Elisa Lendvay

I visited Elisa Lendvay's studio most recently. She has a space in Greenpoint in a building chock full of artists. When I first thought of doing this project Elisa was at the forefront of my mind. I had found her sculptures loosely entering my painting which sparked the idea of drawing the work I am drawn to. It was just as I had hoped it would be when I entered her space. Shelves overflowed with sculptural artifacts, grouped together as though they were lined up to be studied, the floor scattered with stacks of flat constructs, large freestanding pieces in the center of the space hit with sections of bright color, and walls jutting out with painted forms having been arranged just so. All of the work appeared animate in its liveliness. It was begging for a still-life rendition.

While I was there Elisa showed me what she had made while staying at the Albee Foundation residency in Montauk for the month of August. I immediately saw the residency's proximity to the ocean as an influence on her newest work. The work, with its cool whites, winding structures, and fence-like shapes looked salted and worn. Elisa, sometimes using found objects and often constructing things under the influence of the shapes she has gathered in her mind and studio, tells the story of a moment, a memory, or a single thought. She depicts these ideas by using repetition of form, color, and material almost obsessively as though it were a song she can't get out of her head. Currently, she is using a scalloped, shingled, or echo repetition in different aspects of her work, be it sculpture, painting, or drawing. It brought to mind sound or water waves and vertebrae. One of the materials Lendvay uses is a type of papier mâché, which adds to the organic look of her configurations. The paper mimics heavy hardened sand, but mysteriously leaves the piece light to pick up.

There is a special energy to Elisa's work that gives it the feeling of being in motion. It seems like if you turned your back on a piece it might move or re-adjust itself. As I as was drawing, this happened quite literally. Elisa was dancing around her space placing one thing next to another, creating and recreating an impromptu installation. She kept telling me it was almost ready. I would be drawing and at a moment's notice something would have moved,  leaving me to start on the next section of my paper. This was totally invigorating. It gave the visit a spontaneously interactive feel. She was installing as I was drawing, a race to the end of the her space's organization and my graphite filled paper.

Elisa talked about the importance of moving the work around and studying one piece's interaction with another. She gathers information this way.  It felt like her studio was set up like a scientific lab, with her specimens being arranged in hierarchical structures and classification schemes.

A view of Elisa's Studio at Albee

Elisa and I had a hard time stopping the chat on a few occasions so that we could get back to the art making. I missed her while she was away at the Albee residency. I was going to visit her there, but it was the weekend Irene decided to visit instead, and we thought it was best for me to not get on the train. I liked to think of her in the barn-like studio she described, hiding out with her sculptures fighting the winds, but I was glad to see her back with all her work intact ready for me to draw. Please check out more of her Elisa's radness at http://elisalendvay.com/.

Kees den Breejen

Also while in California I got the chance to visit Kees den Breejen's studio in Oakland. He is the father of my first Pencil in the Studio visit, Erik den Breejen. I spent the afternoon with Kees (pronounced "case") talking to him about his paintings and profession through the years, learning about his ancestry and life spent in California. He had some fascinating stories for me. His studio is nestled in their wonderful home in the Montclair Hills with a great view of the bay and all of its activity. We even got the chance to visit the Legion of Honor museum together for the exhibition Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. I saw many connections between this show and Kees's paintings. Kees, having moved to California (by way of Canada) from Holland (Delft to be exact), comes from a long-standing tradition of painting.

Kees's work spawns from his interests in history, his extensive travel, his love of photography and his daily life in the bay area. While I was there he was working on finishing up a self-portrait from a photo he had taken on the subway while visiting NYC. He is currently working on a group of paintings that depict various transit systems. A painting of a trolley car in San Francisco stood out in particular, again reminding me of some of the Dutch paintings we had seen earlier that week. They are like Kees's contemporary take on the Genre paintings of the 1600's.  There is a concentration on narrative and theme. This painting depicts a man and a woman crossing the street in front of the trolley, portaits of an urban society, regular folks. We also talked about his influences, from Thieboud to Vermeer; from Van Gogh to Oakland's Anthony Holdsworth. Kees's work deftly combines elements of California realism, Impressionism, and Golden Age Dutch painting.

His illustrations are just as impressive as his paintings. He explained how for many years he had been making cards for people at the office. Once he made his first, the requests just kept coming.  I was so delighted when he made one for me, a "Jenuwine Kees Kard." What a talent to have. I asked if there were other artists in the family. He told me that when his father first moved to Canada and couldn't speak English he would draw pictures of the things he was looking for at the store in order to ask for them.

    Kees's father, also named Kees, or Cornelus, made the clock on the right by hand, down to the gears.  

    Kees Jr. helped by painting the face.

Kees worked in the graphics department at The Oakland Tribune and, later, The San Francisco Chronicle for many years before retiring, and now concentrates on painting. He explained how things changed from one decade to the next, remembering when they first set an Apple computer in front of him and told him that this was what he would be using from then on, with no word of it beforehand. Can you imagine? The year was 1988; he was also studying painting with Holdsworth and (with help from his father) rebuilding the family house they have in the Sierra foothills. A real Renaissance man!

    Rotterdam Haven, 1970

I adored my time spent with Mr. den Breejen, as I always do. We got the chance to visit the house that he rebuilt with his father in the 80's. In the midst of loaded blackberry bushes there is a petanque court. As always Kees schooled me in a game of it. One of these days I'll take the court. Heres to one of my favorite painters and petanque players! To see more go to http://keesgraphics.com/Paintings/Home.html.

Jovi Schnell

I recently traveled to Northern California and while I was there had the unique opportunity to do a studio visit with Bay Area artist Jovi Schnell. She lives and works in San Francisco and is presently teaching at the California College of the Arts, which she has been doing since 2004. In 2010 she completed her first public art commission in a new public plaza in the SoMa district of San Francisco and has another in the works for June of 2012 in a skate park between Mission & Valencia. This is so thrilling, installation art that will past the test of time. Her studio is located in the Mission in a great big brick building. Jovi's space, found at the end of a long hallway, is very attractive, with its high ceilings and vast skylight. I couldn't wait to get the opportunity to meet her and view her work in person. We had loads to talk about as I drew and she painted: what led her to a move back to Cali in 2004 after spending many years in NYC, the way the art world opperates in San Francisco, and what she draws her inspiration from.

Jovi makes groups of paintings at a time and explained to me the processes for a couple different bodies of work. I was totally taken by these processes -- beautifully tangled systems that quite literally allow the throw of the dice to determine which way the paintings go. First she pointed out one of her studio walls tacked with papers holding lists of phrases and words. Jovi names this collection her "Brain Dump," where she drops language she has collided with. The next step in Jovi's process is to number the list and come to a particular word on the list by throwing a multi-sided dice. Jovi then finds the colors for her paintings by entering the words the dice has chosen in a search engine that brings up a palette corresponding to each word. When starting the painting, she again throws the dice to determine when and where to use each color from the palette, when to use a particular image, or how to build the blocks that form her paintings' grid-like layout. I found Jovi's application of chance to be extremely poetic; playing out a game that uses paint, color, and composition as its pieces. What fantastic results this game gives way to. The colors are perfectly harmonious and the movement of one square or cubby-hole to the next seems nothing less than meant to be.

Jovi does use a few constants in her paintings. It could be a blue she can't get away from or a lexicon of images that appear in the painting's many boxes. One image I was drawn to in particular she called her "Breath Star," which she explained originated from "Viscous Fingering," a scientific study she first came across in a series of books by Philip Ball called Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts, which includes Branches, Flow & Shapes. She makes the star by breathing down on the paint in its center. Jovi shared lots of information similar to this with me. The conversation was so rich. She is very in tune with what is important to her and what she channels through to use symbolically in her work, be it a tree viewed from both sides, a galaxy telling us where we are at a given point in time, or the simple beauty of chance.

Another current body of work incorporates a system that allows movement to inspire the chance. Jovi paints a string and then slowly lets it drop to a piece of paper, later transfering this mark to a black ground. She continues to paint on this "knot," leaving a maze of color in the center of the black paper like a concise reflection on movement. She worked on one of these "knot" paintings while I was there. I was captivated by the sound of the dice being thrown in the background as she chose the colors for it.

