My Hand-Printed Stationery Is Now Available at Paper Skyscraper in Charlotte NC!

I am THRILLED to announce that my hand-printed stationery is now available at a phenomenal, Charlotte store--Paper Skyscraper. This has become a Charlotte institution, consistently getting voted "Charlotte's Best Gift Store", "Best Place for Stylish Gifts", and "Best Place to Buy a Present". The owners have quite a knack for finding quirky, eclectic items. So, if you find yourself in the Dilworth area, please swing by and visit my birds.
For more information on the store, visit http://www.paperskyscraper.com

 

My Home Featured in Charlotte Home + Garden!

Friends,

I am thrilled to announce that my home and studio space have been featured in the latest edition of Charlotte Home + Garden. I am honored and thrilled to be a part of their spring publication.

You can read the article online at
http://www.charlottemagazine.com/Home-Garden/April-2013/Colorfu-Character-Liz-Saintsing/...or, if you’re in the Charlotte area, you can pick up a copy at your local store…or, if you’re in my neighborhood, you can swing by to see my place in person!

Your support, enthusiasm, friendship, and patronage have helped me earn this privilege with Charlotte Home + Garden. Know that I am grateful for it all. Happy Spring!

Welcome Home! Silk Screening an Accent Wall

A good friend of mine recently came over to my house.  She hadn't been over in quite some time--she has an 8 month old and travels incessantly for work (which are all good excuses in my book).  My house looked quite different since the last time she had come over.  I had been busy remodeling rooms, painting walls, reupholstering furniture, and doing fun, creative things to my space.  Upon entering my bedroom, she gasped and squealed, "This is amazing!".  She was referring to my accent wall which I bravely painted a metallic silver and hand-printed it with a silhouetted, floral pattern.  In her defense, it is quite stunning.
So when her and her husband bought their first home together, commissioning me to silk screen their bedroom wall was the first project on her list.  Once my friend selected the print she thought would work best in their space, I enlarged the image and created two new screens--a small screen with a delicate print, and a larger screen for a bolder pattern.  The two would be printed together, giving the wall a real sense of depth and dimension.
To save time, they painted the accent wall a light shade of mocha prior to me coming over.  Once I arrived, I got to work immediately!  I began the project by measuring the wall and placing tape in the places that I would print the largest screen.  I started at the bottom of the wall and worked my way from left to right.  I printed about five images on the bottom of the wall, washed my screen out, let the ink on the wall dry, and then repeated this, working my way up the wall until the wall was filled with floral prints.  I took a paintbrush and filled in the areas where I wanted the branches to connect.  I let that dry.  Then, I printed the smaller screen with the more delicate branches, filling in the all the negative space.  Once that dried, I repeated with the freehand painting.
All in all, it was an ambitious but manageable project I tackled in a day.  I was really pleased with the outcome and how the different sized screens translated on a larger surface.  More importantly, my friend and her husband were overjoyed.  I truly hope they enjoy their original Saintsing accent wall for years and years to come.  Welcome home!                                                                  

My Friend's New Bedroom Wall

My Bedroom Accent Wall--The Inspiration

The Prolific Roy Nydorf--200 pieces, 4 decades

I can still recall the first time I ever walked into the printmaking studio at Guilford College.  Climbing the stairs to the second floor, entering the well-lit room, hardwoods creaking beneath my feet, and smelling the toxic solvents for the first time.  And I can vividly remember meeting my printmaking professor, Roy Nydorf, as if it were yesterday. 

He started out our freshman orientation by flipping through a portfolio of prints he had collected over the decades, briefly explaining how each print was created—dry point, mezzotint, aquatint, sugar lift—intermittently rubbing his beard, his fingers coated with turquoise. 

I remember his keen eye during critiques, his gloveless hands retrieving a plate in the acid bath, and the way he sparked my interest in a medium I knew nothing about and had never heard of prior to 1997.  That’s what great professors do.

