Artist's Talk

1-9 encaustic on paper 12 x12 L Pressman

Last Wednesday was the reception for the show "Illusive Balance: Transcendental Pattern & Layered Surface" with Marsha Goldberg, Nicole Ianuzelli, and Debra Ramsay. For the event, each artist was asked to do a seven minute talk.

In the past few years, I have done just a bit of public speaking. I recently did a Power Point on my work at a workshop and was part of a panel discussion. It is fun but a challenge. It is not necessarily my favorite thing to do. I knew about it for months and had it on the back burner until the day, suddenly, was a week away.

I tried doing the talk to myself while driving a few times. I did a few, lie-in-bed, toss-and-turn, practice runs. I called a friend and had a discussion about what I might say but ended up saying "Oh, forget it. I will figure it out." I brought out my trusty little tape player and spoke for maybe 6 minutes. It didn't sound too bad, particularly after I did it a few more times and stopped in each one because I lost my train of thought. That's when I decided it would be great if I could just play the tape and lip sync it. That was quickly squelched by a few friends.

So I kept practicing. The night before the talk I did another version into the tape player as I was driving to work. I played it back before I went in and it was a bunch of um eh, um,um ,um. OMG.!!! Awful. I went into the restaurant where I wait tables and told my pals my predicament. They just laughed and made fun of me all night. I did realize that I have learned some skills while waiting on tables. I can talk to strangers and I can make them believe whatever it is I need them to believe at the time. It a performance every night. "Have the Halibut. You will love it." Recommending expensive bottles of wine is the same deal. A little bit of knowledge and a whole lot of confidence goes a long way. A sense of humor and humility is a winning combo. I am going to try to bottle that for the future.

I went home that night and decided to get up in the morning and try to write the talk down. By this time I had a plan. An outline, a beginning, middle and end. In the morning I picked up Debra Ramsay from the train and came back to my house. We both did our talks for each other and then off we went to the show. The show looked great. I met some old and new friends. We all did our talks. All went well. I didn't talk too fast, not a whole lot of ums, no sweat dripping down my forehead, saw a tear in my friend's eye, and drew a few laughs. Most importantly, I had this sense that is OK to do what I do. That may sound strange but I can spend way too much time thinking about what I do , why I do it, where I do or don't fit in.....blah blah blah. All that noise can interfere with the actual work.

I think the last line of my talk was " My intuition is smarter than my brain. When I enter the studio I try to park my intellect outside the studio door. The intellect is for a later date."

(You have no I idea how difficult this was to write. I have been in my bathrobe for days. Thanks for reading it!!)


Transparent Thinking 24 x 24 wax and oil (left) LPressman Element of Air 24 x24 wax and oil (right) LPressman
The catalog can be found here soon. The show runs through June 7, 2010

Mabel Smith Douglass Library Galleries 8 Chapel Drive, New Brunswick, NJ Gallery Hours M-F 9am - 4:30 pm; Weekends by Appointment

Chinese Painting Workshop

I recently attended a one day workshop on Chinese Painting at the George Segal Gallery, taught by Professor Zhiyuan Cong, a wonderful painter and the head of the Printmaking Program at William Paterson University, NJ.

I am always telling my students to relax, be patient with themselves while they learn something new and here I found myself tense and frustrated. What a humbling experience.




Professor Cong over his blank rice paper



Beginning



He doesn't speak when he demos, all is quiet and we watched as this unfolded.











The "four treasures"
1.Chinese brush
2.ink
3.rice paper
4. ink table


The quality of the line, the brush stroke and the variation of values from the ink was impressive.



He is beginning his fish which symbolizes happiness.










Here is Professor Cong's Orchid




and mine.......


From my notes:
Ink painting is write idea painting.
Writing is freeing to express your ideas.

In the Studio

Spirit of Motion 24 x24 wax, oil LPressman

Finding the Path 24 x 24 wax,oil LPressman

Building a Bridge 24 x 24 wax, oil LPressman


I just finished updating my website after about a year and wouldn't you know it, I am already behind. It is a never ending process........

A Full Circle Moment: Women Artist Series

I am proud to announce I am an exhibiting artist as part of The Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series exhibition:
"Illusive Balance: Transcendental Pattern and Layered Surface"Nicole Ianuzelli, Marsha Goldberg, Lisa Pressman, and Debra Ramsay.
March 17 – April 28, 2010Douglass Library Galleries, Mabel Smith Douglass Library
Rutgers University
8 Chapel Drive
New Brunswick, NJMonday – Friday, 9 am – 4:30pm and weekends by appointment.

I showed my first painting at the Douglass Library as a student. It is great to be back!


