Artists and Instructors #3: A Profile of Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson

The art of collage has been working its way into the fine art world’s consciousness for almost a century now, but there still remains a few more miles to go before the medium will be truly accepted as an equal with the well-known forms of painting. Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson is a contemporary artist who is helping to bridge that gap through her innovative combinations of traditional painting techniques with glued on papers to create what she calls, aptly enough, “Paper Paintings.”

Nelson comes from a background in advertising design and is co-owner of a graphic design firm in addition to her fine art work. She currently resides in Florida, by way of New England, with a stint at Syracuse University to get her B.F.A. Although she had been doing art all of her life, Elizabeth did not enter the world of collage until 2005, when her first paper painting, Looking In on Jane, won best of show at the Orlando Visual Artists League. Since then, she has been exhibiting regularly and traveling to teach workshops that explore her innovative style. Earlier this year she published a book titled “Collage: An Overview to the Creative Process,” firmly establishing herself as a fixture in the collage world and helping to make the deeper concepts of the medium more accessible to the general public.

Nelson’s Paper Paintings are figurative in nature, meaning they have a recognizable subject and portray something that actually exists in the world. She is most well known for portraits of animals: cows and other farm animals, birds (especially peacocks) and dogs being common themes. These artworks use the traditional compositional structures of portraiture to convey the personality and uniqueness of the subject, allowing the viewer to really connect with them. Other subjects include flowers, fruit and other plant life, musical instruments, plus the occasional still life and contemporary genre scenes.

The appearance of these paintings is much like the modern use of acrylic paints in a Pop Art context: bright, saturated colors alternately clashing and harmonizing with each other in a flattened pictorial space with bold, thick brushstrokes that convey aliveness and motion. Indeed, these artworks begin their lives as standard acrylic paintings, as Elizabeth uses her skills to create simple underpaintings of the scenes before working them over in her own special way.

The originality of the work becomes apparent the closer one gets. As the visual field focuses on details, the viewer realizes that many of what appeared initially to be strokes of paint applied with a brush are in fact cut and torn strips of paper glued to the surface of the support.

Elizabeth draws her collage materials from a variety of sources: decorative papers, both colored and printed with designs, magazines, newspapers and other printed type pages, personal memorabilia (that first piece, Lookin In on Jane, was inspired by a box of old documents given to her by her father), and anything else that crosses her path that might look visually appealing. These found objects exist within the artwork primarily for their compositional possibilities, and the exact nature of the paper, or anything written on it, may or may not have any relevance to the subject of the painting.

Whereas in the original collages of Picasso and Braques a piece of oilcloth printed with a chair caning pattern would stand in for a painted chair, or an actual page from a newspaper would be used instead of painting the newspaper, Nelson seems to be more interested in how the visual aspect of things that we see every day can be turned on their heads and used to create something totally different than their actual form. Thus, snippets from a magazine article become the foliage of a tree in the background and photos of people and places can become the spots on the side of a cow. The resulting effect simultaneously establishes the time and place where the paintings were created, while also tearing apart the images familiar to that time and place and using them to create something more fundamental.

Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson will be here at The ART School at BINDERS for her Paper Paintings workshop July 16th-18th.

Artists and Instructors at BINDERS, #2: A Conversation with J.Z.Torre

BINDERS: The subject of your upcoming workshop at BINDERS, "Impressionist Paintings from Photos," is unusual. Tell us a bit about the theory behind this workshop and the relationship between photography and Impressionism.

J.Z.Torre: It may come as a surprise to some that artists have been painting from photographs since the invention of photography in the 1830s in France. Monet, Degas, Gauguin, Lautrec, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and many other Impressionists and Post-Impressionists used photos as templates to make paintings. In the 1860s, as the medium became easier to use and less expensive, it became an amateur hobby. Many artists owned cameras and they used photos as an alternative to sketching. Photography also changed their understanding of light, possibly because early prints resulted in high contrast blocks of light and dark, not detailed half-tones. Also, by emulating the angular tilt of popular photos, and the novel way they cropped off heads and limbs, the Impressionists gained yet another way to rebel against the Academy. We might even say that photography caused the Impressionist revolution in art.

BINDERS: Most artists would associate the Impressionist painting style with plein-air work done on- site, but you maintain that work of equal quality can be created using photographs as reference material.

