(Keene, NH) Oil and encaustic artist Jessie Pollock of Peterborough is one of 14 recipients of the prestigious 2022 Ruth and James Ewing Arts Awards. Pollock’s category is Two Dimensional Art, one of nine categories that was honored this year.
The awards, named after the former owners of The Keene Sentinel and in recognition of the couple’s support for the arts, were presented on Thursday, July 21, 2022 at a ceremony at Redfern Arts Center at Keene State College.
Jessie Pollock at the 2022 Ruth and James Ewing Arts Awards where she received an award for 2-Dimensional Art.
Pollock began her artistic life as a sculptor, then as a painter of portraits, still life, and landscapes during the last 20 years. She has found inspiration in landscapes important to her, places in New Hampshire where she lives, in Florida where she has spent winters, and in Italy’s countryside, which she has visited.
View the intro, interview and Jessie receiving one of the 2022 Ewing Arts Award for 2-Dimensional Art.
Pollock’s series, Vanishing Landscapes, highlights a recent body of work that focuses on the region surrounding New Hampshire’s Mount Monadnock, the iconic peak not far from her studio that has attracted artists and writers since the 18th century.
Inspired by our changing climate and the mysterious energy in stones, Jessie’s Petrichor series is a new chapter in her homage to rural landscapes that are vanishing every day. To learn more about Jessie Pollock’s work and career, visit www.jessiepollock.com.
The Ruth and James Ewing Arts Awards, now in their eighth year, recognize excellence in the arts from the Monadnock Region and southern Vermont. More than 100 local artists and arts organizations have been honored over the years. More than 50 submissions were made this year from which the winners were selected.
Information about other Ewing Arts Awards categories and 2022 winners can be found at the Keene Sentinel.
This winter I returned to my Vanishing Landscape Series. Taking old panels out of the basement, I reworked them or finished them depending on how developed they were.
I used to attach small pieces of rust and copper to my panels to add sculptural elements to the paintings. Cleaning out my studio closet, I came across these dolls I had bought years ago. Usually the pieces of metal I used were more abstract but the broken elements of the dolls put them in another realm.The Frozen Charlotte panel has small antique porcelain dolls attached and inserted into a small enclosure.
Inspiration
I have never before put figures in my work but I liked these suggestions of the people that lived on the open spaces, tamed the land and made them farms, built the barns and toiled so arduously in this rugged part of the country.
New England is not easy even in this modern day. And I think it resonates with the silhouette drawings I did of people while in Ireland 2 years ago.
After a lifelong love of stone walls and ancient archaeological ruins, I decided to abandon my piled/falling stones for a different format. Still thinking of Ireland, I have placed the stones obliquely on the paper surface and applied layers of graffiti finding and losing the information and shapes of nature. This implies the hand of mankind and the impact we have on our surroundings.
In preparation for my upcoming show at the AVA Gallery in West Lebanon, I returned to an old subject of mine which is the stonewalls we are surrounded by in this part of the country. Built by intrepid people clearing land in order to try to scratch out a living in the short season with mostly acidic soil. Some of the soil by the rivers are much more fertile. But encompassing the fields no matter what the soil, are the stalwart stonewalls. When I moved to NH in 1982 I did numerous drawings of rocks. 30 plus years later I have returned to the subject but focusing more on the walls than the individual stones. My ‘Amorphous Stones’ encaustic painting of last summer won me this solo show this summer. I felt it appropriate to return to the subject and take it further.
This image is an ink drawing on Yupo paper. Wonderful substrate that frees up the hand and eye. Allows one to paint so spontaneously, add, subtract, erase and add again. The paper is plastic so nothing gets absorbed into it. I am photographing walls near me as well as some on Martha’s Vineyard which I recently visited with family. Amazing how different stonewalls can be. I am adding some green to represent moss but may take that a bit further in time. I do have to be careful of not getting too representational.
As usual, the turnout for the show in Stowe VT was excellent. West Branch Gallery does a stellar job with their openings. Live jazz, good food and drink and lots of people interested in the arts. Also, as usual, not too many sales but they seem to come later. I did sell one nest to repeat collectors which is always nice.
My next show will be in the coming summer months. Though I am not woking yet due to my hip surgery, I ruminate on what I would like to work on. I sense a need to combine encaustic and cold wax. I am still quite pleased with the ‘Amorphous Stones’. I am hoping to combine the cold wax moss paintings with the stones. Why not? That’s where one finds some of the most enticing moss. During my months of recovery I have been photographing some areas of moss when the sunlight hits them. I put some of the images on my dining room table and started to see a large wall piece of various disparate images all coming together. Mixed in are some closeup photos of stones with their monochromatic colors, cracks and fizzures.
2015 has been a year of polar opposites. Long stretches of pain for unknown reasons starting in January combined with flurries of work and studying. I lost momentum to keep up with the blog due mostly to the pain which after months was diagnosed with deteriorating hips. September 3rd I had the operation and as good people had told me, the morning after the pain was gone. I am recovering quickly I think because of how active I have always been and the years of yoga and stretching. Another month and I will be able to paint again. These quiet days I read and putter and go through things I have put off for years because I always chose to paint.