I found the etching process fascinating and addictive.  I was eager to discover how crucial the timing of the acid was.  I was anxious to feel the rush of adrenaline when pulling a print for the first time after having cranked the press and felt the release of the plate, flipping back the blankets, lifting the corner of the print.  And I was as equally hooked on the meticulousness of the wiping of the plates—the seductiveness and methodical, circular motions.

It didn’t take me long to know that I wanted to concentrate in this medium and explore as much as I could under Roy.  I found myself asking him if I could have the honor of being his Teacher’s Assistant, which he said yes to my junior year.  He taught me so much.  So you can imagine my utter disappointment when he announced he was taking a sabbatical my senior year.  Tears were indeed shed.

Many years later, the Greenhill Gallery in Greensboro, NC, offered Roy a retrospective.  This included about 200 of his pieces and spanned over 40 years of creative, artistic exploration.  So when one of my closest girl friends and senior thesis graduates, Carol DeVries, asked me to meet her for lunch and a gallery tour, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.  Coincidentally, Roy’s wife, Terry Hammond, and two other Guilford alums were there, and we shared some laughs, great stories, and caught up.

It was only until I started walking the gallery that I realized what a phenomenal accomplishment my old professor had achieved.The entire gallery was dedicated to him and his work.  It was beautifully curated and a perfect chronology of the evolution of his work.  There were surreal paintings that were dreamlike in nature, with floating figures drifting lightless.  There was a series of ephemeral butterflies rendered in pastels that looked so real that, if you touched them, their delicate wings would crumble.  There were wooden carvings—one 10 feet in length and carved entirely from one piece of wood with painted, red lips—that were so mature and unexpected.  There were paintings—portraits and landscapes alike that detailed time in the Italian countryside and desolate North Carolina highways after a summer rain.  And then there were etchings I was so familiar with because I had personally seen Roy meticulously wiping the plates in the studio—The Black Cat and the a la poupee heads. 

I consider myself blessed to have been able to see this awe-inspiring show.  But I consider myself even more grateful for having had the opportunity to study under such a well-rounded, gifted talent who taught me so much about the printmaking medium and more about myself as an artist. 

Thank you, Roy, for being the artist, visionary, and mentor that you are.  You will never know how you impacted my life. 

    

Fun with Paper Dyeing

I recently became obsessed with dyeing paper.  So much that I began devoting many daily hours to the soothing tranquility the process offers me—my hands playing in the warm waters, the anticipation of what color the dye mixing will yield, and the calmness that takes over my body while watching the paper absorb the colors.  It has been good for me.  It’s made me slow down a bit.

On a recent trip to the fabric store, I picked up some fabric dyes on a whim and thought to myself, “this might be interesting”. The anticipation of doing something new and outside my comfort zone has always made my heart beat a little faster.  I couldn’t wait to experiment with the water and dye ratios.  I couldn’t wait to find out how long it would take the paper to absorb the richness of the dye.

I used an orange dye on my first trial and embarrassingly walked around for two days with orange fingers.  Note: The dyes will stain your hands!  Wear gloves!  For the rest of the day, people kept asking me if I had just eaten Cheetos.  Don’t make that same mistake.

Soon, the process evolved to somewhat of a meditative period for me and I began to look forward to it.  Time in the studio seemed to go by so quickly but productively.  I could dye the papers without my brain going a million miles per hour.  I could find utter enjoyment out of such a simple act and it could yield beautiful results.

I dyed four papers at a time.  It took any where from 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how intense the dyes were and how much water I used.  I was pretty casual with it, never once measuring anything or getting fussy about the tonal range of color the dyes created on the papers.  Sometimes the dyes were inconsistent but I didn’t allow myself to get caught up in the obsessive details.  I just allowed the two elements to do their own, natural thing.

I saved each batch I used just in case I want to revisit the colors.  On a recent antiquing trip out with my mother, we came across some old glass bottles and jars.  They were absolutely perfect for storing the various colored dyes.  I color coded them using paper samples from each batch so they are easily identifiable. I can use and reuse them whenever I like.  Thanks, mom!

These hand-dyed papers will be on display in my booth at the New York Gift Show in August.  And for the next few months, I will be gearing up for it.  Hard.  I plan to have a new line of imagery, paper prints, and a bigger, better, badder booth.  I plan to take New York by storm (minus the Cheeto-dyed fingers!).

Mr. Still, You Make Me Weak in the Knees

Standing in a room filled with Clyfford Still’s canvases can make a person go weak in the knees—their grand, monumental size is awe-inspiring, the brushstrokes broken and jagged, colors all working in a harmonious symphony so lyrical and poetic.  These epic works of art, created by one of the leaders of the Abstract Expressionist movement, had a similar effect on me recently when I had the pleasure of seeing them live in Denver, Colorado.

Among other Abstract Expressionists—Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock—Still is arguably the leader, but least understood.  Still tightly protected his work.  He hated galleries and art critics, retreated from the commercial art world in 1951, and infrequently showed his work afterwards.  It’s unfortunate that such a talent would protect his work so jealously, not allowing admirers or collectors to see his creations.  Thankfully, though, he continued to create during his retreat.

When Still died in 1980, his estate and legacy were given to his wife Patricia.  This included an astounding 2,400 pieces, some of which had never been seen before.  In his will, he intended that an American city house these works, insuring their survival and continued study. Several years ago, Denver received the honor of housing Still’s works, and, on November 18, 2011, the doors to the Clyfford Still Museum were opened.

I couldn’t wait to get inside and be a part of what was hidden for so long.  I felt honored to experience what many people had not—being in a museum solely dedicated to a legendary, creative genius.  My palms grew sweaty just talking to the gentleman at the admissions desk.

The museum is breathtaking in every sense of the word.  Each element was carefully considered—the rough, concrete walls that emulated Still’s jagged brushstrokes, the large, minimal rooms that allowed the canvases of monumental proportion to breathe, and the ceilings, perforated with oblong ovals, allowing natural light in.   The museum’s chronology of Still’s work provides a complete overview of his stylistic evolution, starting with his early landscapes.  Still grew up on a farm and was influenced by the farmers, their tools, and their backbreaking, often bloody work.  His earlier paintings portrayed distorted figures and a much more representational style.  As I walked room to room, the progression of color, form, and scale could all be traced back to his earlier pieces.  The later galleries perfectly present his explosion of scale, lighter color palette, and jagged, peaked forms.  Upon entering one of the rooms that housed a series entitled “life lines,” I felt a shortness of breath.  The blue-black, 16-foot canvas is bisected with an orange line that seems to glow on the surface and is juxtaposed with a predominately orange “life line” painting.  The two together were like a heart beat, harmonious and continual.  I have dreamt about that moment in that room since.  One room housed his works on paper, which were studies for larger works but were arguably completed pieces in their own right.  I wanted these for my house and own enjoyment.

Clyfford Still was a phenomenal, inspiring artist.  Although he guarded his work, I’m glad that his lifelong wish to construct a permanent museum housing his work was achieved.  I’m grateful to have been there and seen this never-been-seen-before collection.  It was an experience never to be forgotten and one that will resonate with me forever.  Thank you, Mr. Still for being a creative visionary and talent.  And thank you for insuring that your artwork can be seen by anyone in the Denver area.  The opportunity is not to be missed. 

       

Beth Weintraub: Interview with an Artist

Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting a dear friend from San Francisco, Beth Weintraub. It was great to see her smiling face and to catch up. We visited a local farmer’s market, did some antiquing, and made wonderful dinners together. She’s a world-renowned talented printmaker who specializes in etching and her beautiful work can be seen at www.bethweintraub.com.  Oddly enough, in a medium known for multiple prints, no two prints of Beth’s are alike. I am happy to cal her a friend and mentor, and am thrilled to announce her as my guest artist. We will hear about her journey and story during this question and answer interview.

