Artist, Emerging: First National Encaustic Conference, Part 1

I'm still trying to digest everything that I learned at the conference. I thought I'd break it down into several posts to make it more manageable.

I arrived in Salem late on Wednesday night. My ex-husband works for Southwest Airlines and he was very generous to give me a free pass, which meant I had to fly standby (exciting in a nerve-racking sort of way). I had been invited to a reception at Joanne Mattera's house on Thursday evening, so I definitely wanted to be there in time for that.

Joanne was so gracious and warm. It was such a delight to meet her and see her beautiful home and studio. I was too shy to take pictures in her house but I got up the nerve to ask her if I could take some shots of her studio.

I got to meet and talk with several artists there -
Sandi Miot from California, who has produced a beautiful show catalog of her work (she used viovio.com and recommended them highly). She does really dimensional work. I asked her a bunch of technical questions about her process, too.

Heather Harris from near Seattle, who made me very jealous because she's moving to Italy soon.

Daniella Woolf from California, who I didn't really get a chance to talk to but her work is really amazing. She pointed out that we have the same initials.

Kim Bernar d from Maine, who does lush paintings and beautiful sculpture.

Nancy Natale from Massachusetts, who does beautiful abstract paintings. She also really helped me out with advice on getting to and around in Boston.

Paula Roland from Santa Fe, who teaches encaustic monotype workshops. I've had a couple of students that have taken her workshop and I was excited to meet her. I attended her demo and I'll talk more about that later.

Tricia Lazuka from Ohio, who does encaustic painting and monotypes and also works in ceramics. She and her husband had driven there from Ohio.

I met several other people there but don't remember their last names... I'm hoping they put out a directory of the attendees that will help jog my memory...

Here are shots of Joanne's studio: