Elise Wagner: Interview, PART 1

Elise Wagner
Portland, Oregon

(photos courtesy of Elise Wagner)

Lynette Haggard (LH): Can you share with my readers a little about yourself?
Elise Wagner: I have been a working artist for many years in Portland, Oregon.  My studio is at my house which I purchased in 2002 and is where I live and work along with my two cats, BoBo and Ozlo and a Goldendoodle named Cleopatra.  I share my house with my partner Dan Reid, a musician, real estate investor and dabbler in all that is creative.  He is enormously supportive and also helps me greatly in the studio by framing and photographing the work.

LH: Where did you grow up and what (if any) were there any early influences on your work?
Elise: I grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey.  I had easy access to museums in New York City growing up.  I found seeing the paintings of VanGogh, Monet and Seurat very intriguing at an early age.  There are some family influences.  My mother liked to draw and write poetry.  Her dad Salvatore was a house painter and wine maker from Albania.  I think I inherited my creativity and drive from both of my first generation immigrant grandfathers, Sal who was a house painter and wine maker and Frank who was a furniture maker from Germany. 

Magnetic Parallel

encaustic on birch panel

48" x 48"

LH: Where do you live now?
Elise: I have been living and working in Portland, Oregon for nearly 25 years.

LH: Did you receive any formal art training? If yes where and what did you major in?
Elise: I took drawing and art history classes at NYU and transferred to Portland State University in Portland, Oregon where I majored in Painting and Printmaking with a Minor in Art History.

LH: At what point in your life did you become interested in making art?
Elise: When I was about 4 or 5 I became very interested in drawing and coloring like most kids.  My mom began working at the Hudson County Library which enabled me to do art with other kids there.  I was always coloring or drawing as a little kid.  My parents helped encourage my interest by giving me pencil, watercolor and marker sets to draw with.  I began selling drawings of snoopy when I was in the sixth grade and created my own comic strip called “The Potato Heads”.  Later in high school, I directed intramurals and was fortunate to have a graduate of Cooper Union as an art teacher who got me interested in Art History.  He also encouraged me to begin entering competitions and go to the museums in New York more often.

Elise Wagner's Studio

LH: Was there a certain point when you decided you were primarily an artist?
Elise: Although I had always loved making art, my first love was dance.  I began dancing when I was six after being a kid model in New York. I began performing at eight and was in a local troupe by the age of thirteen I had a serious ambition to be a professional dancer.  One week before Christmas in 1982, my ambition was derailed by a head on collision with a drunk driver.  I smashed my face and knees and had to have multiple reconstructive surgeries as well as nine months of physical therapy.  The doctor’s told me that my knees would not be the same and discouraged me from pursuing dance as a career.

At this time I was a sophomore in high school.  While recuperating at home, my mom brought me art books from the library to draw from. Art does save lives, it helped me tremendously in my long recovery. When I went back to school, and since I could not take gym for the rest of my high school education, my art teacher arranged it so that I could take a two-hour course in art at the end of every Wednesday and Friday. This time exposed me learning more about photography, printmaking and oil painting as well as many visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with classmates.  I so wish I could find my teacher and thank him for the breadth of education and knowledge he gave me.  I went on to win a WNET-13 PBS competition that he encouraged me to enter.  My story is one that reflects the adage “when one door closes, another one opens”.  Making art opened itself to me and I have never looked back.

Cloudburst Plate, 1

encaustic on birch panel

10" x 10"

LH: Can you describe bit about your work in general.
Elise: Over the past fifteen years, my work has evolved and come to explore the relationship between science and art.  By combining images of astronomy and physics, I strive to reflect the seemingly illogical and arbitrary order inherent in today’s uncertain world through its many symbols. The texture, depth and complexity of the encaustic surfaces of my paintings often represent the great unknown and the celestial, while the scientific symbolism suggests the accurate and the quantifiable.

Painting has always been a good platform for me to negotiate the tensions between the real and the abstract, chaos and order, the unknown and the factual.  I do this with every layer of the surface, making the evolution of the painting its own past present and future. Daily studio practice is the narrative of the work, a process of making, reflecting researching and making again.

LH: What is your media?
Elise: My media was primarily oil painting and collage.  Now it is more encaustic with oil paint.  I discovered encaustic in 1993 and taught myself how to do it while pursuing my degree at Portland State University.

