Final 3

I finished up my last 3 pieces for Waxy Buildup. I've had so much fun doing these. I want to do more!

Deanna Wood - I Clean, 12" x 12", wax transfer, collage, and encaustic

Deanna Wood - Poise, 12" x 12", wax transfer, collage, and encaustic

Deanna Wood - Cooking and Cleaning, 12" x 12", solvent transfer, collage, and encaustic

Special thanks to Trish for giving me the vintage wallpaper!

So now Trayc and I each have 13 pieces. Unless she sold some in her show, which would be great!

Artist's Statement

The idea – Create a two-person show using the encaustic technique. We brainstormed on a title that played on the idea of wax and came up with “Waxy Buildup : Cleaning House.” We decided to interpret it each in our own way. We posted our progress on a blog - www.waxybuildup.blogspot.com.

I decided to take the approach to this theme from the inside out. I have been doing some personal-inner work and felt that this was the perfect opportunity for me to finalize and release some of the old habits and beliefs I had gotten rid of and honor the new points of view and truth that have moved into those spaces. I chose to use the image of the woman’s legs in red pumps as a metaphor for my process of killing off “the wicked witch” in myself that no longer served me. The other elements, images, and text represent new lessons learned and ways of “being”.
- Trayc Claybrook

When we came up with the concept and the phrase “waxy buildup,” I immediately visualized the stereotypical 50’s housewife – happy to not only serve her family and clean her house but look beautiful to boot. The subtitle “cleaning house” led me to search for imagery and words that related to housekeeping and traditional “women’s work.”

I went to thrift stores for my supplies – old dress patterns and doilies. My imagery came from retro 50’s clip art. I used words and text that evoked the advertising aimed at the typical 50’s housewife – “saves time!” “…for your family,” and “clean and pure.”

These words combined with the house shape and imagery of the happy housewife create a body of work that is both nostalgic and cynical. The nostalgic images and words elude to a happier, simpler time that most likely didn’t exist, except perhaps on TV. The perfect housewife was supposed to conform to a strict set of rules and expectations.
– Deanna Wood

Update

When I finished my 10 pieces, I still felt like I wanted to continue. I had so much fun working on them and I didn't feel like I was done with the theme.

Deanna Wood - small Waxy Buildup paintings - collage, oil, and encaustic

So I did a bunch of small paintings. They're each about 2" x 4" or so.

I really liked some of the things that happened on these smaller pieces. So when I found out that Trayc had made 13 paintings (she had thought we decided on 12 each and I had thought we decided on 10 each...), I took the opportunity to order some more boards and I'm going to do 3 more pieces.

I have to admit, too, that seeing Trayc's finished pieces made me feel a little self-conscious about a couple of mine that I wasn't really happy with. So I trusted my instincts and redid them.

Here are the updated pieces, still in progress:

Deanna Wood - Home for Your Family - 12" x 12" - collage and encaustic - in progress

Deanna Wood - Duty/Beauty - 12" x 12" - collage and encaustic - in progress

I'm just waiting on Trayc's artist's statement (hint, hint!) and then we're going to send out some proposals!

Update to the update - Here are the two paintings above in their finished states:

Deanna Wood - Home for Your Family - 12" x 12" - collage and encaustic - final

Deanna Wood - Duty/Beauty - 12" x 12" - collage and encaustic - final

Trayc's Ready, too!

I'm posting these for Trayc because she has some image uploading Blogger issues that we can't figure out...

She blogged about these pieces on her blog recently:

"I have been working in my studio for seven days straight. I started and finished all of the encaustic paintings for the Waxy Buildup show. I have to say it was a grand experience. Painting for 8-10 hours a day; the only thing I stopped for was a little company, some dinner here and there, and my teaching job. It gave a glimpse of what it feels like to do this for a living. The paintings are done and now it's time for them to go out into the world and be what they will. There are 13 of them. I have posted a few of them here."

Trayc Claybrook - Wonder - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Trayc Claybrook - Who Am I - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Trayc Claybrook - Perfection - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Trayc Claybrook - Knowing Who - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Trayc Claybrook - Dreamed There Were 2 - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Trayc Claybrook - Cast Your Line - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Trayc Claybrook - Beauty and Wilderness - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Trayc Claybrook - 3 Pails - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Trayc Claybrook - After Some Confusion - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

We're working on getting all our stuff together now - resumes, artist's statement, etc. to assemble into a proposal and send it out to a bunch of different venues. I'll keep you updated on our progress.

Finished and ready to go

I think I finally finished up the 10 paintings in this series yesterday.

I had some problems with the two that I poured wax on - the paper was pulling off of the boards. I'm not sure what happened - either I didn't fuse it enough or I shouldn't have poured the wax onto paper (actually, one of them was fabric) that I had glued onto the boards. It might work better to pour the wax onto wood, so it soaks in... I don't know. But this made me a little sad:

...the fabric just pulled right off.