J.Z.Torre: Yes, painting outdoors certainly was a cornerstone of the Impressionist movement. However, when painting en plein-air, shifting shadows and the changing color of light can be major obstacles. With a few reference photos, a quick sketch and color notes however, they could complete the works later in their studios. And let’s not forget that the Impressionist didn’t only paint on-site landscapes. ConsiderMary Cassette’s interiors with babies, Cezanne’s fruit bowls and interiors, and Degas’s ballet dancers. In my workshop I will show and tell and demonstrate everything I’ve learned about how the Impressionists made paintings -- their color palettes, their brush and knife techniques, their use of photography and their vision of the world -- which continue to be the most popular paintings in the history of art.

BINDERS: Tell us how you got interested in art. When did you make the decision to pursue painting as a career?

J.Z.Torre: How I got started in art is a pretty common story, not at all unusual. Briefly, as a boy in Brooklyn I liked to draw, and I would copy the cartoonists that drew Mad and EC comics. In high school I took a few art courses, and my teachers got me to visit the major art museums, such as MoMA, the Metropolitan and Guggenheim. But I was interested in lots of other things too, like rock and roll instead of Rembrandt. So I joined the Navy right after high school.

BINDERS: How did you break into the advertising business?

J.Z.Torre: I graduated from Florida State University with a BS degree in advertising. As a result I morphed from copying Mad comics into a Mad Men-era copywriter with a visual sensibility, and later I was creative director at a few top ad agencies in the southeast. Finally, about ten years ago, I decided the time to get back to art. So I bought some art supplies and learned how to paint in oils and acrylics. I’ve been learning ever since.

BINDERS: In advertising you won awards for your creative work. Does the aesthetic of the bold, message-driven image that is so prevalent in advertising enter into your compositions in any way?

J.Z.Torre: Advertising is everywhere, so I think it shapes everybody’s perception of the world, not only mine. Other visual influences are movies, graphic design and computerized animation, to name just a few. It’s inescapable! On an average day the average person is bombarded by over a thousand advertising messages -- commercials, ads in magazines and newspapers, signage, logos, pop-ups, the list goes on. Advertising is part of our world, so naturally it shows up in our art. But the reverse is also true: advertising repackages everything that comes from the art world.

BINDERS: What does it mean to be a “contemporary” realist? And tell us why your art has been described having a “sense of humor."

J.Z.Torre: Well, basically, as a modern day artist who paints pictures that refer to the real world, I guess that makes me a “contemporary realist.” And about any “sense of humor,” I do hope that viewers find my work fun to look at. I don’t try for laugh-out-loud-funny, of course -- just enjoyable, interesting and occasionally beautiful. Whenever possible I try to tell an amusing little story too. For example, the shoelace untied in my “Executive Decision,” and the 26-cent tip on the lunch counter in “Neighborhood Eatery,” and the topsy-turvy skew of “Head Over Heels.” Hopefully they evoke some tiny smile in a viewer’s mind.

BINDERS: Aside from the contemporary subjects that you paint, you also draw upon some very traditional motifs: the Tuscany landscapes and the flowers come to mind. Are there sources from the past that you draw on for inspiration?

J.Z.Torre: I feel both humbled and inspired when I think about the many wonderful paintings that artists have created over the past six centuries since the Renaissance. There is just so much for me to learn from their compositions, methods and formulas. As a result, I give myself the freedom to work in any style and medium I choose. For years I’ve been fascinated by Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. The beauty and power of their imagery, and their inventive techniques of paint handling, are well worth emulating even today. Those Impressionists were truly the “contemporary realists” of their own time, I feel. Perhaps I should identify myself as a “contemporary realist with an Impressionist accent.”

BINDERS: As a working portrait painter, how do you approach the idea of depicting a person's face? Do you rely solely on the physical attributes or do you look for ways to inject personality into the work? What advice would you have for people who are just getting started as portrait painters?

J.Z.Torre: A successful fine art portrait painting should depict a person’s “true-likeness” -- face, flesh-tones and personality -- in a such a way that is flattering, but not too flattering! For people interested in learning traditional portraiture, my first suggestions is join an educational group like the Portrait Society of Atlanta, where they will find lots of information, demonstrations and supportive artist friends. My second suggestion, study the remarkable virtuosity of John Singer Sargent -- his work goes back a hundred years yet it remains the gold standard against which all other fine art portraits are measured even today. Third, attend a workshop for portrait painting, then another workshop, and another. Learning about art is an art in itself.

To see examples of his paintings visit J.Z.Torre’s website.

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Artists and Instructors at BINDERS, #1: A Conversation with Anne Elser

BINDERS is privileged to host workshops and classes with instructors like Anne Elser, whose depth of knowledge and level of craft skills are exceeded only by her accessibility and sense of play.

If you've ever been in the store in the evening during one of her calligraphy or bookmaking classes, you may have heard bursts of laughter coming out of the gallery where her students are learning new forms of artistic expression and having a great time. We catch up with Anne this week and find out a bit about what motivates her to teach in her unique style and how she relates to her craft.

BINDERS: Tell us a bit about where you're from.

Anne: I'm from Atlanta. When I was about three my parents moved down from the north and got a little house in the suburbs, Dunwoody, back in '71, and about ten days after they moved in my brother was born. They just moved out of that house last year!

BINDERS: As an artist, what do you think about the scene in Atlanta?

Anne: Actually, I'm just now re-emerging into the artist community. There will be a show in March at the Kai Lin Art Gallery. Yu-Kai Lin has this new gallery where they do an accelerated show cycle and he works with new and emerging artists. I met him through my bookmaking and calligraphy classes and started selling some handmade books at his gallery. After a few rounds of therapy I reached a place where I started painting again. The show is called "Grace", it's a group show with three women artists, and I'm doing a series of eight paintings about enlightenment featuring very ordinary domestic objects and images, along with some books that have painted covers. So it's like all the skills and types of art that I've learned are coming together into one person and one career. It's amazing!

BINDERS: When you were in art school, what were you studying?

Anne: I studied painting and ceramics, then after school I moved out to Albuquerque, New Mexico, because I figured I liked Georgia O'Keefe paintings so why not? I did a few shows there and then things just petered out. I mean back then, I graduated in '91, the art schools spell-checked your resume and wished you well and we all followed the stereotype of the starving, mentally challenged artist, but it doesn't have to be that way!

BINDERS: Since that time, you've become very involved in calligraphy and bookmaking, which you didn't study in school. How did that come about?

Anne: I lived in Albuquerque for about three years, teaching art classes for kids (which I love!), but the pay scale and the pace of life out there is just too slow and low and I didn't really have any life skills anyway, so I moved back to Atlanta and my parents generously put me through grad school at the Portfolio Center, where I studied advertising and graphic design, initially thinking it was kind of a sell-out, but I didn't care because I was tired of being poor! The Portfolio Center was a fabulous experience. They teach you how to market creativity, which is a wonderful skill to have, so I was able to market anything after that - most importantly myself! I started teaching at the Portfolio Center right after I graduated, got really great job here in the city at a small advertising firm where I worked for seven years. At the end of the seven years I met and married my husband and we moved back to Dunwoody where I grew up and bought a house. Then my son, Anton, was born (he's three now), and I left the firm and started teaching full time at Portfolio Center, six classes per week. My first calligraphy job was my own wedding! I'd taken a class from Carol Gray at Callenwolde. I got into bookmaking when I audited a class at the Portfolio Center taught by Michael Goodman, who is a wonderful bookmaker here in Atlanta. So that's how I got started and it was about two years ago that I called over here to BINDERS and said that I'd noticed they had fine art classes but no calligraphy or craft classes. The rest is history!

BINDERS: What kind of classes are you teaching at Portfolio Center? Do you teach bookmaking there?

Anne: I did teach a couple of bookmaking classes there, but I've incorporated the craft into a class called Production, for the first quarter students, just to introduce them to the joy of actually making things. The Production class at P.C. used to be about making a perfect white box with perfect bevelled edges, but that just wasn't my style. Maybe if it was a pink box... That's why I bring them over here to BINDERS and say "If you're going to make a perfect box it might as well be fun!"

BINDERS: You said your first calligraphy job was for your wedding. Was there something about that particular experience that made you want to start teaching calligraphy?

Anne: Calligraphy was something I knew very little about. Once I got the job out of grad school I decided I was going to take a yoga class, a tap class and a calligraphy class - I quit smoking, I started knitting, it was just that kind of time. But calligraphy is a very metered, measured, mastered sort of craft. It's like yoga, very meditative, and yet you've got to learn the rules for each hand before you can go crazy, which is what I'm doing now. The first ten minutes of that first calligraphy class I was convinced that I wasn't going to like it. I mean, you had this white pad of paper and guide sheets and everything had to be just so. I just thought 'oh well, that's $120 out the window, but it's OK." Then, by the end of the class, I loved it! You get into a rhythm of making marks over and over again, then threading those marks into letters and words, and then you can write anything you want. It's just another way to visually interpret a beautiful, or achingly sad, idea.

BINDERS: What drew you to take the bookmaking class from Michael Goodman? Was it part of that same time period?

Anne: That was later. Three months after my son was born, I went back to teaching. I'd had a very difficult third trimester in the pregnancy and had to be in the hospital and on bed-rest a lot. I was so weak I couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs without getting tired! So when I went back to teaching I also wanted to do something for myself and I thought Michael's Wednesday night class would be perfect because I love sewing and needlework and paper and it was like all those things rolled into one. I took the class right alongside the students I was teaching in other classes. It was really therapeutic, by the time the class was over the stairs were no problem! It was a healing experience.

BINDERS: What kind of students do you get in your bookmaking classes here at BINDERS?

Anne: Mostly women. I think there have been like two guys in the past, but they can range in age from late '70s to early 20's, the ready-for-graduate-school type of person. It's funny though, the first two nights of any class that I teach here I'm the only one talking and everyone's really quiet, watching the demos, and then all it takes is for me to make one error and have to say "Oh wait everybody, go back to step two," and then we start laughing and talking and by the end of the six week course we all know each other pretty well. All of these classes are treats, they're a form of self-love for anyone who takes them on. We talk a lot about life.

Anne Elser will be starting a new series of bookmaking and calligraphy classes during the 4th week of February, 2010. Check The ART School at BINDERS schedule online to get more information and sign up, or call the store and reserve your space over the phone!

Visit the BINDERS website at www.bindersart.com!

Get Real! Realistic Portrait Painting with Marvin Mattelson

Marvin Mattelson, the par-excellence, award-winning classical oil portrait artist, will lead a Realistic Portrait Painting Workshop at BINDERS, July 6 -18, Monday through Saturday, 10am-5pm, for two consecutive weeks. The complete 12-day workshop also includes five evening lectures by Marvin.

The workshop fee of $1800 includes all lectures (schedule below) or $900 to audit all workshop sessions and lectures without painting in class.

Workshop registration is limited so sign up now to paint or to audit.

If you want to truly elevate the realism of your portrait painting skills, this is your opportunity. Marvin will devote approximately half of the Workshop sessions to demonstrating exactly what it takes to paint life-like portraits and how to incorporate these methods into your own personal approach and style.

Special Lecture Series by Marvin Mattelson
All lecture are included in the workshop fees. Lecture times are 6-8:30pm, and are open to the public at the cost of $50 per lecture.

• Monday, July 6: "Everything I know about Painting I learned at the Met" -- An Introductory Slide Lecture outlining the historical precedents for the ideas set forth in Marvin’s Workshop.
• Tuesday, July 7: Color Theory
• Wednesday, July 8: Color Mixing & Palette Set-up
• Monday, July 13: Modeling Factors: Turning the Form
• Wednesday, July 15: Marketing and Promotion

For more information about Marvin Mattelson, and to view some of his commissioned portraits, visit his website.

Visit the BINDERS website at www.bindersart.com!

My Teaching Method and Philosophy by Charles Y. Walls

I teach because artists who want to paint in a representative manner need to understand the visual language. My approach to teaching is based on knowledge passed down from artist to artist and I teach from that background of good instruction I received in New York.

Art is not magic and great art does not just happen. My oil painting class is not for the art student who wants social time or fun time. My class is designed for the student who is tired of going to class and not learning anything, or learning very little. Art can be taught.

After years of frustration after completing my art degree, I went to New York to study and found the training I needed. And so I understand the artistic hunger for good instruction and I don’t waste time in my class with unnecessary gimmicks or tricks. I teach the fundamentals that all artists need and can use regardless of style or subject matter. I do not teach my students to copy what is before them but rather to respond to, to interpret, the subject.

I use the still life and live models to teach my students to see and think in an artistic manner and to develop their aesthetic taste. Observation from life, not photos, is how your eyes, your mind, and your hand can develop artistic honesty.

Click here to sign up for Charles' upcoming classes!



Visit our website at www.bindersart.com!