I've done a lot of experimenting with Encaustic.
I got fascinated because of the 3D aspect and the textural aspect of it, which is what
I was looking for.
Encaustic is a brand new medium out there.
I got started in it about 8 years ago.
I had been an oil artist, acrylic, clay artist my whole life, and I was introduced to it
by Miles Conrad here in Tucson.
When I got in my studio, I just felt like I wanted to pick it up and sculpt with it,
and so I started to pour it into cookie sheets and making thin slabs and then slicing it
and sculpting with it.
It's just what happens to it when you work with that wax with your fingers and form it
and mold it.
I love the medium, it is so versatile.
This is an example of trees that I took out in Boston, and so it starts with beeswax.
When you get it melted, you have this flowing wax, and then you color it with the pigmented
bars, and then you apply it with brushes, you can pour it.
The leftover pieces that I have, I do not throw away, it's all reusable.
The variety, I guess this is what's so intriguing about the Encaustic.
Pour for me is very serendipitous.
The wax, it pulls and pushes against each other.
So I usually start out with just a regular medium, and then I choose two or three colors.
And as you can see, the wax just sort of does its thing.
And I probably wouldn't do much more with that.
This medium has fit into exactly what I wanted to do with my art, my whole life.
When I poured it into the cookie sheets, I realized, oh, I used to do this.
I used to make candles 30 years ago.
I was a farmer's daughter from Iowa, and to come full circle back to my heritage.
For me, that was a wonderful way to try to tell my story about the environment.
Part of all of my work actually is from nature, now that I got into Encaustic, because bees
wax is from nature.
Bees are my symbol, my metaphor for what is happening out there in the environment.
I was able to use this image to express all I wanted to say about this terrible loss of
environment and how we had to protect it.
I'm not a sign carrier.
I don't go out and do a lot of political stuff.
So I try to say it in my work subtly.
It expresses my concerns.
The IEA, International Encaustic Artists, and it formed in 2005.
It was just a fledging medium at that time.
Artists in the United States, they were picking up Encaustic, and this just spread like wildfire.
It opened up a whole new art community for me.
I think it's been about four years now that we started a chapter in Tucson.
We kind of got it started because none of us knew a lot about Encaustic, and we wanted
to share our ideas, our techniques, and then we started having exhibits to inform the public
about this new medium.
It's very supportive, and we have a lot of fun with it.
It's an important part of my Encaustic world.
