Waxy Buildup: Cleaning House

Woo hoo! Waxy Buildup is finally being exhibited!

Waxy Buildup: Cleaning House

Paintings by Trayc Claybrook and Deanna Wood

August 17 - September 28, 2008

Opening Reception:
Sunday, August 17, 2-4 pm

Center for Visual Arts
400 E. Hickory
Denton, Texas, 76201

Directions to the Center for Visual Arts

Gallery Hours:
Tues - Sun, 1-5 pm

I hope you can join us!

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...