Studio Entrance

LH: What is your workspace like?
Elise: My workspace is very small and organized.  I moved from a 1,000 square foot warehouse into 450 square foot studio when I bought my house.  I have a desk in the window, journaling is a big part of my process and I do much of it there or on the sofa in the sitting area.  There is a drafting table for “dry work”, a small bar and library of art books, two large work tables, a portable folding table to work on large panels, an oil painting table, my “wax central” area with all my encaustic supplies and vent hood.  Everything in the studio is on wheels so that it can be both a classroom and a working studio.  It is a north facing studio with a decent amount of light.

Office and sitting area in Elise's studio

LH: Describe how you work in your studio. How do you get "in a groove" and what inspires you?
Elise: After handling the business of the day, walking the dog and getting my daily exercise (running or yoga), I usually have a little lunch and settle into the studio in the afternoon with a cup of coffee.  I walk around and reflect on what I did the day before. I work on several pieces at once, each one at a different stage, so I think about next steps, it’s very methodical that way. I work on whichever piece I feel compelled to work on in that moment.  I like the quiet in the studio as a way to greet the day.  When I’m ready to work and get into the groove, my ritual is to light some incense, turn on some inspiring music, and dance around while formulating ideas of what I’m going to do and get working. 

Two waxy work areas in Elise's workspace

LH: Do you have any web links/site/blog etc. you'd like to share that show your work?
Elise:  http://www.elisewagner.com as well as a like/fan page on Facebook. My encaustic paint line is available via www.wagnerencaustics.com

LH: Do you ever get stuck with your work and how do you remedy this?
Elise: I do get stuck with my work.  When this happens, I just choose to focus on something else, give myself a break, journal or draw, do some gardening or take in something new.  It is vital for the work that my life be balanced and not focused on working all the time.  Often, in order to invite the muse, I have to get out of town or go for a hike.  Sometimes, I’ll research the content I intend for my paintings or read about other artist’s or on the topic of being stuck. Marketing is a hobby of mine so, there’s always something to be done there.

LH: Do you have particular habits that you think support your art practice?
Elise: Journaling, reading and drawing is very important to my practice.  Inviting fellow artists come and see the work and get feedback is always very helpful after working in isolation for long periods. Also, continued engagement with the work.  There are days I just go in there and look around or rearrange things, I consider it all part of my practice and process.  This is where having a studio at home is invaluable.

LH: What are you reading right now?
Elise: I am reading Eat, Pray, Love, Wherever You Go There You Are and am also perusing a book entitled: Dark Cosmos in Search of Our Universe’s Missing Mass and Energy.  I say perusing because it is very dense reading.

Wagner studio, facing north

LH: Do you have other jobs other than making art?
Elise:  I teach workshops both in my studio and various institutions.  I manufacture and sell my paints Wagner Encaustics online worldwide, to my students and at local art supply stores in Portland, Oregon.

Making paint and teaching keeps me pretty busy.  People come from all over the country to take my workshops.  I never have to leave home AND, I even live behind a motel that my students often stay at!

LH: Do you have any upcoming shows that you'd like to mention?

Elise: My next solo show is in Portland at Butters Gallery this July.  Then after that, in November, I have another solo show at Hallway Gallery in Bellevue, WA-that completes 2010.  In the Spring of 2011, I have two solo shows opening simultaneously at Chase Gallery in Boston and Sordoni Gallery at Wilkes Barre University in Wilkes Barre, PA .

LH: What is your current work about? do you have photos you're willing to share on my blog?
Elise: My current work investigates the forces of solar flares, sun storms and the magnetic forces that they embody. I find it intriguing that the sun is so fragile and enormous and that all of our lives so depend on it. This  duality and the very violence of the image itself is fascinating to me.

I have gone about it in several ways, working large and small, through hand drawing stencils and also freehand painting with the wax. There is also a lot more oil paint and dry brush involved.

There will be twenty-two new paintings of various sizes in my July show at Butters in Portland. Some, but not all of the new work focuses on sun storms. The larger work ventures off into other abstract realms.

Creating a molten magma like texture with encaustic for these images of sun storms has created a somewhat accidental but symbiotic feel to the overall process of their making.

Sunstorm Table, 2010

encaustic on panel
28" x 24"

Detail of an Untitled Piece, 2010

encaustic on panel
12" x 12"

LH: Where would you like to be in 5 years as far as your art making?
Elise: I venture a break will be in order for me after my East Coast shows open around next May. I would like to do some overseas travel to fill me up so I can begin creating again.  I would also like to do a residency overseas or in the states.  I imagine I will continue to submit my work to galleries and apply for grants and competitions to help fund my pursuits.

READERS PLEASE NOTE: Part 2 of this interview will be published in early June, with some sneak preview images from Elise's show at Butters Gallery.