Above is her public art piece entitled  Evolves the Luminous Flora

The time flew by in Jovi's studio. I wasn't ready to leave, but the last days of travel were beckoning me to see the ocean one last time. I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to talking about her work. She spoke a lot about her work dealing with locating oneself and being present. I took away with me these thoughts and hope to apply them to my own way of living. Please check out more of Jovi at http://www.jovischnell.com/_new2/gallery1.php. And also look at a video on her public art piece here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ctqi7M3gZA.

Patrick's Point State Park, California

Liz Ainslie

I visited Liz Ainslie in her studio in Williamsburg recently. She had a totally relaxed rejuvenated feel about her, having just returned from her time at Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, NY. Ainslie shared the experience of being away; nowhere to rush off to, no sticky train to hop on, left only with time to spend in her studio. Dreamy. She has a great set up here in Brooklyn too. Her studio is in a loft apartment that she also lives in. Liz has a large working space with a desk for doing drawings and a space off of it that is dedicated to her paintings. Living with a writer and another painter, the loft has a totally creative and dynamic vibe about it.

Ainslie shared her newest work with me, a group of paintings that she has titled "Stick Lines." She has extracted portions of her previous body of work to use in these paintings, lines that either float on their own or act as a barrier between different values or colors, thus creating shapes that drift in and out of our  understanding of perspective. Studio visits give me the chance to compare one group of work with examples from earlier ones, going as far back as the artists would like to share, in a way that an exhibition can not. I get to act like a detective, finding the evidence of a particular painting's motives by looking closely at a painting made at an earlier time. Liz's studio was a great place for this.

We talked about her influences: Guston, Vuillard, Bonnard... It is like minimalist sculpture meets post-impressionism, which makes for an exciting, unexpected juxtaposition. Patterns of the paint's marks sometimes build simple free-floating shapes that speak of a portrait by the way the painting is oriented, but ultimately portray simplicity and purity of form.

Liz: I really like 70's minimalist art too, but I think it's about the shapes.

 While I was there, I was able to witness a painting being made from the ground up, nearly to its conclusion. I have to say I have always been curious about how she approaches her work -- I suppose because they do seem like paintings of fictional sculptures. Ainslie explained that she first applies a very bright underpainting to the canvas. In this instance she made luscious brushes of fuchsia.  Then she begins to mark in the lines and colored shapes. She worked fluidly, with unwavering confidence in where she was going. Lovely to watch.

I couldn't help but draw her drawing. 

Above are two pictures Liz took both inside and out of her studio at Millay. 

It was a splendid day with Liz. I enjoyed hearing about her time upstate and was salivating at the amazing opportunity it gave her to release all of the tensions of living in a city. And she came away from it with some fantastic paintings. We hurried off for some Thai food and a beer post art-making. We beat the heat in a shady backyard garden. To explore more of these fab works go to http://lizainslie.com/paintings/.

EJ Hauser

This week I visited EJ Hauser in her studio in Sunset Park. I had only just met EJ a couple weeks ago and was immediately drawn to her personality as much as I had already been drawn to her work. Her studio is something else -- dreamily spacious, stocked with a library that makes you want to pull up a chair and stay for awhile, and occupied by an artist brimming with drive and vivacity. It really got me excited to sit down and draw.   

EJ: I think of myself as a sculptor who makes paintings.

Although EJ's work incorporates various ways of approaching painting, it all lives within a world that is very clearly her own. We spoke about how the studio is like a playground for the artist, moving from one corner to the next, climbing up and around all of the artistic possibilities. She expressed to me that she believes you have to keep close your childhood interests when in your studio. How right she is. EJ has enabled this by how she has organized her space. I adored listening to her talk to me about all of her studio's different zones, referring to one section as her "kitchen," where she cooks up ideas and lets experimentation take her to new places within her work. Both large and small paintings were cooking up there. Another area of her studio was left for viewing. A few large paintings were given the space to be seen on their own -- as though they had no relation to the rest and had just shown up on the scene. This was in contrast to another section of her studio, which was thick with works from the past and present, here conversing on the wall, informing one another as well as the artist.

