On The Other Side

Sandra was born in Chicago, Illinois. She has been interested in art throughout her life, experimenting with many different mediums. Over the years she favored working with colored pencils. In 2001 she was introduced to encaustic wax and it’s ancient history. She fell in love with the luminosity, brilliance and movement of the wax. For the past five years, Sandra has concentrated on developing her own wax pigments and application techniques. She refrains from the use of brushes, using only heated tools to manipulate the wax. “Creating the wax is a process I’ve never been able to interact with in any other medium”. Throughout the years, Sandra studied with her lifelong friend, Frances Elizabeth Mayo, an accomplished artist in several mediums. It was Frances that introduced Sandra to encaustic wax. The pair was instantly captivated by the intense color and it’s flexibility in application. The two collaborated, showed and successfully sold their work in Biloxi, Mississippi. Sandra feels devoted to educating others about this seldom heard of, ancient art form. She makes herself available for workshops to encourage others to get involved with this elusive, mesmerizing medium.
In 2005 hurricane Katrina devastated Biloxi, MS, Sandra’s home, affecting everyone she knew. Luckily, she had been painting in Florida. All of her encaustic supplies survived the storm. Unfortunately, the rest of her ‘life’ was totally consumed by the storm. “When all you have left is what you know in your heart you should have been doing all along, you can’t help but take a chance and believe it to be your destiny”. Doing just that, she has made choices that allow her to devote herself full time to her work. She feels blessed to be painting full time and very grateful for the creativity that survived both the inner and outer devastation living through a disaster the magnitude of Katrina caused. She feels embarrassed for humanity as a whole for the way many people suffered unnecessarily, after Katrina‘s landfall and to this day. Currently, she is writing a book to help make people aware of the magnitude the Mississippi coast was hit with, as well as the mental impact of a situation like this. “Currently there aren’t many tools available to people who live through a disaster. I hope to compile a book that will not only help to prepare, but encourage those who inevitably face future disasters, a reason to rebuild what they feel is too overwhelming to accomplish”.

 

Article for submission to Huachuca Art Association Subject:
Discovering Encaustic Wax
By: Sandra Lee Bolda
DISCOVERING ENCAUSTIC WAX

Encaustic, from the ancient Greek enkaustikos, means “to heat” or “to burn”.
Homer makes note in 800 B.C. of painted warships sailing into Troy.

 

Shipbuilders used beeswax to caulk and waterproof their vessels. Pigment was added and patterning of the surface began. These endeavors led Greek artists to use wax for easel painting and fully dimensional application for their clay and marble sculptures. Pliny the Elder, the Roman historian writing in the first century A.D., makes mention of Apelles, Praxiteles, Pausias and other artists from the fifth and fourth centuries, as encaustic artists. A message on a bottle from the fourth century B.C., depicts a sculptor applying wax to a marble statue.

 

Jasper Johns, one of the first contemporary encaustic artists, began putting pigmented beeswax on canvas in 1954. Diego Rivera used encaustic for easel painting and murals in Mexico in the twenties. The late thirties found Arthur Dove in New York painting with wax emulsion. Karl Zerbe, at the Boston Museum School, experimented with numerous formulas in the forties.
I discovered encaustic wax in 2002. My lifelong friend, Fran Mayo, an accomplished artist in several mediums, introduced me to it. She had read an article which piqued her interest. It was frustrating to try and find much instructional material on the subject. One book was in publication, “The Art of Encaustic Painting”, which proved to be a wonderful reference book. We purchased some encaustic medium, which we weren’t very impressed with. This led us to experiment with making our own waxes. This was an endeavor I hadn’t experienced with any other medium I had used. At first I was not very willing to take on the process of making my own pigments. But once I gave it a try, I was absolutely amazed. I was hooked on the process and more importantly, the results!

Once my friend and I achieved a good wax to work with, we found we preferred using heated tools to apply and manipulate the wax. This “brushless” technique is one that requires the artist to be very free when painting. Because the wax is in a molten form when applied, it changes form as it dries. Sometimes the change is very subtle, sometimes totally unexpected results are achieved. This, of course, can be very frustrating. However, sometimes things actually form before your eyes that are unbelievable. I have had full human figures show up with intricate details. As frustrating as the wax can be at times, it is every bit as forgiving. All you have to do is apply heat to melt the area you’re working on, remove what pigment you don’t want and add what you’d like.

 

 

The first month my friend and I started working with the wax I painted fifty paintings. This was the most prolific I had ever been, especially with a new medium. I remember closing my eyes at night and seeing painting and after painting float through my mind. I didn’t get much sleep that month. During our first showing of our work, people seemed to be as mesmerized with the medium as we were. What an experience that was! With this brushless process, it seems to produce patterns that encourage the viewer to see other things within the picture. It’s very exciting to see the viewer interact with the medium in this way.

The biggest obstacle we were met with was getting people to understand that just because it’s wax doesn’t mean it’s going to melt on your wall in the summertime. Most encaustic wax melts at about 140° . Care must be taken not to leave the painting in direct sunlight or in your car in warm weather. This would be the same advice I would give about most artwork. Remember that the pigment you see now will be the same hundreds of years from now, unlike most mediums. Over six hundred Fayum portraits (dating back to A.D. 100-125) exist in museums today, which illustrate this point very well. The pigment is intact. In Greco-Roman Egypt from 100 B.C. to A.D. 200, portraits were painted on a thin piece of wood. They were then set into mummy casings designed to transport bodies of the deceased to a spiritual afterlife.
Using different additives, you can make the wax as pliable and dimensional as you want. Your colors can be deep and vibrant or translucent. Because wax is a preservative, your pigment is trapped, true to it’s color, forever. Your painting surface can be as diverse as the wax you create. I have painted on a myriad of surfaces, with good results. Ancient encaustic artists painted mainly on wood panels similar to what we would call veneer. Wood, canvas, and glass are a few of the surfaces that work well with wax. Also, you have the option of encapsulating all sorts of things within the wax. Many artists use natural elements such as flowers, leaves, etc. in their work. The possibilities are endless.

 

Of course there are as many techniques for applying this medium as there are recipes for the wax. It can be approached with traditional painting techniques. You must work fast. The wax begins drying the moment you pull the brush from it. The Fayum portraits are an excellent example of this type of technique. The opportunity for detail quite apparent.

 

There are many different examples of encaustic works on the internet. Museums are now including encaustic works in their collections quite regularly. It seems to be gaining a lot of popularity once again.