Deborah T. Colter: Massachusetts

 LYNETTE HAGGARD ARTIST INTERVIEW SERIES 

Artist Deborah T. Colter

Please share a little about yourself.

I grew up in central New York, Finger Lakes Region. I was strongly influenced by my cartoonist/architect father. His discipline and ceaseless work ethic molded my own approach. After studying Fine Art at the Rhode Island School of Design, I received a BFA in Printmaking in 1981. I then moved to the island of Martha’s Vineyard where I chose to focus my creative energies raising a family. Influenced by the spectacular coastal environment, I returned quickly to my passion for painting in the early 90’s.

Concrete Reality 
40 X 30” acrylic, mixed mediums work on canvas

At what point in your life did you become interested in making art and was there a certain point when you decided you were primarily an artist?

I always loved to draw as a child; early in my adolescence I discovered the singular joy of creating images. Art making held for me a special magic that comes from somewhere within which kept me sane through those tumultuous high school days. Making art provided for me a unique path of my own – it gave me a voice. I don’t think I ever really decided to become an artist – I just grew into it with time.

Idle Reverie 
 40 X 36” acrylic, mixed mediums work on canvas    

What is your media?

Technically I view my current work as mixed media paintings—I use acrylic paints and incorporate additional mark making elements such as prisma pencils, conté crayons, pencil, and pastels into the surface. I also work with multiple layers of cut paper and collage elements, sanding, scratching and painting to find the balance in each work. Often my paintings feel somewhat like construction projects!

Controlled Magic
30 X 30” acrylic, mixed mediums work on canvas

Unassuming Grace
40 X 30” acrylic, mixed mediums work on canvas

What is your current work about?

Often I think of the view from an airplane window and how the surface below is mapped out by the intervention of the human hand. The roads, the buildings and homes, congestion in contrast with open spaces, and how those elements interact with natural elements and each other. There is an ordered sense of chaos, a quiet beauty, when the landscape is viewed from above. Referencing images of the earth’s surface as a starting point, my painting layers evolve from the comple—to take on a life of their own.

Endless Vision
30 X 30” acrylic, mixed mediums work on canvas

Recalculating
48 X 40” acrylic, mixed mediums work on canvas

What is your workspace like?

I work in a small, unused guesthouse that doubles as my studio, packing, shipping and marketing nerve center. I dream of a large white walled space somewhere out there but for now, my space serves me well.

Colter at work

Colter's studio

Another studio view

How do you develop a sense of community with other artists, and how do you support your art colleagues?

I have wonderful and supportive artist friends I have met through festivals, shows and Internet connections. There is a huge worldwide community available in places like twitter, and others out there that continually support one another. Making art is primarily a solitary occupation, it is really great to be able to just sit down share experiences with another artist half way around the world – or right down the street!

Do you ever get stuck with your work and how do you remedy this and do you have particular habits that you think support your art practice?


Yes, I think we all experience being stuck at times. I have always approached my art making as a fulltime job. I make studio, business and marketing time a regular 9-5 job. I believe just showing up and putting in the time solves many of the roadblocks that present themselves. My discipline is found in working daily and allowing myself downtime to renew (mostly on weekends).

Sphere of Influence
60 X 48” acrylic, mixed mediums work on canvas

Do you have other jobs other than making art?

My other full time job entails managing home and family. I am a parent of two very talented, aspiring creative souls.

You can see more of Deborah's work at:

Jules Place, Boston

Gallery KH, Chicago

Cousen Rose Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard

Lagerquist Gallery, Atlanta

Anelle Gandelman Fine Art, Larchmont, NY

Blue Heron Gallery, Wellfleet, Mass.

Deborah also works with art consultants and online venues.

Do you have any upcoming shows that you'd like to mention?

My work will be included in an Abstract show that opens at Gallery KH
in Chicago — May2012. 

I also have a feature show at the Cousen Rose Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard - July 2012.

You can see more of her work here http://www.deborahcolter.com/

and she maintains a blog here

Blog: http://deborahcolter.com/in-the-studio/


Thank you Deborah!

Carol Heft: NYC

 LYNETTE HAGGARD'S ARTIST INTERVIEW SERIES 

Carol Heft
photo Bill Warfield

Please share a little about yourself. Where did you grow up and what  were any early influences on your work? Where do you live now?


