Yes, I’m guilty. I skipped a post. But I have a good excuse. I was at the 11^th Annual International Encaustic Conference last week and I had a blast. Attended some amazing shows. Learned a bunch at some wonderful sessions, saw new and old friends, saw wonderful art (and bought some!) at the Hotel Fair and got some great insight on my own work. Highlights below.

Things kicked off Thursday night with the shows at Castle Hill. “A Sense of Place” and “The Space Between Shadow and Light”. I’m kicking myself for not taking pictures. I was just not in much of a picture taking mood this year I think.

The fun begins and ends with the candy store that is the vendor room. This photo doesn’t do it justice but here is the spread of color at Evan’s Encaustic:

I’m normally pretty bad in the vendor room but this year was egregious, I’m setting up a new studio after all.

Susan Lasch Krevitt gave a great session on Friday, “Cyanotype & Encaustic”. I have a long standing love affair with the color blue. Susan showed how versatile cyanotypes can be on both cloth and paper and how nicely they can be incorporated into encaustic work. Cyanotype is an early type of photographic process (think blueprints) that yields beautiful blue prints. Definitely something I want to explore.

Friday night were the openings in town including the invitational I was in at Adam Peck Gallery to kick off their new space, “Black Tie (optional)”. Ok, I did get a few pictures of this one:

Artists, Top Row: Pamela Blum; Second Row L-R: Lynda Ray, Anna Wagner-Ott, Adam Peck, Diana Gonzalez Gandolfi, Susan Paladino; Third Row: Dawna Bemis, Sherie Posternak, Dorothy Cochran, Cherie Mittenthal, Sara Mast

Saturday started off with an inspirational keynote with Sharon Louden talking about living a sustainable life as a creative person. Sharon is a force of nature.

Later on Saturday Dorothy Cochran led a great session on “Wax, Yupo, Washi: Encaustic Collagraph on Japanese Papers”. Collagraphy is a printing technique where items are attached to a rigid substrate and then inked to produce a print (essentially a dimensional collage). With encaustic collagraphs the plate is made by applying wax to some form of rigid substrate (Plexiglas, wood panels or in Dorothy’s method yupo paper – which is not actually rigid). Dorothy uses lightweight Japanese papers (aka Washi) to print on thereby eliminating the need to use a printing press, she hand rubs or uses a barren pull her prints. I’m seeing more of this in my future.

Sunday was all about the Hotel Fair. If you’ve ever been to a hotel fair the idea is you turn your hotel room (non-destructively) into a gallery to display your work to fellow conference goers. We have one every year now at the International Encaustic Conference. It’s a great way to see (and buy!) the work of other artists you admire, and for other artist to see (and hopefully buy!) some of your work and give you feedback. For me it is always a highlight of the weekend. I had five memorial quilts with me and got some great input. I heard from a number of other artists who are working in a textile ‘mode’, many who had some great suggestions for me to try out (I picked up some ballpoint needles the other day! – thank you to the lady from Atlanta whose name I’ve forgotten!). I also added to my art collection with a print from Laura Moriarty and paintings by Karen Freedman and Cat Crotchett:

Encaustic monotype by Laura Moriarty, Encaustic painting by Karen Freedman, Encaustic painting by Cat Crotchett

Things ended up on Sunday evening with a closing reception of an Invitational show, “Depth Perception” at the Cape Cod Museum of Art co-curated by conference organizer Cherie Mittenthal and founder Joanne Mattera.

With the pending move to Belize I will like not make it to the conference every year so I was trying to wring every last bit of experience out of this year’s conference that I could. It did not disappoint. I want to thank all of the presenters, vendors, staff at Castle Hill, Cherie and Joanne and the staff at the Provincetown Inn for a wonderful conference!

View from my room at the Provincetown Inn where the conference is hosted every year