Irish Gray

It was the summer of 2017 and I was planning my first trip to Ireland to teach a class alongside my friend Lora Murphy at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare. Lora was teaching portraiture and I was teaching what I call the “inspired landscape”.

When we go someplace we’ve never been before, it imprints us immediately. Its new, and the language of the land is different, we are alive with our senses.

I wanted to help create a sense of being grounded and rooted, of feeling the energy of Ireland, the land.  I wanted to make it special. My goal was for the participants to use the landscape as reference or as metaphor, and for us to begin our art making from an intuitive approach through a series of exercises, but also with the paints we were going to be using. 

I literally thought about what we would be standing on - the ground, the earth, and what was it made of. It turns out there are three distinct bedrocks of Ireland. The area we were in has a limestone bedrock, and is very evident in the Burren with its huge rolling foothills of limestone that stretch as far as the eye can see. Limestone is made of calcium carbonate and I thought, why not make a paint out of calcium carbonate, and so I did.  That became our Tinting White, although Irish Mist would have been a better name for it. However, the actual color of the limestone and much of the rocks that you see all around is gray. Not as in dull or drab. So, I also set out to make a gray, one that could be used as is, or as a good base for mixing to create the gentle colors of the land. This gray, which I named Irish Gray is a mid-tone gray with just enough warmth to give it depth. It is comprised of five pigments and is what I refer to as a highly interactive gray. It also makes a beautiful base or ground color for the addition of other paints when you desire to shift the gray in one direction or another by mixing in other colors.  

To be honest, I was unsure how the paint formulas I developed would be received, after all they were a milky white and a gray. I wasn’t sure if they would translate at all to what I was trying to achieve within the workshop. I trusted that it would resonate with at least one person and that would make it all worth while. There is no doubt that each and everyone felt that connection to the land and the art that they created spoke volumes.

When I think back this trip and all the goodness that came from our time there, I do believe that somehow the two paints I created really did ground us and imprint our creative souls with a sense of connection. 

I hope you will enjoy the color swatches I made using Irish Gray. If you would like to take a deeper dive into understanding color mixing from me, please take a look at the videos I have created, or contact me for one on one zoom lessons where we can personalize your needs. 

A Tactile Experience

I read years ago that we learn to see through our sense of touch. That sentence created such a profound awareness for me. Since reading that, I have come to understand more fully what the attraction to working with wax holds for me, and I think I can speak for many artists who work in the encaustic process. There is something so wonderful about wax and what it can bring to our senses, especially our sense of touch.  Being able to actually handle an object, touching and feeling it creates an immediate connection and not just for our ability to see. It brings an understanding that cannot be otherwise known.  

I have had the fantastic opportunity to demonstrate the wonderful products that I help to make. One of the by-products, if you will, of these presentations is that I generate a lot of "samples." As soon as I have finished creating these samples, I send them off into the audience so people can see them, but that isn't all they do. After close inspection, they will smell them and then, closing their eyes, they will feel them. 

Many of my demo pieces are done on paper, sometimes on cardboard. Sometimes I paint on the paper, other times I will make a print, other times I will dip my surface into the wax.  As time has gone by, I have come to have quite a collection. I have chosen to fashion many of these pieces into books, bundles, and hanging screens. It is through creating these books that people are further encouraged to touch and feel and become a part of the art experience.   

The next time you are working with anything consider how your sense of touch helps you visualize your desired outcome.

Developing Color

This is an article I wrote about my career at Enkaustikos at the request of the International Encaustic Artists Organization to be included in their Wax Fusion Fall 2021 publication.

A couple years after moving to Rochester, NY I took a part time job at Rochester Art Supply, a brick and mortar art store in downtown Rochester. Initially, I was on the sales floor helping customers. Owner, Mike Lesczinski overheard me talking to some people who needed help picking out supplies for an upcoming class they were taking. I was talking to them about how to read a paint label and why they should go with one color versus another. Next thing I knew, he had set up a hot palette at the front of the store and handed me a few cakes of wax based paint and said “play around with these and let me know what you think”. My response was “what is this?”. “Encaustic paint” was his reply.

It turns out Mike and his brother John, also owned Enkaustikos! They bought the company from Ann Huffman in 1996. When she owned it, it was called Mrs. Apple Tree’s Studio.

I found working with the wax paint to be both confusing and intriguing at the same time, but was excited about focusing on the medium for the company. Mike cleared out a space in his building for me to concentrate on learning as much as I could. Soon, I became in charge of managing and being a support to growing the business. 

We began to travel for conferences, art expos, and trade shows and I found myself loving the ability to help people learn the basics of encaustic. 

In 2007, Mike and John decided to take the company to a new level and get it ready for retail and distributorship. Since then, my involvement with the company has had many shifts. For the last few years my main focus has been on expanding our paint line by developing colors for the EnkaustiKolors paint line, the PBSeggebruch line. I also worked with Shary Bartlett to create two sets, and with Lora Murphy to develop the Micro-series line. My own color lines are The Power of Gray and The Kathryn Bevier Collection. Most recently, I developed a line of colors for Erin Keane. 

I have created well over 60 paint colors for Enkaustikos and have to say am so honored to have this amazing opportunity. 

Mike and John have been extremely supportive of me, and when it comes to getting down to business, we always come to a really good decision that is supportive of the artists. This is evident through the various formats our paints are sold in and through working with instructors to support their workshops, and of course the collaboration with the artist mentioned above. We have a small number of dedicated staff that really embrace their position at Enkaustikos and work hard to see it be the successful company that it is. 

It's March!!! There is something about March that feels more like the beginnings of a new year to me, and I am feeling inspired. Every year I chose two or three words that I feel aligned with. These are usually words that signify an area of intended growth for me. I actually chose four this year, somehow I think this will be a very pivotal year (as if the last few have not been - haha). Creation - That seems fitting doesn't it? I am a creator at heart. I am dedicated to develop my skills and my artistic expression. Creation in all its forms is the pulse in life that brings me to that special place of paying attention. Connection - I can be a bit of a hermit. I like my "Kathryn" time, but know the importance of my growing friendships and relationships in general, so I am making more time for that in my life. I bring creation into my connections by teaching, but also spending quality time with friends making art together. I am also the type of person that actually gets a lot more accomplished when working with another person. Ideas are more free flowing and I can get into that state of flow very easily when sharing my creative time with others. Change - Not that I am trying to reinvent myself, more that I am open to change with out resisting. Change is constant, and I want to be an active participant. I like to see how my art is changing, it is like learning a new language and that can be exhilarating. The collages in this post were just that. Fresh and new for me. Strength - This is about resilience, because sometimes I just feel like I am walking through molasses. I've learned that those days don't last long and there is usually something really poignant on the other side, and I usually have an epiphany if I am patient. It is truly the learning to be patient and being with the molasses that is the lesson for me to embrace. I am beginning to truly understand that is the key to what ever comes my way, to just stay with it. So happy New Year all over again, let's hope there are many silver linings for all of us. Included in this post are images of some very freeing collages that I have done while sitting at the dining table chatting with one of my closest friends. Something near and dear to my heart.