I grew up in suburban Philadelphia in the middle 1950’s, the oldest of five children. My mother was a nurse and father was in the food and grocery business.  He (Dad) bought himself an oil painting set when I was about seven years old.  I asked him if I could try it, and he set up a still life which we both painted.  I’ll never forget that experience, though I don’t know what happened to either of the paintings. It was such a lovely memory and gift my father gave me that led to a lifelong love of art. Now I live in New York City, and Bethlehem Pennsylvania. I teach in both places.  My husband, Bill Warfield is a jazz trumpet player and composer as well as a music professor at Lehigh University, which is what brought me out to Bethlehem in 1998. 

Installation sculpture at Blue Mountain Gallery

Large Mosaic in gallery

Did you receive any formal art training?

My art training started when I was about ten years old.  My parents noticed I loved to draw, and let me take lessons with a painter named Anne Tuttle in a local frame shop in Stony Brook, NY.  Anne was a very fine artist, and she used to spend her summers in Connecticut at the Madison Art School where Robert Brackman taught.  She took me along one year, and I went back every year until I was about sixteen. Studying with Brackman, who was a National Academician, and taught at the Art Student’s League in NYC, was an extraordinary gift for such a young student.  Brackman was a protégé of artists like Robert Henri, Thomas Eakins, and George Bellows; American artists who went to Europe to study and then came back to teach in the newly formed art schools here, like the League, and the Philadelphia Academy. That is how I learned about the traditional methods of oil painting that include construction, composition, yellow ochre chiaroscuro under painting, and the building up of translucent darks.  Brackman painted with and a kind of (conservative) neo impressionistic impasto of color and light.  At the same time I attended a public high school that had a printmaking studio with a lithography press etching press.  There I met Gary Stanton, an artist photographer and teacher who encouraged me to continue my studies.  He instilled in me a love for printmaking which endured.  Eventually, I attended the Rhode Island School of Design where I majored in painting, graduated in 1976, and moved to NYC soon thereafter.




At what point in your life did you become interested in making art and was there a certain point when you decided you were primarily an artist?


I started drawing at a very young age, but my most vivid memory of art was when I would visit my grandparents, who lived in a small town in New Jersey, Burlington.  Baba (Yiddish for grandmother) would take me along with her when I was 4 or 5 to deliver groceries.  We passed several Catholic churches, which had statues of the Nativity, and of the Holy Family.  I was mesmerized.  I kept waiting for the statues to move, walk around, talk and breathe.

Digital 1

What is your media?


I love drawing and painting, and also have a strong interest in the movement from two to three dimensions, both illusionistic and physical.  Even in art school in the mid seventies, encouraged by Lisa Chase, one of my teachers and Judy Pfaff, who was a visiting instructor, I started working with wire lines coming off the wall, integrated with pencil or charcoal lines, on the wall surface. My favorite materials are paper, charcoal, pencil, crayon, oil pastels and almost any kind of paint.

Digital 4

What is your current work about? 


I love to draw; all kinds of drawing, especially quick gesture drawings of the figure, or the landscape looking out the window. My current work is about an interior world that reflects my experience.  As I mature as an artist, and person, I seem to be increasingly willing and able to allow my intuition to guide me.  I can be very hard on myself and sometimes confuse “perfectionism” with healthy self appraisal.  What matters the most to me though as an artist, is not the final product.  A work of art is a reflection of an experience, as Robert Henri would say, a byproduct.  It is the authenticity of the experience that counts.  If I am present for my drawing, the drawing will have presence.  If I am scattered or thinking about something else, or self conscious, that will show up too.  Art objects are fragments, particles, reflections of human experience.  The quality of the experience is paralleled in the work.  I am involved in an ongoing exploration of materials and how they serve expressive content.  Most of it is figurative, that is, relating to the human figure, either literally or metaphorically, symbolically, and the complex interrelationships we have with and around each other.

sculpture in progress in studio

What is your workspace like? If you have photos of where you work that would be of interest.


I live in my studio, in the middle of Manhattan, near the Port Authority Bus Terminal.  I love to draw the city looking out the window. The first time I did this, looking up Ninth Avenue from my window on the nineteenth floor, it was to demonstrate one point perspective for my drawing students.  I became so fascinated I started studying Canaletto’s drawings and made more drawings, looking out other windows…it really gave me an enriched appreciation for the city, how much there is to see and how selective we are, as artists in what we see and find meaningful.  It’s inspiring to live here; the energy of the city can be both exhausting and energizing all at once.

the other side of the studio

Are you involved with any arts groups or communities? If yes, what do you gain from that affiliation and what do you contribute to it?


