Lynette Haggard's Art Blog Weekly Artist Interview
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Nancy Natale in her studio |
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| Running Stitch, 2010 24”h x 66”w Encaustic, book parts, found metal, patinated metal, rubber, tacks, cardboard |
Nancy: I live in Easthampton in western Massachusetts (the forgotten side of the state). I’ve been living in western Mass. for 10 years. Easthampton was once a mill town and so there are a few old mill buildings around that are now studios and workspaces. My studio is in Eastworks, a building that once was home to Stanley Home Products.
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Cauldron, mid 1990s approximately 18”h x 12”w Found metal car part with caulk, tulle, dried flowers, foam rubber, tacks, thread, shells, key |
Nancy: I grew up in the Roxbury and Jamaica Plain sections of Boston. Later in life I lived in downtown Boston and Somerville, Mass. I was not interested in art and never took any art classes in high school because I majored in business. I was more interested in literature than art—especially fiction. In fact, I have a B.A. in English Literature. However, as I think about my current work, I can see that two early influences were sewing, that I learned from both my mother and father, and auto mechanics, that I learned from my father.
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Tingshas, mid 1990s 18"w x 14"h foam rubber, tacks, netting, dried flowers, found painted metal, shells, key, string |
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Tale of Shadows, 2009 21”h x 12”w encaustic, rubber, tacks, oilstick on 2 joined panels |
LH: At what point in your life did you become interested in art?
Nancy: I was a very late art bloomer. I had always been interested in crafty kinds of things but didn’t begin painting until I was in my mid-30s. It sort of came on me suddenly, and I had to go buy some paint and canvas boards and just try to capture the color I saw in the winter landscape. I knew nothing about it but was driven to do it. (It was sort of like Richard Dreyfus building a model of the mountain in his living room in Encounters of the Third Kind.)
I took it very slowly by first taking an adult ed course at the local high school, then a couple of evening courses at DeCordova Museum School, then a couple of courses at Mass. College of Art. Ultimately I put together a portfolio with the help of an artist friend and was accepted as a full-time B.F.A. student at Mass. College of Art (MassArt) at the age of 40. I majored in painting.
Nancy: I was a very late art bloomer. I had always been interested in crafty kinds of things but didn’t begin painting until I was in my mid-30s. It sort of came on me suddenly, and I had to go buy some paint and canvas boards and just try to capture the color I saw in the winter landscape. I knew nothing about it but was driven to do it. (It was sort of like Richard Dreyfus building a model of the mountain in his living room in Encounters of the Third Kind.)
I took it very slowly by first taking an adult ed course at the local high school, then a couple of evening courses at DeCordova Museum School, then a couple of courses at Mass. College of Art. Ultimately I put together a portfolio with the help of an artist friend and was accepted as a full-time B.F.A. student at Mass. College of Art (MassArt) at the age of 40. I majored in painting.
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Black Sun, 2009 24”h x 12”w encaustic, rubber, tacks, washers, oilstick, paintskin on panel |
LH: Was there a certain point in your life when you decided you were
primarily an artist?
Nancy: I guess that would be when I applied to and was accepted at MassArt. At the time I was divorced from my second husband (after having just switched teams) and living and working in the suburbs of Boston. I quit my job, sold my house and moved into the city so I would be closer to school. From then on, I considered myself primarily an artist although I never stopped working in business for income.
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Vertical 2, 2010 52”h x 16”w encaustic, patinated copper, tacks, beads, rubber, dried plant parts, oilstick, dirt |
LH: Can you describe a bit about your work in general?
Nancy: Coming into my own has been a long process. I really loved oil painting as soon as I tried it. That smell is an aphrodisiac for me. I went through all the genres until I got to geometric abstraction, but I was still not satisfied with my work. By the way, when I was at MassArt, in addition to painting, I became very interested in surface design on fabric, especially dyeing. I was also attracted to 3-D work such as ceramics and sculpture. There just wasn’t time enough for everything because I was so late out of the starting gate.
In the mid-90s I began making work that was more about construction than paint. I combined various materials on wooden supports and used a lot of tacks and black caulk. This is the work that I relate directly to what I’m doing now. Unfortunately, this work was not well received by anyone who was showing or buying art. To make some income, I began making acrylic paintings on ricepaper that sold very well through art consultants. In retrospect, making this corporate-art-consultant stuff was a bad move in terms of the development of my work. Having the corporate art market dry up has really benefitted me because I am not diverted from my path by creating something that is not satisfying to me just to make money.
Rochelle, 2005
30”x24”
30”x24”
Acrylic on ricepaper with collage
LH: What is your media?
Nancy: Seven or eight years ago I became interested in encaustic and took a 3-day course at R&F Paints. It has taken me this long to finally figure out how to use encaustic in a way that lets me integrate it into my personal expression. I combine encaustic with other materials to create semi-relief works on wood. Some of the other materials I incorporate in the work are old books, rubber, tacks, treated metal, cardboard, fabric, crocheted elements, beads, roots, fibers, paper, etc.
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Red Running Stitch, 2010 24”hx42”w encaustic, book parts, found metal, patinated metal, rubber, tacks, cardboard, matboard |
Nancy: For a long time my work was not about anything that I considered in a direct way other than maybe the formal ordering of elements, color, shape, etc. However, when my elderly mother started losing her memory a few years ago, I became very interested in the process of memory—how it shapes us as individuals, how we accumulate memories and how we lose them. Of course this touches on the passage of time and how things deteriorate. So my work is about the building up of elements in a process of accretion and the wearing away of things as time passes.
