Artists in Their Studios: Catherine Nash - Interview by Artist/Curator Sergio Gomez

 https://www.amplifiedartnetwork.com/artists-in-their-studios-catherine-nash/

Chicago artist and curator Sergio Gomez, interviewed me and posted it today~ Exciting!! Not to mention his amazing artwork, Gomez is a career mentor and avid writer/blogger. I think he posted it in six places! I'm greatly honored! Here is one of them linked below. 
My new installation entitled "Botanical Reveries" just put up will open (no reception) on the 10th of August. Will post more details later. But you can see some images in the interview.

Artists in Their Studios: Catherine Nash

August 6, 2020Sergio GomezInterviews

One-on-One with Catherine Nash, Tucson, Arizona, USA

What is your work about?

Beauty. Serenity. Compassion. Nature. The poetics of landscape. A particular timelessness. The nature of Being. I create art that responds to the natural world, reflecting a spiritual and philosophical relationship with the environment. The terrain, aesthetics and cultures of Japan, memories of the rich gradations and spaciousness of Scandinavian summer night skies, my experiences with Native American friends and explorations of the southwestern desert wilderness: these are my influences and what informs my artwork.

Do you have a studio routine, strategy or ritual that helps you get in the creative zone?

I work best with a deadline. If I don’t have a show or a gallery deadline, I impose it upon myself. I always leave something to finish the next day.

How has the pandemic affected your art practice?

I have been 100% unemployed since mid March. My gallery closed. No teaching. My selling of period wardrobe to film/TV costume designers dead stopped. I had prepared for an emergency financially and have some backup resources, so I could “relax” into it. Once I got a bit more accustomed to the unknown, I eased into this new normal. In the studio every single day, I use deadlines to keep me focused and perhaps sane. A big shift is that I have more time to read, research…and dream. It is in the “dream state” that I receive new inspiration.

Catherine Nash An Inner Astronomy, 2018 Mixed Media Installation

What is your greatest reward, memory, accomplishment or proud moment as an artist?

I am still greatly honored to have received the “Lumies Artist 2015” award for southern Arizona, “Catherine Nash – Artist Award:  awarded to an individual artist that has demonstrated excellence, originality and ingenuity in the local arts and culture sector; arts ‘luminaries’ who have made a profound impact on the lives and communities of Southern Arizonans."

 Perhaps most meaningful is that I was nominated and then voted for by peers and major arts professionals in Southern Arizona. So grateful and honored!

What is one thing you MUST have in your studio?

Soft Music. Incense. No phone/no laptop. Solitude. Quietude. Whoops! That is more than one thing. So perhaps, “conducive environment” is the one thing.

Catherine Nash Breathing Under Water, 2020 Encaustic painting 12”w x 18”h x 1”d

What would you tell your future self about being an artist right now?

“You are right to remain true to yourself, continuing to create work from your core, your deepest reserves, your poetic self. You know it centers and grounds you. Embody peace. Who knows where the art world is going? You cannot care about how you fit in…it is most vital to listen to and honor creative muse….and then create!

After more than 4 decades of continuous, focused art making, TRUST. Trust the conversation that is without word: an intuitive conversation with paper, wax, branches, brush, pen, saw and twine. So, future self, trust thyself! Stay true!”

How has the Art NXT Level Academy improved your art career?

A new member with one month under my belt, I joined to gain a clearer understanding of the changes within the professional art world. I have completed the “Road Map for Established Artists”. I’m almost done with the “How to Sell Art Online Post Covid-19” section and more. I’ve gotten a lot of affirmations about my own marketing and have also learned a great deal – about the potential of social media as promotion for instance. I learned that some things I don’t want to pursue, yet for the most part, I am trying to integrate these innovative new ideas.

Catherine Nash Botanical Reveries, 2020 Mixed Media Installation

What is the best art career advice you’ve ever received?

Dutifully carrying my portfolio into Manhattan at age 18, both advertising artists separately advised me to “Make art that follows your heart and spirit.” Little did my well-meaning father anticipate that the two interviews he set up for me would both end up with such advice.

“What is the worst thing that can happen here? Will you die?” : my own bolstering mantra used numerous times, to combat fear. It got me onto a plane to Europe with a 1-way ticket and my portfolio at age 22. Lived in Paris for a year and a half.

Catherine Nash An Inner Astronomy, 2018 Mixed Media Installation

Links:

Blog at http://papermakingresources.blogspot.com

Represented by the Bowersock Gallery in Provincetown, MA https://bowersockgallery.com

www.catherinenash.com

www.authenticvisualvoices.com

www.papermakingresources.com

Sergio Gomez

Sergio Gomez is a Chicago-based artist entrepreneur, curator for the Zhou B Art Center, owner of 33 Contemporary Gallery, art career coach, and co-founder of the Art NXT Level Academy. Follow him on Instagram @sergiogomezart

A Tucson Museum of Art panel discussion: What curators seek~

Current exhibition thru June 12th, 2011 at the Tucson Museum of Art,
Tom Philabaum: Precarious Rocks

Lawrence Gipe, No. 7 from 1962 (Manchester), 2010, oil on canvas, 65” x 80”

Approved Images: Lawrence Gipe, currently exhibiting at the Tucson Museum of Art thru June 5th, 2011

Robert and I attended a talk this past Thursday evening at the Tucson Museum of Art: curators Anne Ellegood, Hammer Museum (who has just curated the Arizona Biennial 2011), Lauren Rabb, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Brooke Grucella, Joseph Gross Gallery (UA). Chief Curator Julie Sasse of Tucson Museum of Art led the panel discussion which investigated how curators make their selections for exhibitions and museum collections.

It was interesting to note the differences in curatorial approach between that of a university museum curator and an economic based gallery director.

In response to questions posed by Sasse, the participating panel corroborated on almost every point. They maintain lists of artist names which they may track for years. Anne Ellegood of the Hammer includes artists whose work "troubled or confused" her, images that strike her and make her think. When creating a new idea for a show and considering the juxtaposition of particular artists, Ellegood examines and asks, "What are they doing that resonates with each other?"

The Hammer Museum is part of UCLA and Senior Curator Anne Ellegood is particularly moved and excited by their current show entitled All of This And Nothing, the sixth in the Hammer Museum’s biennial invitational exhibition series.

"All of This And Nothing" exhibition installation. In the foreground:
Evan Holloway
Emperor Ideal
2010, Brass diptych. 41 x 39 1/2 x 1 3/4 in. and 102 x 96 x 60 in.

In the Hammer Museum's publicity about the exhibition they write:

"The first major exhibition at the Hammer to be curated jointly by the museum’s chief curator, Douglas Fogle and senior curator Anne Ellegood, this exhibition presents a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, sound, performance, and the moving image. The artists explore fundamental questions about our experiences of existing in the world and in the potential for art to reveal the mysterious and the magical. Reaching beyond exclusively visual references, many works incorporate aspects of music, literature, science, mathematics, sound, or time into their subject matter or structure. This group of inter-generational artists closely considers the process of art-making in their work by playing with scale, the ephemeral quality of their materials, the nature of time and language, and the relationships between the objects that they create. Their work explores ideas of disappearance and reemergence, of shifting visibilities, as well as the beauty found in the everyday. These artists resist notions of autonomy and completeness in favor of openness to multiple interpretations over time. For them the value of the work resides more in the process of its making than in the resulting objects. "

Ellegood goes on 4-5 studio visits every Friday to see new work and have conversations directly, striving to create a relationship with an artist over time, and considers herself to be an artist advocate. Ellegood claims that art fairs have gotten more homogenized lately and, although she still attends numerous fairs, she finds them tedious and overwhelming, preferring a more direct approach through the studio visits. It is "impossible to get on [her] private list" through just a cold call so to speak: Ellegood finds new artists via recommendations from other artists and colleagues in the curatorial field.

All three panelists agreed that they consistently look at shows in alternative and gallery spaces, stating that to be considered for a museum show, an artist has to have a proven track record. They all felt it was vital for an artist to have a currently updated web site.

Lauren Rabb of the University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) consistently peruses the ads from Art News and Art Forum in her search for new artists and for inspiration for exhibition ideas. Discussing the UAMA exhibition that just closed, The Aesthetic Code: Unraveling the Secrets of Art, Rabb emphasized that she curates specifically for the University of Arizona audience, creating exhibitions that tie into curriculum in varied departments on campus.

LA based artist Melanie Stimmell, who co-founded the Street Painting Society and the Street Painting Academy, creating Cream and Crumpets with Marie as part of the UAMA's The Aesthetic Code.

Certainly, exhibiting within a university gallery or museum offers an artist an opportunity to express ideas that explore a deeper resonance, creating with a unique non-monetary influence.