But I would rather show stable, archival paintings and not have to worry about them falling apart.

So here they are:

Deanna Wood - Sparkling Clean - collage and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Deanna Wood - Pink Houses - collage, oil, and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Deanna Wood - New Washer - collage, solvent transfer, oil, and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Deanna Wood - Home for Your Family - collage, solvent transfer, oil, and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Deanna Wood - Duty/Beauty - collage, oil, and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Deanna Wood - Clean and Pure - collage, solvent transfer, oil, and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Deanna Wood - Breakfast - collage, oil pastel, solvent transfer, and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Deanna Wood - Beautiful Home - collage, solvent transfer, oil, and encaustic - 12" x 12"

Deanna Wood - Beautiful - collage, oil pastel, solvent transfer, oil, and encasutic - 12" x 12"

These are the two that I had to redo:



I'm still formulating my artist's statement about this one. But I think it will have to do with women - domesticity and expectations. Patterns symbolize the plans that we're expected to follow. The images of women cooking or being beautiful symbolize what is expected of us (by society, our families, ourselves...). I had been avoiding using the house shape, since it's so much a part of my work, but I just couldn't resist. It seemed necessary - it wanted to be there...

More Progress

Still working on these...

in progress...

Here are my paintings in progress.

I've incorporated solvent transfers of clipart images, dress patterns, stencils, a doily, a napkin, and the trim from a tablecloth. They're all still in progress. I want to go back into most of them - adding more imagery by transferring the clipart onto the wax or drawing into the wax and adding oil paint. I also want to add more words to some - with stencils and writing into the wax.

The one on the far left in the middle row is the one that I poured the wax onto. I think I poured it a little bit thick. Here it is after the pour:

It was so thick that you could barely see the imagery, so I scraped away at it in spots and attempted to smooth it out again.

It ended up with a weird texture that I kind of like.

The ones in the top row all have dress patterns in them. I don't really like the pink one in the middle and will probably be scraping that off. I used pieces of a pattern and I like the other ones where I just used one large piece of pattern over the whole board. I also don't think the pink color works with the pattern pieces.

I'm a little unsure about the one on the bottom right. After I cut pieces off of the doily, I realized that there was a heart shape left behind. I'll transfer an image and maybe some text onto it and see what happens. That one was also poured, but not quite as thick. It might be a little too sweet with the pink heart. Maybe after adding some imagery and words it will change.

So that's it so far...

Lady pictures!

I prepared my boards and started on three pieces this weekend - forgot to take pictures, though.

Here's the imagery that I'm using:

This is clip art that I'm transferring onto paper and fabric and then covering with wax. I will probably scrape and scratch into the wax, too. The paper I adhered to the boards is white, the imagery is mostly black and I'm also using red and pink. I'm thinking pink will be a dominant color in these pieces.

And I'm experimenting with a super-cool wax pouring technique that I read about on Cyndy Goldman's blog.

Images soon!

Getting started on imagery

I have posted some photos at the bottom that represent an idea for this series. I also have some old slides of buhddist temples from the 1960's I would like to use as a compaare and contrast element. I will be spending the next few days prepping my clay boards for the work.

Raw Materials

I went thrift store shopping yesterday - looking for vintage linens to use in my pieces. I found a table cloth, a napkin, a doily, a little curtain, some patterns from the 70s, and a book about mothers.

I didn't spend a lot on any of the items. I tried to find things that were torn or stained - things that had been well used and then cast aside or forgotten.

I also got the boards. I'll be gluing things down and doing some solvent transfers before taking everything to the studio and busting out the wax.

Inspiration

I have decided on the type of imagery I 'm going for on this project. I decided to really point this towards the house being the self. It will probably be very personal and cathartic work, but entertaining as well.

I love the idea of kitch.

I must admit, my first thought was the 1940-50's housewife images. I really like the juxtaposition of the Vermeer image and the kitchy graphic images. That's a very interesting visual comparison. I will post some of my thoughts/ideas on this next week. I just ordered all necessary supplies for this project. They will be here soon, so it's time to get my ideas flowing.

Initial thoughts on imagery

OK, so I've been thinking about these ideas, "waxy buildup," and "cleaning house."

I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do yet, but I've been thinking about imagery. I did some Google Image searches and came up with a few images that I think might be interesting to adapt or play off of:

Yeah, that Vermeer image doesn't really belong, but I kept it in because I like the peace and quiet it implies... I'm most drawn to the kitschy, humorous retro housewife images as a more fun take on the subject. I'm not sure if I'll go that direction, though.

I also like the idea of using domestic things like vintage wallpaper, aprons, napkins, etc.

In my installation, I included some pieces of paper dipped in wax that are supposed to look like they're blowing around the room. On some of the paper pieces, I embroidered a house shape. Like this:

I could play around with that idea again - maybe embroider onto vintage linens or wallpaper... Adding an element of traditional domesticity or "women's work" into the piece. Those could then be collaged into the wax.

It's still brewing...