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Bandito, 2010 24”x24” encaustic, book parts, found metal, patinated metal, rubber, tacks, cardboard |
LH: Describe how you work in your studio.
How do you get “in a groove” ?
Nancy: Over the past couple of years (and after taking a wonderful course with Miles Conrad on Moving the Work Forward), I have started being a lot more organized about my work. I keep a notebook to jot down drawings and ideas that I have until something jells for me and I come up with an idea for a series. Then it’s a matter of working out how to make a few pieces in the series – developing my plan of attack for the look of the work and its construction. If I work like this, I am pretty much in a groove all the time.
When I’m trying to come up with ideas, I look at a lot of things and tear things out of newspapers and magazines. I also research online and try to figure out what appeals to me about certain things. They may be works of art or scenery or jewelry or clothing or whatever. When something sparks my interest, I think about how I could carry that out in my work and if there would be any meaning in it for me beyond the visual.
LH: Do you ever get stuck with your work and how do you remedy this?
Nancy: The current series that I’m working on (Running Stitch) is a perfect example of how I avoid getting stuck. There is a lot of preparation of materials, preparation of panels, assemblage of elements and finally painting. I love doing work like this because I can just walk into the studio and pitch in to a task. There is never any question about what to do. This is what makes me eager to get in there and work – when I don’t have to cast around for what’s next.
I do admit that when I feel really stuck, I avoid going to the studio. Suddenly staying home and reading a book sounds like a great idea. However, I know from experience that just going to the studio, fiddling with this and that, looking through my collection of magazine tearouts and my notebook of ideas is sure to get me going on something. Even if I just clean up some of my messes, I seem to clarify my thoughts and gear myself up for new work.
How do you get “in a groove” ?
Nancy: Over the past couple of years (and after taking a wonderful course with Miles Conrad on Moving the Work Forward), I have started being a lot more organized about my work. I keep a notebook to jot down drawings and ideas that I have until something jells for me and I come up with an idea for a series. Then it’s a matter of working out how to make a few pieces in the series – developing my plan of attack for the look of the work and its construction. If I work like this, I am pretty much in a groove all the time.
When I’m trying to come up with ideas, I look at a lot of things and tear things out of newspapers and magazines. I also research online and try to figure out what appeals to me about certain things. They may be works of art or scenery or jewelry or clothing or whatever. When something sparks my interest, I think about how I could carry that out in my work and if there would be any meaning in it for me beyond the visual.
LH: Do you ever get stuck with your work and how do you remedy this?
Nancy: The current series that I’m working on (Running Stitch) is a perfect example of how I avoid getting stuck. There is a lot of preparation of materials, preparation of panels, assemblage of elements and finally painting. I love doing work like this because I can just walk into the studio and pitch in to a task. There is never any question about what to do. This is what makes me eager to get in there and work – when I don’t have to cast around for what’s next.
I do admit that when I feel really stuck, I avoid going to the studio. Suddenly staying home and reading a book sounds like a great idea. However, I know from experience that just going to the studio, fiddling with this and that, looking through my collection of magazine tearouts and my notebook of ideas is sure to get me going on something. Even if I just clean up some of my messes, I seem to clarify my thoughts and gear myself up for new work.
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| One view inside Natale's Studio |
LH: What are you reading right now?
Nancy: I always have several books and magazines going at once. Currently I’m reading Leo and His Circle: The Life of Leo Castelli by Annie Cohen-Solal and also Spook by Mary Roach. Next on the list is Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why by Ellen Dissanayake.
LH: Do you have particular habits that support your art practice?
Nancy: I have my blog, Art in the Studio, that I think really helps me focus on looking at and analyzing art. Also, I read several blogs regularly and see what other people are doing, seeing and saying. Having a blog gives me more of a connection to other people outside of my own mini area.
LH: Do you have other jobs than making art?
Nancy: I do bookkeeping part time. Currently I have six part-time bookkeeping jobs (no exaggeration). I work two of the jobs at clients' offices (one full day and two half days) and the others at home, except for one that's just a few hours every couple of months at the client's office. In the afternoons of the two half days that I work, I visit my mother in the nursing home, making three full days outside the studio. That gives me three days a week in the studio and Sundays to lounge around and read the NY Times.
LH: What is your workspace like?
Nancy: I am lucky enough to have a truly fabulous studio that is less than a mile from my house, but the rent has increased so much that I have to work all those jobs to pay for it.
LH: Where would you like to be in 5 years as far as your art making?
Nancy: I would like to be making work that I enjoy and that challenges me and be showing regularly. Now that I finally get the sense that my work has come together and I have a cohesive body of work, I intend to pursue gallery representation. In five years I would like to have more than one gallery and be able to sell enough work that I could cut back on the part-time jobs – maybe three instead of six — ; )
My website: http://nancynatale.net
My blog: http://artinthestudio.blogspot.com
THANK YOU NANCY!!
Nancy: I am lucky enough to have a truly fabulous studio that is less than a mile from my house, but the rent has increased so much that I have to work all those jobs to pay for it.
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| Another view inside her studio |
Nancy: I would like to be making work that I enjoy and that challenges me and be showing regularly. Now that I finally get the sense that my work has come together and I have a cohesive body of work, I intend to pursue gallery representation. In five years I would like to have more than one gallery and be able to sell enough work that I could cut back on the part-time jobs – maybe three instead of six — ; )
My website: http://nancynatale.net
My blog: http://artinthestudio.blogspot.com
THANK YOU NANCY!!
