Artist Spotlight: Jodi Reeb
Jodi Reeb, Ochre Fusion, 40" x 60" x 2", encaustic with metallic paint, 2022
Jodi Reeb has been a full-time working artist and teacher for over 27 years. She has taught printmaking, acrylic and encaustic painting, as well as book arts at colleges and art centers regionally and nationally including the International Encaustic Conference, Arrowmont, and Haystack School of Art. A two time recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, Jodi received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, where she taught for 9 years. In 2020, she received a Hinge Arts Residency through the Springboard for the Arts.
Jodi is a CORE Artist Instructor for R&F Handmade Paints, an Ampersand Ambassador and a teaching artist for Silverbrush Ltd. She offers encaustic painting workshops in her studio at Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art in Minneapolis.
Can you tell us a little about yourself? How did you get your start as an artist?
Art has transformed my life since I was very young. At the age of 5, I created poster drawings using crayons on blue-lined newsprint and sold them throughout our neighborhood in North Dakota for a dollar. That’s when the idea was planted that I could make a living making art. This became my identity: I was an artist.
I began developing my voice as an undergraduate printmaker at Minneapolis College of Art & Design. Since 1996, I have been a full-time artist and teacher. I feel incredibly lucky to support myself by sharing what I love to do.
What are you currently working on in the studio? How has your work evolved over the years?
My work has always been rooted in nature, whether abstract or representational. I generally work in series and enjoy creating abstracted landscapes using photographs and circular large-scale art installations. To create in my viewers a physical sensation, my work oscillates between painting and sculpture in terms of both dimension and negative space. I started as a printmaker and am now going into more works coming off the wall.
Jodi Reeb, Ochre Fusion (side view).
You will be teaching a pre-conference workshop Encaustic with Alternative Surfaces at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill on June 7 & 8. Tell us a little bit about this workshop. What can students expect to leave with?
This workshop is designed to expand artists’ toolbox to combine elements as rust, copper, bronze, and pewter with encaustic. Participants will work with Sophisticated Finishes paint, which creates beautiful rusted and patina affects and can be combined under or over encaustic paint. Surface treatments including powdered graphite and metal leafing will be explored as well. These surfaces can be layered or serve as a final finish, as metallic paints bind on porous and non-porous surfaces.
Artists will develop design and color skills to be used in any medium, in addition to strategies that will help them look at their work critically and discover when a work is finished. There will be lots of studio time and 1:1 with me for feedback and support. The workshop is great for beginners as well as experienced artists.
Jodi Reeb, Summer Series, 54" x 54" x 2', encaustic with metallic paint, 2023
What keeps you motivated in the studio? What is your typical studio day like? What's next on your horizon?
I am so lucky to be able to do what I love everyday as a full-time artist. I’m in my Minneapolis studio each day during the week and enjoy both aspects of my job - creating and teaching. For me, it’s about connecting with others either through my art or helping others creating their own work. I enjoy adventures and have a busy teaching schedule this year in the US and Ireland this summer.
For the past few years, I have offered mentoring and art study coaching to artists that want to push their studio practice further, be supported and held accountable. I support artists in-person and around the country by giving feedback on their art, teaching encaustic painting, sharing best business practices in terms of marketing and sales, as well as how to utilize social media platforms to find new audiences for your work.
Jodi Reeb, At Dawn, 18" x 18", encaustic, oil and photo collage, 2022
Anything else you’d like our readers to know?
“I think art is a total thing; a total person giving a contribution. It is an essence, a soul. In my inner soul, art and life are inseparable.” -Eva Hesse
I am also interested in site-specific, temporary sculptural installations and began exploring this idea during a week-long workshop at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill. Taking over a corner of the studio, I created eight sculptures using wire, newspaper, encaustic-dipped string, tape, and driftwood. I gave myself the freedom to work quickly and with simple materials. It was freeing to create a piece, tear it down, and create another.
In 2018, I received the Artist’s Initiative Grant and was able to spend time developing a new body of work that incorporates my photographs printed on tissue paper and embedded in encaustic. I’ve always had an interest in photography, but don’t consider myself a photographer. For me, it is another image-making tool, one that I collaborate with to create a balance between painting and photography.
My ideas concerning beauty, abstraction, nature, and art are given form through the mediums of encaustic and sculpture. Tactile painting and repetitive mark-marking serves as a record of my experience. I hope my work is a sensory experience for those that view it.
To see additional images of Jodi’s work, visit jodireeb.com. You can also follow her on Instagram @jodireeb.
Jodi has a number of upcoming workshops including in her Minneapolis studio, Grand Marais Art Colony, Wild Rice Retreats, Essence of Mulranny Studios in Ireland, Penland School of Crafts, at Wet Paint, and at R&F Handmade Paints.
To learn more and register, visit jodireeb.com/news.