Last March I flew to WI to study cold wax with the remarkable Rebecca Crowell. I had to buy winter clothes because I was in FL with only summer clothes. The three days were well worth leaving sunny, balmy FL and learn as much as I could. I barely scratched the surface of possibilities of cold wax. I was to travel to Ireland this fall to have more instructions with R but the hip put an end to those plans. Maybe next year.
Mid July I decided to return to encaustic and do two large panels one for a planned solo show at West Branch and the other for a juried show at AVA Gallery which was being juried by Susan Strickler, CEO and Director of the Currier Art Museum. I was thrilled to hear that I got in. I was one of 50 artists out of over 300. I had a family wedding that weekend so I did not make the opening reception so I did not learn for several days that I had been awarded one of 3 Juror’s Recognition Awards. Privately, it was my reward for persevering in the studio regardless of relentless pain I was suffering from. At the same time I was working on the 5 foot panels of encaustic, I was able to complete 4 cold wax pieces called Vernal Pools.
The encaustic panels are based on an old favorite theme of mine of changing stones. In other words, ‘amorphous stones’. The author of the attached article writes well about my intentions. Part of the Recognition Award is a solo show at AVA Gallery next summer. I plan to continue to focus on the two themes of stones and water “Vernal Pools’ for that show as well.
‘Vernal Pools and Other Landscapes’ will be the title for my fall show at West Branch in Stowe. True to form, I decided to attempt a new medium. I love the transparency of encaustic but I also find it too static for some of the work I want to do. I flew from Naples this past March, crazy huh, and took a three day workshop with Rebecca Crowell who teaches her way of using cold wax and oil paint. I had been trying to teach myself while in FL but it eluded me for a couple of months and another since the workshop. Finally, I started to achieve the surface that I was looking for. It’s very organic looking like moss and rock. Applying many layers of cold wax and oil paint mixed together on a panel and then removing some with turpentine and paper. It has been a long 4 months but I feel a great relief that I may conquer this new medium. Again, it is a medium that suggests sculptural elements which always appeals to me. The same with encaustics. Unfortunately, this surface is difficult to photograph to show the depth in the layers. The show will have two large vertical panels of falling stones ‘Like Clouds, Stones Too Are Amorphous” , an old theme of mine, and several smaller works of the cold wax abstract landscapes.
Here I am settled once more onto my porch in my bungalow in sunny Naples. No, it is not the grand studio I have back home in NH but I am outside in a jungle like setting with birds chirping, butterflies fluttering by and wonderful breezes that blow my toxic materials away so I am not inhaling them. What more can a girl ask for in February?!
I have been here for a month and plan on two more months. Longer than usual. What is the rush home? Well, it’s not my little village. But since most of my friends leave for the winter, I might as well stay here until the ground thaws and the snow melts.
I am pleased that I heard from WB Gallery in Stowe VT yesterday. They have offered me a spot in Sept til Dec for a show. What a great time of year to show there. Fall, tourists and pre Xmas. I know that sounds so commercial but that is part of the game. I do my work, love what I do and then it has to sell. Third on the list. This past fall I worked primarily on birds’ nest and now I am starting a series of falling stones. This is a series I first worked on when I was still a sculptor. The title is ‘Like clouds, stones too are amorphous’. The last sculpture I ever did was in bronze and was a pile of stones that look like they are falling out of the sky. I am starting with 2 large panels with stones falling. Still have quite a ways to go. Do a lot of carving and drawing and scraping. Need them to feel like they are in motion and not a pile of potatoes.
In the meantime, I have signed up for a semi private workshop with remarkable Rebecca Crowell. I am flying to MN the first week of March. Had to go to Walmart’s to buy some cheap winter clothes since I have none here. I got it in my head that I want to learn cold wax which is so much more fluid than hot wax. Many encaustic painters do both mediums. She is a magnificent cold wax painter.
I seem to be working through the block I have had for several months. It helped to take a workshop with Tracy Spadafora. She is an excellent teacher. I drove to her studio in MA and we got right to work. No seconds wasted. What was alluding me was the transparency I was seeking. I had to start at ground zero as if I had not spent the past 5 years working with wax. I guess I developed some bad habits working so large. One class with her and it started to come together. I simplified my imagery. I was trying to get away from all imagery but I can’t seem to do that. So I am keeping it very simple . Like the single trees I used to do. I think I’ll go back to them as well.This is a snapshot taken with my phone so I will replace it later. These are 10 inch square pieces. Not finished yet. West Branch sold one last month that was 24 inches square. The hard part is yet to come. Layers with marks and bits of color. Not too much, though. I think I’ll do one with paper whites at the bottom. I hand draw into the wax and fill the etched lines with paint stick.Very simple. NO transfers and gimmicks. Just drawing and mark making.
Deadlines to meet which I now, with a sigh of relief, feel I will meet.