I am a member of the Blue Mountain Gallery, one of the oldest cooperative galleries in New York City.  I have found this affiliation to be rewarding in many ways.  It has enabled me to meet other artists and be of service in a community of like-minded professionals, without the constraints of commercial galleries’ agendas or politics.  


Interestingly, however, one of the most significant communities I have become part of is the global community of artists on Facebook.  It has changed my life.  First, the knowledge that people are looking at my work gives me great satisfaction.  Otherwise, why would I make it?  I need to share my work and ideas with other artists, and want to listen and see what they are doing too.  It’s like a global classroom.  I often share my research in albums on Facebook, and take advantage of the albums that other artists and educators compile there.  It’s very open, democratic, and I have met many artists from all over the world, whose work I would otherwise never have seen, and this is of critical importance to me.

studio table

studio view, sculpture

How do you develop a sense of community with other artists, and how do you support your art colleagues?


As I mentioned before, my strongest sense of community comes from my Facebook friendships with other artists.  I have written essays about other artists’ work, and try to gear my comments to both self awareness, and keying in on what a particular artist is saying, doing.  The only universal criterion that is important to me is authenticity.  If a work is genuine, there is a truth about it that will resonate and will go beyond skill, technique, materials or subject.  At least I’ve found this to be the case for myself.

Digital 6

Do you ever get stuck with your work and how do you remedy this?


I have had to learn to stop and go quite a bit because of my teaching schedule.  There seems to be a thematic consistency in my work, but the imagery changes, as does its appearance.  I am always looking at relationships.  Visual, psychological, emotional, cognitive, spatial… Getting stuck to me means stopping.  Again, there is a natural rhythm that seems to occur in how much or how little I work, but I’ve developed the discipline it takes to follow through and not give up until I feel a work or a body of work is resolved.  (When I have learned all I can from it)  
On a more practical level, I find physical exercise, like swimming, and a close connection to a spiritual life very helpful.


Do you have particular habits that you think support your art practice?

Lots of looking, thinking, talking to other artists and students, and playing.  Playing and being open to new materials and ideas (other than those I practice or embrace in my own work) is important to me.  I never want to stop growing, learning, and trying to understand myself, other people, and our place in the world. 

Do you have other jobs other than making art?


Teaching studio art and art history has been a tremendous gift, it has infused my work with energy and ideas from across time and distance in a way I never thought possible. So has working with children in public school arts in education programs in New York, which I did for many years.   


If so, please give us some details.
Currently I teach Drawing at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA, and Art History and Studio art at St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn, NY.




Where would you like to be in 5 years as far as your art making?


I want to keep going and see what happens!  If I made up a wish list, I’d like to have a bigger studio because I’d like to make bigger work, and more exhibition opportunities, maybe come curatorial projects too, but for now, I’m very grateful for what I have and don’t think too much about the future. I try to take everything one day at a time.

studio view

Do you have any upcoming shows that you'd like to mention?
The University of South Carolina at Aiken will exhibit my landscape drawings at the Etherredge Arts Center in April, 2012, and I will have a solo exhibition in January, 2013 at the Blue Mountain Gallery in New York.

You can see more of Carol's work on her website.

Thank you Carol!

Paul Rinaldi: Chicago

 LYNETTE HAGGARD'S ARTIST INTERVIEW SERIES

Please share a little about yourself. Where did you grow up and what were any early influences on your work? Where do you live now?

I grew up in New York and Connecticut.  My parents are writers and educators who modeled the values of hard work and creative exploration. They did their best to expose 4 children to the arts….attending concerts, visiting museums and historic sites.  I have an early memory of seeing an exhibit of abstract art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York…Kandinsky stood out.

Variation X, Rembrandt's Quarry
encaustic on panel, 55 x 25 in., 2011

Did you receive any formal art training? If yes where and what did you major in? I did graduate work in Art History at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and completed my M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing at the City University of New York, Brooklyn College. I first learned about the encaustic process while a materials and techniques class at the University of MA.  I started using the medium in earnest about 3 years later.

Lexicon V
encaustic on panel, 20 x 67 in., 2011

At what point in your life did you become interested in making art and was there a certain point when you decided you were primarily an artist?

