked to for a long time, others, more recent"

Kazmir Malevich
Jim Lee
Joseph Beuys
Susan Rothenberg
De kooning
Eva Hesse
Brice Marden
Diebenkorn
Milton Avery
Gee's Bend quiltmakers
Charles Mingus
Judith Streeter
Aaron Siskind


Ophelia Red encaustic on panel 36 x 36 inches 2009 Pam Farrell

ABOUT THE WORK:

My work explores issues of knowledge, experience, memory, and identity. I am interested in the spaces and places between the cracks of what I know—the areas tenuously marked by indeterminate boundaries.

In a formal sense, I am attracted to colors that are not easily nameable, form that is ambiguous and indefinable. In the work I seek to bring forward traces of memory and experience that cannot be expressed with words. Encaustic—molten, pigmented, beeswax—and oil with graphite are my primary tools for this nonverbal communication.

Pam Farrell
http://www.pamelafarrell.com/

What artists have influenced you and how? Leslie Neumann

Ghost Swamp 45 x37 encaustic and oil Leslie Neumann

I have had the pleasure of knowing Leslie since 1984.We had been in touch off and on for many years. Just recently we have reconnected and I am very happy to have her list of influences and her work on the blog.

Here is an excerpt from her statement:
"My home and studio are located on the Gulf of Mexico, where I’m surrounded by more than 14,000 acres of coastal wilderness. I hear no traffic, and at night I listen to the mullet jump, while seeing stars reflected in the water. All of this beauty has inspired and influenced me as a painter.

But my process and medium – encaustic (hot wax) and oil paint -- are equally influential. The wax is applied with a brush while it is still hot, and after it congeals, I scrape through to reveal other layers of color, incising pictographs, words, and marks into the wax. The encaustic is used to its full advantage to provide textural and sensual surfaces, while the images themselves are emotional landscapes."



Mist 40 x36 encaustic and oil Leslie Neumann

Artists whom I respect and admire:
1. cave art
2. Van Gogh
3. Cezanne
4. Picasso
5. Rembrandt
6. George Inness
7. Bruce Nauman
8. Squeak Carnath
9. Ida Applebroog
10. Gregory Gillespie
11. Russell Thurston
12. Sandy Winters
13. De Kooning

Leslie Neumann
http://www.leslieneumann.com

What artists have influenced you and how?

Lately I have been brought back to review my list of influences and artists I admire. Of course, the Cezanne and Beyond show is the obvious inspiration but I have had a list for quite a while.
I made it several years ago and I still stand by it with a few additions. It is a good way to clarify who you are, where you are, and where you want to be in your art-making. Today I look at my list and think I have a long way to go and that I am not looking at enough contemporary art. ( I will put that on my agenda.)

So, in the spirit of the interactive blogs of Pam Farrell, John Tallman and J.T. Kirkland I invite you to email your top 10-15 influences with a Jpeg of your work and I will challenge myself to figure out how to post them.

lpart@earthlink.net

My list is what inspires me in each artist's work (not in any order)Eva Hesse: the oddness, the quirkiness, the beauty of the strange, the persona
Ree Morton: changed the way I looked and thought about sculpture
Philip Guston: the courage of his later paintings, humor, irony
Jackson Pollock: the power of the unconsciousSqueak Carnwath: use of words, stories, paint Rembrandt: lights and darks
Vermeer: the window light
Brice Marden: calligraphy is drawing, the meditative state
Matisse: the joy of color, the use of black
Rothko: emotive power of color light
Jasper Johns : intelligence
Giacometti: the isolation of his figures and mark making in his paintingsJoan Mitchell: her use of color, brushstroke, her abstract painting of nature and landscape
Amy Sillman: interesting, narrative paintings
Andy Goldsworthy: amazing use of materials, relationship to landscape and nature
Michal Revner: the real thing, image, depth, intelligence, personal yet political and her use of media (photography and video ) in a painterly way
Martin Puryear: his sculpture has it all

Philadelphia

A year ago I was included in the New Talent Show at Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia.



Since then I have been back and forth from NJ several times. What a great place - a city with many visual contrasts. There are a few galleries that I try to visit when I go-Gallery Joe , Larry Becker, Bridgette Mayer GAllery . I went with fellow artist Pam Farrell who lives close to Philly to see her show at the Ruth Morpeth Gallery in Hopewell,NJ Then we went to First Friday and met several artists including Michele Marcuse ,whose work was is showing at the Painted Bride Art Center and
Tim Mc Farlane at the opening of his show at Bridgette Mayer. Great art, nice people-a community!
I think I have been living under my rock too long! More about that later.

By the way, last Sunday I went to the Cezanne and Beyond show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art which blew me away. Brice Marden, Giacometti, Matisse,Picasso, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns ,(many more) and the influence of Cezanne on their work.

Very smart, informative and inspiring exhibition!