So, without further delay, I introduce to you the visionary, youthful, never dull, Ms. Beth Weintraub.

Q: Why are you an artist and when did you become one?

I’m quite sure that I was born this way, but why I became an artist is a more interesting subject to consider.

In an effort to keep me occupied, my childhood was filled with creative play involving all kinds of crafty supplies at home. Our family basement was a playroom with free reign to paint, draw and construct using anything within reach. During elementary school I fondly recall many YMCA craft days on football Sundays, where we made everything from candles, play-dough figures to elaborate construction paper mobiles; I loved going there. I was also exposed to art of all kinds, in museums from ancient to modern, at craft fairs and antique shops, even architecture, historical ruins and handicrafts during family travel. Clearly my education was designed to teach me that all art and culture were to be revered and highly valued.

Q: From where do you draw your inspiration?

The connection between what I see, what I feel and how I create new imagery is an elusive and internal function. The way my hand and body move dictate the kind of shapes I like to make the most, but this gets repetitive fast, so I often seek out visual stimuli that is farthest from my own natural style. I like to look at high design elements in furniture, I look at the fabrics, the colors, the wood, the way it’s assembled. I examine surface textures in concrete, asphalt, metal, even food, plants, and skin. I get inspired when I see obvious decisions that were made in the process of creation.

Q: Do you work in your studio every day?

I spend time in my studio nearly every day. My best working hours are between 10am and 4pm. After that I’m often wasting materials. I do keep to a rather regular schedule; it helps to be available and focused during the same workweek as everyone else as well as allowing me to plan for doing my non-studio tasks around my most productive creative time. I’ve been told this approach is like that of an athlete; it makes sense.

Q: What factors motivate you to create?

I think I just have an urgent need to make stuff. The need to use my hands and either alter, fix or make something in its entirety is at the core of my personality.  I’m the queen of customization and I enjoy being different.

As a result, I strongly feel that every effort should be made towards achieving originality. I always hope that my work doesn’t appear derivative of any other artist or designer. I don’t always succeed but I hold integrity as the highest ingredient for my personal goals.  I see other artist’s work that motivates me, but I never ever wish for anyone to compare my work to another’s.

Conveying that urge via paper and ink is irresistible.

Q: How do you handle the business side of being an artist?

I am naturally good at some aspects of business, like marketing, time management and project development. The areas where I don’t excel, such as bookkeeping, graphic design and office administration, are dealt by other people who are good at those things and who hopefully like what they do. I don’t try to learn everything and handle it all myself. No matter what, business is collaborative. I have to trust others to help me. That part isn’t easy and of course, it costs money. I also have to trust that money going out will be met by money coming in. A gamble, I know but it gets easier.

Q: What are the best and worst parts about being a full-time artist?

The worst parts are silly, ego-oriented things. People’s attitudes towards artists are often minimizing – as if it isn’t really a job or a business. Some people ask me ‘what I really do’, or I get the feeling they assume I’m either broke, or given money by my family.

The best part is having a well-equipped romper room under my own control.

Q: What do you consider to be key factors in the success of your career as an artist?

The ability to express my intentions, explain the value of what I do, and follow through with promises has greatly helped me. I know I get more business because I am reliable, timely, and able to confess my shortcomings. People have a hard enough time spending money on non-utilitarian items, much less something they can’t see in advance. I have to be able to help them feel like part of the process, often from long distance. Communication is key.

Q: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

I fantasize about working on only 4 projects a year. If I were to divide the planet into quadrants, each section would get one allotment. Such as one commission, one museum exhibit, the sale of a single piece from my studio. The challenge for me is not to be bored with that, or concocting a few such complex projects that it’s all I can handle.

Also I’d like to be invited by aliens to travel with them by space ship, indefinitely.