While I made much art when I was younger, my choice to become an artist occurred In my junior year of college, I had taken a couple of art history classes as part of the liberal arts core, and by the time we hit early 20^th century art I was convinced.

Variation XXVV
encaustic on panel, 19 x 25 in., 2011

What is your media?(Please describe briefly)

I alternate between painting with encaustic and acrylic paint throughout the year.  In my drawings, I primarily use oil pastel, and sometimes ink.  I also do quite a bit of photographic work, though these pieces have not been exhibited very much.

Variation
encaustic on panel, 33.5 x 25 .5 in., 2010

What is your current work about? 

I started painting with encaustic in earnest in the 1990’s while living in Egypt and teaching art at the American University in Cairo. Living and traveling throughout the Middle East for 7 years, I developed a large body of “photographic sketches” and a repository of image and sound memories that I’ve used as inspiration in my work.

My paintings often exhibit qualities of a palimpsest, whereby imagery is developed, wiped-out, covered over, and sometimes veiled with successive layers of translucent color.  The layering of paint is like the layering of time—moments passing into days, months and years—the immediacy of the present perpetually slipping into the past.

Paul Rinaldi, Self-Portrait
Somewhere in Egypt, 1990's

While the visual form of my work grows out of a vocabulary of subtle tensions developed by Modernist artists, it also speaks to my affinity for antique religious icons, shrines, temples, mosques, and spaces of deep contemplation.  I construct my images from memories of light, color, and space gleaned from these sorts of subjects.  I very much like the idea that an artwork can function as a focus for human contemplation and reflection—that in some way, it can serve a gateway to both collective and individuated memory.  I look to color to function as an indicator of place—sometimes particular and real, other times imagined.

I try to produce work that collapses time, work that fuses the geometry and structures of a contemporary world with an ancient painting technique.  The logic of geometric forms is in some way countered, tempered, or challenged by the sensuality of the wax medium and the organic fusion of color and light.  Visually, I want my paintings to speak musically through a crafting of shape, color, line, surface, and space.  I’m concerned with how these elements repeat and vary through the structure, creating emphasis, and shifting foci, syncopation and rhythm, visual harmony and contrast.  At the same time, I’m every bit as interested in the cleansing role of emptiness—the pause, the silence, the waiting, the sense of expectation.

Ascension XXXV
encaustic on panel, 19 x 25 in., 2011

What is your workspace like?

I have an encaustic workspace in the attic of my home, and I work on larger canvases in my garage during the warmer weather.  The spaces are simple; I have skylights that provide a fair amount of natural light for working…though I could use much more open wall space.

Inside Rinaldi's studio (above and below)

Are you involved with any arts groups or communities? If yes, what do you gain from that affiliation and what do you contribute to it?

I am a member of FusedChicago, a group of Midwest visual artists who use the encaustic medium.  The group conducts studio visits and demonstrations, and helps promote visibility of our artwork through its blog (fusedchicago.blogspot.com) and exhibitions in the Chicago area.

Variation IX
encaustic on panel, 23.5 x 29.5 in., 2010

How do you develop a sense of community with other artists, and how do you support your art colleagues?

Years out of grad school, raising children, teaching, it’s a challenge to find as much time as I would like to connect with other artists.  I’ve moved around quite a bit, which has a way of disrupting one’s community…I taught at the American University in Cairo for 7 years, lived in NYC both before and after that experience, and I’m currently living outside of Chicago.  I teach painting and drawing at Prairie State College, where I’m regularly involved in wide variety of discussions and critiques with my students and colleagues.  I’ve also found that online venues, such as facebook, have enabled me to connect with many artists around the world who share similar interests.

Do you ever get stuck with your work and how do you remedy this?

We all get stuck at times…my only solution is to keep working.  I generally have several pieces in progress at a time.  There is a dialogue between individual pieces.  When one work is being stubborn, I move to another.  I’ve come to realize that not all things are possible in a given moment or day.  Solutions often come to me days later, when least expected.

Variation XVI (Tangential Democracy)
encaustic on panel, 21.5 x 49 in., triptych, 2011

Do you have particular habits that you think support your art practice?

I find it’s best for me to set a regular schedule for studio time, and I try to get in some work as many days of the week as is possible.  It’s sometimes difficult for me to enter the work when I’ve been away for a spell, and I find it useful to spend time looking and thinking about the paintings every day…even if there’s not enough time to get at it.