Lisa Pressman installation

"More than 300 artists responded to the Dana Women Artists Series open call for submissions in 2007-08. The Dana Women Artists Series jury was comprised of three distinguished arts professionals: Sheryl Conkelton, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programming, Temple University Art Gallery, Philadelphia; Jorge Daniel Veneciano, Director of the Sheldon Museum of Art (Lincoln, Nebraska) and formerly Director of the Robeson Galleries, Rutgers (Newark); and Marilyn Symmes, Curator of American Prints and Drawings and Director of the Morse Research Center for Graphic Arts at the Zimmerli Art "Museum, Rutgers (New Brunswick)

In 1975, I arrived at Douglass College, in NJ to study art. At that time, Douglass was still an all women's college. There was a wonderful cast of characters in the art department: Bob Watts, Geoffrey Hendricks, Peter Stroud, Gary Keuhn,Hui Ka Kwong, and John Goodyear. This list of instructors reveals the fact that the art students had no female mentors or role models. Not only this, but up until 1971, the college gallery exhibited only male artists. It wasn't until 1977 that Joan Semmel was hired as the first full-time female faculty member.
But, in 1971, Joan Snyder, former Douglass graduate and MFA from Rutgers conceived of a series of lectures and shows that were called the Women Artists Series (now called The Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series). This series brought to Douglass College women artists, whose works were not represented in mainstream galleries. It gave these women a venue in which to show their art and gave us, the students, a chance to interact with them.



Women Make Lists, 2001, Joan Snyder

Here are just some of the artists that I seem to remember hearing talk about their lives and their work:

Jackie Winsor, May Stevens, Joan Snyder, Carolee Schneemann, Miriam Schapiro, Judy Pfaff, Joan Semmel, Alice Aycock, Hannah Wilke, Ana Mendieta, Howardina Pindall, Harmony Hammond, Nancy Spero
I especially remember Alice Neel, as a little old tough lady sitting in her chair, talking about her wild portraits, Marcia Tucker presenting a slide show on tattoo as art, and Judy Chicago 's talk about the Dinner party.


#1 Rope, wood and hemp 1976 Jackie Winsor

One of my personal career goals was to be able to come back to Douglass Collage as a participant in this series. I look back at my work and see the visual influences of many of the artists who presented. I wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't been exposed to information about how they handled their lives and their art-making careers. I remember one of them—I can’t remember who—saying, "Don't do it [become an artist] if you don't have to." Not one of them said it was easy, but all of them presented the possibilities! I thank them and all of those involved in keeping this series alive.



Nancy Spero, Israeli Soldiers

The Official History: (DWAS) can be found here

Kate Beck

Untitled 3 Brushed Charcoal 24x16 2009

I could live with this drawing of Kate Beck. I would hang it someplace where I could sit and stare at it with my morning coffee. There are moments of sereneness, elegance and then, the ever changing shifting of the image. I am interested in how she is dealing with the physicality and subtly of drawings on paper. Below is an installation shot of a drawing and Kate's description of how it is presented.

large drawing 42 x47-- graphite on paper, mounted on aluminum, which is my most current drawing work. I wanted to make the mark and the paper more accessible to human reaction -- I believe the paper has real life to it which gets hidden beneath protective glass, plexi. Mounting them on aluminum gave them a physical shape -- integral to the work -- and when on the wall, it protrudes a bit so that air and light fall in and around it. I like that. I varnish the drawings for protection.

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oil painting w/graphite, mica 12x12

Influence of Sky

oil painting w/graphite, mica 12x12

About me:

I am a non-objective visual artist interested in the pure aesthetic of line and color, and its potential for expressing a wide range of thought and feeling. My work is founded in drawing, which I consider the most visual equivalent to thought. I make large scale graphite drawings on paper mounted on aluminum panel, and poured oil paintings. Process is an integral component of my work. I embrace light conceptually as color, and form.

I also publish KATE BECK :: ART NOTES, a blog about contemporary art.

I live in Harpswell, Maine on the ocean with my husband, Jamie Whittemore, and our dog, Thomas. We have 4 grown up kids.

Top Art Influences:

Probably the most significant influence as far as my work today has been books. I was read to frequently as a child. The visual impact of the words on the pages, and the voice of my grandmother reading them and telling me the stories. It defined my sense of place; of being. Many of our books were old volumes –Arabian Nights, for instance, Rose Red, Beauty and the Beast... Not many illustrations. Often, though, the illustrations were prints, which I loved to look at, and into. So my love of drawing really comes from there. I drew everything – tried to draw over the pictures in books, on the big chalk board over the radiator in our kitchen (a piece of which I have in my studio now), outside on the pavement. To this day, drawing, both line and tonal hue, makes my heart beat faster…

Artists who have influenced me:

-- early Renaissance painters for their magnificent color and story-telling, humanism (Masaccio, Pieter Bruegal the Elder, van Eyck…). Much like stories in books, to me

*--the landscape drawings of Rembrandt – his deft perception, and manner of capturing so much with so little.

