Encaustic Photography, Confidence, and Cats

I’ve got beeswax on the brain.

I can’t stop thinking about beeswax. This morning I hung up this wee owl encaustic block I made a couple of weeks ago for Beacon Open Studios. Using a photo I took a long time ago, I mounted a print onto a wooden panel I’d painted black and then brushed it with a melted mixture of beeswax and resin, which gives photos an ethereal light—sort of like the “glow” feature in camera apps. It’s hanging above my desk under Sara Pulver's painting of a plover and serves as a reminder to myself that learning encaustic photography has been a complete game-changer for my artistic process—and my confidence.

I’ll be writing more about this shift (and some fantastically exciting news on the horizon), but for now this snapshot is a glimpse into how my world is evolving in ways that make my heart race. I want reminders all around me: I made that! With my hands! And you know what? I’m good at it! It feels weird to say that out loud, but my god, what am I waiting for? I’m really good at it. You hear that, asshole brain? I🤌am🤌good🤌at🤌this. Like, for real.

(I got a text today from a woman who bought a couple of my pieces last weekend. She wants the big one, the one of the pink blossoms in the gaudy gold frame. I never thought would sell! While I’m a little sad to see it go, that money will go toward materials for my next encaustic project. It’s happeninggggg….)

There’s a small feather in the plover painting’s frame, left by a house sparrow a few years ago when he managed to crawl into our guest room/office through a gap around the air conditioner. Clarence, our resident ginger chonk, saw it happen before I shooed him out of the room, and now he sits there almost every day, waiting for it to happen again. (That thing about orange cats sharing just one brain cell? Can confirm. Clarence has been on the waiting list his entire life.) I was able to guide the sparrow toward an open window and he flew away, thank goodness. Clarence, well, he marches to the beat of his own very dumb drum.

P.S. My work is on view at Trax Espresso Coffee Shop at 1 East Main Street in Beacon, NY and will be through July. If you’re in the area, stop by for some local art and the best iced latte you’ve ever had.

P.P.S. The saw-whet owls are specimens at the Bershire Museum in Pittsfield, MA.