When I’m away from the studio, I like to take photographs.  This gives me a creative way to interact with the world, and exercise many of the same visual thoughts that are present in my paintings.  I suppose that I use the camera very much like a sketchbook.  While the images certainly impact my thinking, I don’t use them as direct sources for my painting.


Do you have other jobs other than making art?

Yes. I coordinate and teach in a small, but vibrant fine arts program at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, IL

Parenting 2 aspiring musicians—ongoing delight.


Where would you like to be in 5 years as far as your art making?

I’d like to be able to devote more and more time to making art.  I have the pleasure of showing my work at 2 exceptional galleries: Perimeter Gallery in Chicago, and Circa Gallery in Minneapolis.  I hope to find venues in other parts of the country where I can exhibit.


Do you have any upcoming shows that you'd like to mention?

September 2011—one person show at Circa Gallery in Minneapolis.

Do you have any web links/site/blog etc. you'd like to share that show your work?

My website is located at www.paulrinaldi.net.


Thank you Paul!

Read My Blog on Your Phone...

Hi Everyone
I've been real busy, in NYC for 2 weeks. I'm here learning all about Usability for the Web and for Mobile Devices —for my "day job" as a graphic designer and soon to be UX designer. Coming home and back to my studio this Friday night.

The good news....

My Blog is viewable and readable on your cell phone. I am still learning how to enable video on a mobile devices, but for now, you'll have to do that on your computer.

Meanwhile I have 2 terrific interviews lined up, that are in progress. First, is Paul Rinaldi, and next is Carol Heft.

Check back soon!
Thanks.

Paula Roland: Santa Fe NM

 LYNETTE HAGGARD ARTIST INTERVIEW SERIES © Lynette Haggard  

Entry to Paula's studio, with Paula
and Lefty the Wonder Dog!

Here is a brief introductory video to Paula's interview.
(It is my first attempt, so be kind...and you may see more soon!)

Where did you grow up and what, if anything, were early influences on your work?

I grew up in Biloxi, Mississippi, on the Gulf of Mexico, right on the beach. Back then, in the 50’s, the Coast was a tourist mecca. My parents moved there for the beauty and to build a business, tourist cottages, which over the decades became a larger motel. The beach was practically our front yard, and wild, lowland woods, with tangled vines, were behind the house. It was a little paradise, with hundreds of trees, including palms, and tropical fruits. I had free run of the grounds, except for the woods, which, though forbidden, were my favorite hide-out. Playmates were seasonal, mostly in the summer, so I had a lot of alone time. The woods were active with life, growth, and decay. They contrasted sharply with the (usually) calm ocean and a horizon that seemed to continue forever. I feel these contrasts, minimal and maximal, are ever present in my works. 

Some of my earliest memories are the sense of peace I felt in the outdoors. There I found total acceptance, a place to “be.” It was a wonderful way to develop imagination and skills of observation, a sense of adventure and change (inspired by hurricanes), and a romantic side—all essential for my art. 

My Universe (detail)
Encaustic Monotype (two layers, pierced) lights, 24” x 24”

Language of Beauty III

 Encaustic Monotype, 39” x 25”

Language of Beauty VII
Encaustic Monotype, 39” x 25”

Did you receive any formal art training? At what point did you become interested in making art, and was there a point when you decided you were primarily an artist? 

My very first art class was in college, in New Orleans, my second home. All the bells and whistles went off, and I never thought of another career. Prior to this time, I sketched and doodled elaborately (vines, scrolls and other intuitive markings) all over my notebooks, book covers—everything. I was compulsive. But in my community, I had no exposure to art through museums or galleries, and I didn’t know that an average person could be an artist. I guess I thought all artists were born great, not made. Art was not offered in my high school, but I studied music and dance. I majored in art in college and 12 years later earned an MFA at the University of New Orleans. It was in grad school that I gained the confidence to dedicate myself to my art. However, it has taken many years to feel that I am an artist.

Can you talk a little more about your practice and your process for creating?

I have ideas, lots of them. The strongest and most pertinent of these persist and become a series. When working, I hold my ideas loosely, in the background. Over my 30+ years of working, I have been drawn to media and processes that are a bit out of my control and have developed ways of working with acrylic paint, and later encaustic paint, to suit my needs. I consider the materials to be a partner when working. I observe them and utilize the unexpected. It’s not about happy accidents but rather about recognition, dialogue, synthesis, focus, and applying a conceptual overlay.