EJ utilizes text in her paintings in a variety of different ways. It can be used as a springboard for creating a lusciously surfaced multi-layered abstraction, a way of presenting the viewer with a single word or phrase that begs to be spoken loudly, or yet again as a way to give homage to a poem or lyric she has been undoubtedly drawn to. One new painting reads "ROOKIES" in bold text across a tree full of confused looking birds. I wondered who these rookie birds were... all of us, I suppose.

EJ told me about a Charles Burchfield quote that was important to her:
Before starting work go thru all the formal material
many things of vital importance have been lost sight of.

One body of work she spoke to me about happened by collecting paint brush tests on sheets from SUPERPAGES, an all yellow-pages directory. She recently showed this body of work at LUMP in Raleigh, NC. These wave-like formations, also using text, but now as a foundation, breathe cooly next to one another and pop up throughout the studio. It is clear that EJ is constantly looking around her, taking in the world in and outside her space.

 EJ pulled out books to share while doing some delectable DJing as we discussed just what exactly it meant to give your life to this thing called art. As the hours flew by, I listened, learned, looked, and had a wonderfully collaberative day drawing with her. At its end she took me to the roof and showed me why they call this part of Brooklyn Sunset Park. We waved at the Statue of Liberty and watched the Staten Island ferry go by. Another solid Pencil in the Studio with a totally fantastic painter and person. To see more of her work go to http://www.ejhauser.org/.

Mike Olin

This week I visited with Mike Olin in Bushwick, where he has been painting for the past twelve years. I am lucky enough to visit with Olin quite often, but it was a whole different thing to sit with him and learn (by watching as much as talking) how he makes and approaches his work. His space is something else: loads of suculants reminding him of San Diego where he grew up, huge windows opening to the west, plenty of summer sunlight filling the space, and a serene sense of calm and pleasure in the attitude he holds towards his practice and his life.

Mike: They were painted at different times of the year and looking back you can kind of tell...I've enjoyed how repeating an image makes influences like that more noticeable.

Olin's most current body of work, which he titles "Human Highway," consists primarily of many duplications of a very small image he found in A Field Guide to Early Man, a science textbook on paleontology from 1987. His fascination with this illustration and the ideas that he has drawn from it have compelled him to make work ranging from small drawings to very large paintings. The image itself is of a leopard preying on a particular early man, Australopithecus Robustus to be exact. The leopard has taken his prey up a tree and has enveloped the human's head in his mouth. It was fascinating to hear Olin describe the picture to me. He kept saying how tender it was, how peaceful. At first viewing, it seems quite different -- pretty brutal, actually. However, after spending time around the numerous renditions of the same image, and studying it for my drawings, I began to see what he meant. This scenario, which existed before the pressures of any kind of society, shows the basic needs of human and animal life. There is a comfort in knowing we weren't always at the top of the food chain; we gave and received as equals at one time, truly being one with earth. It is thoughtful and generous of Olin to put this idea forward, presenting it with innocence and subtlety. This is a topic we should all keep at the forefront of our minds.

Olin uses copper-plated tacks when attaching his canvasses. He demonstrated this and let me have a try. Satisfying! He then puts multiple layers of gesso on the surface to get it just right. I appreciated his sincerity in emphasizing this. His work has a tactile and visceral quality that is apparent from the use of these processes.

Mike: I try to overlap ways of seeing when making the paintings, offering the viewer many ways to approach it.

Mike also begins each painting by placing what he calls "trash" on the canvas haphazardly. He then goes back and attaches it with gesso. One type of debris he uses time and time again is a handful of mustard seeds. He told me that these seeds suggest spirituality, as they appear significantly in many religions.

What a fabulous visit. Mike and I spent a relaxing studio day together. It was also in celebration of school ending for the summer (Olin is a middle school art teacher in the Bronx and a damn good one). We shared a tall boy of Sixpoint and talked over our summer plans. Both Mike's spirit and his artwork are a true delight. To check out more go to http://ps1.org/studio-visit/artist/mike-olin. He is also in a group show opening Friday September 16th at Edward Thorp Gallery called "Assembly", be sure to check it out!