Brooke Grucella, curator for the UA's Joseph Gross Gallery, is particularly proud of a recent show she curated of Gregory Euclide's, entitled real, unnatural and unsustainable. Euclide utilized the entire gallery space to create an installation that explored Tucson's populous growth in a landscape that lacks abundant water resources. Check out Euclide's site for great shots of this pertinent work. "Euclide’s work physically references the tension between our wants and our need to preserve the natural world.

below:
Gregory Euclide, installation 2010
real, natural and unsustainable
Joseph Gross Gallery, University of Arizona



Etiquette for submitting exhibition proposals was discussed: Include a thorough description that refers to the site specific; Consider utilizing Google SketchUp to create a 3d mock up; Include a realistic budget as well as the to-be expected résumé, artist statement and images.

The Hammer Museum regularly works with artists through Hammer Projects, "a series of exhibitions that focuses primarily on the work of emerging artists, and reflect the Museum’s commitment to contemporary art by providing international and local artists a laboratory-like environment to create new work, or to present existing work in a new context."

Perhaps most interesting to Robert and I, were the final garnered bits of information that came from Julie Sasse at the end of the panel discussion. She paraphrased from a lecture by David Pagel, a critic. This generated more additions from the panelists. Here is a list of attributes that an artist whose work catches their eye embodies. The work is:

• insightful
• sincere/passionate
• skeptical/dark/probing
• not necessarily about craftsmanship
• visually compelling
• investigation with materials
• experimentation with play
• does it "play well with others"? [curatorially]
• does it move me?
• does it make me think?
• does it make me dig deeper?

The more I have thought about it, the more I feel that for my personal list of attributes, I would have to add that a work must embody:

• craftsmanship seamlessly merged with content
  
• beauty

Beauty as in the Japanese aesthetic shibui - a beauty with inner implications, as described by Soetsu Yanagi in The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty: shibui "..is not a beauty displayed before the viewer by its creator; creation here means, rather, making a piece that will lead the viewer to draw beauty out of it for himself...beauty that makes an artist of the viewer."

In our discussion afterwards, Robert and I agreed that some beginning artists don't realize that the creating of art that resonates deeply can take years of deep investigation and output. A focused inner search and a finding a personal vision evolves over a long period of time. Rather than trying to make works that fit with current trends or for a specific curator's aesthetic, an artist should be seeking and excavating personal imagery. I also think we all need to come up with our own list of attributes that art that magnetizes must embody.

Creating with an authentic voice.


[Every year, we offer workshops in our Tucson studio that assist in developing a personal body of work. Catherine teaches Expressing Your Authentic Voice: Making Art with a Personal Vision and Robert teaches photographers Finding your Personal Vision.]

an ocean of green and wild things...

Catherine Nash
Reflected Constellation, encaustic painting & oil stick, 20” X 10 1/4”(vertical diptych) above left
Before Dawn, encaustic painting & oil stick, 16 1/2” X 24” (four panels) above right
Quest, encaustic painting & oil stick, 12” h X 15”w above center

I'll be giving a lecture entitled Wax and the Artist Book at the 4th Annual Encaustic Painting Conference at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA as well as teaching a workshop post conference that integrates the book arts with encaustic. It is an exciting opportunity full of learning, sharing and networking...my third summer participating~ Nearby, I'm honored to be included in an exhibition entitled The Luminous Landscape at the Kensington-Stobart Gallery in Salem, MA, which opens on June 10th from 5-8pm. (three encaustic paintings above will be included) Thanks to Julie Shaw Lutts who organized this show: I find her assemblage artist books just incredible. The artists in this collective and exhibition are truly inspirational to me: check out the paintings and encaustic monoprints of Alexandre Masino who has posted links to all the artists in his blog, so explore!
He writes: "The collective comprises of 18 artists working with encaustic and the rich subject of landscape painting. This coming show is curated by Sandy Heaphy, gallery director at the Kensington Stobart Gallery, Julie Shaw Lutts, Linda Cordner, Janet Bartlett Goodman, and Charyl Weissbach. Last year, the collective published a beautiful intimate catalogue on our 2009 show; you can order it online here."

Right after I get back, Rob will leave to teach at the historic Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg TN for a week of inspiring photography, such a rich and wonderful place of creative inspiration, nestled up to the beautiful Smoky Mountains.


Catherine Nash
Two Trees
Encaustic painting
6” X 6”

We will find our moments in nature this summer, give ourselves a chance to slow down and live life more quietly, more "Thoreauesque" I like to say. Spending time w/o TV, w/o internet deep in an ocean of green and wild things where the creative mind can dream and express itself. It is hard to disconnect and I resist it. From the other side though, I remember how to breathe...