This way of working subverts the conscious mind, allowing the unexpected to surface. I strive to not repeat myself, but to go deeper and further until the series is complete or another fertile path takes over. Some series continue over time, with other bodies of work in between. Some are finished, exhausted, never to be revisited. This path of mine veers from what I was taught about having a consistent look or direction. Because the work has a deep and examined source in my psyche and the natural world, it holds together as a unified vision, or at least I hope it does! 

Paula giving me some tips for the HOTbox

Tell us about the encaustic monotype, your teaching, and other jobs, if any. 

For over 30 years, teaching has been parallel with my practice of making art. Since 1997 I have focused my teaching on encaustic monotype process, other encaustic techniques, and more advanced studio practice for artists. I am most known for teaching the encaustic monotype, which I did not invent but took from obscurity and brought to wider awareness. I have taught the process widely and developed a curriculum that provides artists a sense of predictability with this mercurial process and a connection to their own interests and vision. I come from a painting and installation background and focus more on artists choosing the best path for their expression, rather than on preserving the sacred print. In my own work with encaustic, and in my teaching, I pursue other formats such as installation, painting, and mixed mediums—mostly works on paper. I become bored easily, but this process continues to inspire me, and therefore I am jazzed to inspire others with its many possibilities. The wax monotype intrigues me because it never fails to reveal my innermost feelings and interests, connections that were out of my awareness, and to provide new ideas and paths to explore. 

To facilitate others in pursuing the process, I created an instructional DVD, Encaustic Monotypes—Painterly Prints with Heat and Wax. I also manufacture the equipment, the Encaustic HOTbox™. These, and related items, are available on www.RolandWorkshops.com.

Scroll
Untitled (detail) Encaustic Monotype with Graphite, 8" x 10'

Language of Beauty I 27" x 24 "

Language of Beauty IX
Encaustic Monotype, 39" x 25"

Taiko I
Encaustic Monotype, 39” x 25”

Taiko IV
Encaustic Monotype, 39” x 25”

Roland's main studio area

What is your current work about?

All of my work reflects my interest in the natural world, its intersection with humans, and related concerns. These include science, spirituality, ecology and systems such as weather, populations, and art itself.

Most recently my work has taken a different turn. Last year I faced a life threatening illness, and during my recovery I began to experience the work differently. I could only think of creating beauty, and I did so by exploring the language of beauty, without my typical conceptual filters. I have never experienced such joy and freedom while creating. I intend to explore all aspects of beauty, wherever that leads me. More than ever, I find making art is a metaphor for life. I learn who I am, find my place in the world, and discover ways to connect with it through my creative process. 

After attempting to eat several rubber gloves,
Lefty was put outside. But he made his
presence known at the window!

Do you ever get stuck with your work and how do you remedy this?

These days I don’t so much get stuck as feel hesitant. So I start more works. At the moment, I have seven or eight in-process encaustic monotypes pinned up around my studio and work back and forth between them. If I only have a few, they tend to get precious. If I have a lot, they inspire each other, sharing patterns, colors, ghost images, and other parts that unite them. If I do get stuck, I put the work aside until I’ve lived a little more, worked a little more, and hopefully I find a solution to the puzzle. Sometimes it will take years to complete a piece.

Walking in to Roland's creative space

Do you have particular habits that support your art practice?

Yes. I only live in interesting, inspirational places! Santa Fe provides beauty as well as intellectual stimulation. It is a nexus for big science and the study of chaos, complexity, systems theories, and the many projects of the National Labs. It is a spiritual mecca for Buddhism, Hispanic Catholicism, and new age thought. There is cutting-edge art, and artists, writers, and environmentalists of all stripes that help inform my art.

I have big windows in my new 1,600 square foot studio that open to the mountains, hills, and arroyos of Santa Fe, where I take long walks with Lefty, my near-famous circus dog. And I collect stuff, just as I did as a kid when I would beach comb. In New Mexico, I collect natural objects and things that humans have left behind, such as twisted, rusted, wire and weathered sawn wood. I also collect books and objects from other cultures and other times that inspire me.

another view of Paula's studio

I read a lot and travel as much as I can, mostly to look at art. I’ve had residencies in France and Italy and have traveled to teach in all corners of the U.S. Also, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are often visited, and their hurricanes and ecology continue to stimulate my thoughts and inform my work.

 

You may view more of Paula's work on her website.

THANK YOU PAULA!

Lefty: thanks y'all for following my blog!