People & Places: Toby Sisson, Kelly Sheppard Murray & AJ Grossman
First, we make the paint. Next, we watch in awe at the boundless creativity you bring to it. Over the next two weeks, we take a moment to recognize artists working with our materials at all different stages of their life in the arts. We've decided to see what's happening around the United States by region, and also beyond our borders.
We began the first part of this series by featuring artists from the North, East, and South. Next week we'll look at the West, Midwest, and someone from overseas. We hope you are as inspired as we are!
TOBY SISSON / NORTH
Toby Sisson's home and studio practice are located in Providence, Rhode Island. Toby earned her M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and is Associate Professor and Director of the Studio Art Program at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. In addition to drawing, painting and printmaking, Sisson’s areas of specialization include community-based service learning and collaborative public art projects. Her creative research focuses on issues of history, place and identity within the context of race and ethnicity.
Toby’s Deconstructed American series uses the word ‘American’ as a visual collage element. Repeatedly print, cut, and recombined, the letters form multifaceted patterns as fragments are arranged to align or contrast. In this way, numerous perspectives on her country’s national identity coexist, during a time when debates over who belongs dominate the news. Hand lettering in R&F's encaustic paint on paper creates monotypes that are uniquely suited to graphic work as the prints convey the political potency of graffiti as well as the ephemeral character of a charcoal drawing and a grainy black and white photograph.
KELLY SHEPPARD MURRAY / EAST
Kelly Sheppard Murray lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina. Murray’s mixed media sculptural works fashion a wide range of polymorphic, multicolored structures that have their roots in natural forms. Murray’s output responds to her observation of urban development within her surroundings, where she sees the devastating impact of humans on nature. Murray’s sculptures are made from common industrial aluminum and layered with R&F's encaustic, transforming the construction materials into objects reminiscent of the natural world.
"I have followed and sought information from R&F since my first attempts at encaustic many years ago. I needed reliable technical information, but I also discovered a rich and diverse array of artists and approaches to the medium. I studied the class listings regularly but the trek from North Carolina was a bit of an obstacle to make it to Kingston to take a workshop on site. Fortunately in 2018, an Emerging Artist Grant from International Encaustic Artist combined with support from the Community College where I teach full time provided me the opportunity to work with Laura Moriarty, whose work I had fallen in love with many years before. The wall of colors and playful sculptural approach that Laura shared in the workshop, made the long drive from the southeast worthwhile."
AJ GROSSMAN / SOUTH
AJ is an artist and quilter with an AAS in Textile/ Fashion Design from Fashion Institute of Technology, in New York City. Her studio is currently housed in a 115-year-old museum that was the first hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "...and yes, the museum is haunted." When not in the studio, you may find AJ on YouTube demonstrating color mixing and encaustic techniques using R&F's encaustic and Pigment Sticks.
"Several years ago, I caught the quilting bug and took a hiatus from painting. Going from splatter, drips, and blobs, to geometric shapes and patterns is completely opposite. But I realized that through my quilting my artwork has started to either reflect my quilt patterns or reflect what is going on around me. Now my work is influenced by the colors of South Florida and our weather - two things that I was never so aware of until climate change greatly affected my life. I choose to work exclusively in the medium of encaustic for my paintings. The heating of the wax, the fusing of the layers, and the history I can build up relate to my quilts. They also have a base layer, a middle, and then what you see on top. I like process, and I found that wax has a set process, as does quilt making."