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IEA Member Artist Profile
Gae Canfield
Gae Canfield, a former Children's librarian, has been motivated as an artist
to explore color both in paintings on canvas and on monotype plates. She
wishes the finished product to have an aura that is timeless and responsive
to human emotion, without necessarily depicting visual reality.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I have just recently come to encaustic medium and find that I am attracted
to it artistically, as well as historically. The smell of the beeswax takes
me back to high school days when my father had over a hundred beehives and
it fell on members of the family to nail together frames made of aromatic
pine. These frames, into which we would slip fragrant sheets of machine
stamped beeswax, were then placed in beeboxes where the bees could build
their honeycomb.
Using encaustic (a mixture of beeswax, powdered color pigments and damar
resin) I plan color areas with purposeful interaction between, just as I
have with oil monotypes produced on a press. When I begin I have a general
idea of the placement of color, though how the color segmens will work
together comes with the action of painting on the warm plate. As with press
monotypes, it requires a certain willingness to let chance dictate the
results. After removal of each drop of paper on the painted, heated plate,
the wax emulsion quickly hardens into a lively interaction of color and
shape. After several exposures to the paint, the paper holds my finished
product. Making my own encaustic colors has added to the joy of this
spontaneity. Most of my work is abstract with, on some occasions, a
suggestion of landscape.
SAMPLES OF ENCAUSTIC ART
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Click here if you would like to see more encaustic work by this artist.
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