--ancient Chinese ceramics, formed and marked, delineating the cultures – so human an expression

*-- Gerhard Richter, his deconstructed images and physical process.

-- Color field painters, especially Frankenthaler

-- then, Ryman…

Today I am very interested in structure, and abstraction of thought and feeling, how that can manifest itself in space through line, and hue.

Katarina Grosse has been a great contemporary influence.

______________________________________

Untitled, Graphite,Charcoal on Rives, 46"x42" 2008-2009

Statement (formal)

Drawing through Process

I am interested in the pure aesthetic of line as an element of both color and substance, and its potential for expressing a wide range of thought and feeling. My drawings and paintings are created intuitively as a response to material placed within a defined space or shape: graphite on paper, paint on substrate. They are quiet, yet deliberate. Subtle gradients of soft and subdued tones evolve from a repeated resolution of line, allowing an essence of life to echo within the austere confines of the structural surface. In this way, a tension is created which oscillates between formalistic geometry and existential space; an allusion to thought and consciousness, and the passage of time. This is my structure; my vocabulary.

Manifesto

I believe white to be the most inherently beautiful color as it carries with it the potential to simultaneously expose and negate space.

I believe black to be the most innately powerful color as it is defined by the presence of light as well as by the absence of light.

All comes of air, of water, of light.

Kate Beck, 2010

____________________________________________

Haiku (Blue) poured oil and pigmented pencil 46x46 inches

sea from my home, studio

News

-Black and White, at Metaphor Contemporary Art in Brooklyn, NY thru March 6, with 2 new large, poured oil paintings

-Art on the Edge, New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe – opening April 15 – August 2010

Curated by Nicholas Baume, Laura Addison – full body of work, painting, drawing.

-Fuzzy Logic: Contemporary Painting after a Century of Abstract Art at the Cambridge School of Weston, Weston, MA – curated by Todd Bartel

-Drawing show at Icon Contemporary Art, Brunswick, Maine – opening May 1, new panels

-Non-object art international group exhibit, curated by John Tallman and Ron Buffington at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Jan 2011, and traveling around

Also this spring, a writing project on my blog exploring the contemporary drawings, process of 4 artists: myself, Marietta Hoferer, Anne Lindberg and Jaanika Peerna. Excited about this, we are all friends!

Canyon White II Poured Oil Paint

There is an informative interview with her on Visual Discrepancies, Brent Hallard's blog.

Some art images

Friday, I went to Red Dot, Pulse and then Chelsea. There was plenty of art worth seeing but these three stayed with me.

David Smith at Gagosian Gallery








Ron Klein at Howard Scott Gallery

Squared Diamond (front view) 2008 Appropriated Objects,
42.0 x 36.0 x 5.0 in.


Mix Master 2009 Appropriated Objects,
108.0 x 84.0 x 24.0 in.


Bill Jensen at Cheim & Read Gallery

Bill Jensen
PASSARE DA BERNARDO XXIV 2009
Ink on antique paper
17 x 11 1/2 inches


Bill Jensen
PASSARE DA BERNARDO XXXVI 2009
Ink on antique paper
22 x 14 3/4 inches

Collector Pat Bell's Favorite NJ Artists to Watch

here excerpt from Park Place Magazine written by Susan Brierly

“I love new things, and always find a spot for the pieces I love,” says Pat Bell. “When I’m surrounded by all this wonderful work, it’s like living with the souls of the artists.”

Each month, as fresh—and sometimes massively large artwork—arrives at her home, Gabrielle Pulls, Bell’s housekeeper of 17 years, equips herself with an electric drill, a level, and a keen eye. As pieces leave the home, they often are loaned or contributed to non-profit organizations, such as the South Orange Performing Arts Center.

“I’m fortunate to live in this state because we have so many wonderful artists,” says Bell. “I like what’s in my backyard.” To keep au courant with the local art scene, get acquainted with some of her favorites:

Willie Cole, Mine Hill, multi-dimensional
(williecole.com)

Tom Nussbaum, Montclair, sculptor
(tomnussbaum.com)—profiled on page 46

.
Claire Rosen, Montclair, photographer
(clairerosenphotography.com)

Margaret Murphy, Jersey City, painter (margaret-murphy.com)

Lisa Pressman, West Orange, painter
(lisapressman.net)

Marcia Kure, Princeton, painter/collage artist
(marciakure.com)

Wayne Roth, Mountain Lakes, digital artist/photographer (2face.com)

Nancy Tobin, Maplewood, collage painter ((nancytobin.com)

Dan Fenelon, Madison, painter
(wavedog.com)

Jordan Eagles, Short Hills, painter/installationist (jordaneagles.com)