From Tanya
My partner and I bought an unloved Prince Edward County farmhouse and spent an entire winter in the grey of construction dust and exhaustion. Our first spring, after the first snow melt, my dismay at the state of our matted lawn turned to delight when the worst patch of tangled green bloomed wild red poppies. To me, they were vitality and surprise and life – and I painted them. That first painting has turned into a series of many.
I love the translucence and delicacy and possibility of encaustic. It is layers upon layers. It is scraped away and carved. It is bullied. It is gently applied. It is heated and cooled and scraped some more. It lets me work quickly and slowly in a process that is organic and inspired. It is violent and it is loving and, to me, it’s the same as nature, it’s the same as love. It’s a medium with its own force.
I’m an urbanite with a farmhouse, sharp knives with a soft brush, a fast creator who considers – slowly – every single piece. It makes sense that I would fall in love with encaustic and, in all the fire of hot wax, capture the quietest moments, that place we can all fall still.
