This week we feature artist Mike Tapogna. Mike’s work is vibrant and driven by color. In his artist statement he describes his process as one of change and discovery. “Consciously or otherwise, I paint for a balance between subject and surface. Through addition, deletion and sometimes total destruction of the painted canvas, I am able to find new and unexpected possibilities.”

R&F Blending Medium is essentially Pigment Stick® without the pigment. It is ideal for glazing colors, can be worked directly into a color to increase the color's transparency, or used to blend colors together on the surface. R&F Blending Medium with Drier contains a small amount of Cobalt Manganese drier to speed up drying time. The use of a drier can affect color, so it is best used under a layer of Pigment Stick®.

We’re kicking off a “how to” series with a guest blog by R&F Core Instructor Julie Snidle. Julie has been working with wax-based media since 2004. An artist with both classroom teaching experience and a corporate training background, Julie has taught at Penland School of Craft and teaches workshops nationwide. Her work has received numerous awards and can be found in private collections and public spaces.

Born in Bombay, Kuzana Ogg spent the first years of her life divided between the ancestral home of her grandfather, surrounded by lush gardens and groves of coconut trees, and her grandmother’s exquisite Worli residence on the coast. Along with her family, Kuzana immigrated first to England, and then to New York. As an art student at SUNY Purchase, Kuzana met her husband. They moved to South Korea and spent six years teaching English.

A guest post by Sue Baker and Sharon DeValentin, admin for the encaustic group OzNz, which formed to support artists in Australia and New Zealand.

Jeffrey Hirst earned his MFA at Louisiana State University and BFA at the University of Minnesota. His work has been exhibited at national and international venues including the Minneapolis Institute of Art; McLean Projects for the Arts, VA; McKinney Contemporary, Dallas; and Bienal do Douro, Portugal. 

In 1997, Halim A. Flowers was arrested at the age of 16 and sentenced to two life sentences in the District of Columbia. Deemed a “SUPERPREDATOR,” he turned to artistic expression as a way to find a sense of peace in prison. Halim was released after serving 22 years in 2019. His experiences were filmed in the Emmy award-winning documentary Thug Life In DC. In 2005, he started his own publishing company SATO Communications, through which he has published eleven books.

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.

Julie Snidle is a self-taught artist with a background in public school teaching and corporate administration. She was introduced to encaustic in 2004 and has worked primarily with wax-based paints, including oil and cold wax, since then. In addition to serving as a Core Instructor for R&F Handmade Paints, she is also an Artist Ambassador for Ampersand Art Supplies.

We chat with R&F founder Richard Frumess about the decision to make a Chromatic Tones Color Set in both our Pigment Stick and encaustic paint lines.

"Value plays a huge part in how chromatic whites operate. This an important part of color theory and helpful for students to understand. One way to demonstrate this is to start with black and white backgrounds, because they're the extremes of value, and then move on to how the chromatic whites play off stronger colors.”

Dale O. Roberts graduated Cum Laude with a B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from Tyler School of Art in 1982. Dale’s paintings have appeared in magazines and other publications and are in many private collections, including University of Pennsylvania Hospital, Fidelity Bank of Delaware, PECO, Cozen O’Connor Law Firm, Vanguard Investment Group, and Rutgers University Museum.

It’s time for another edition of "Meet The Team." This ongoing feature is our way of introducing you to the fine folks behind the scenes who make R&F possible - from the people answering the phones and scheduling workshops to the paintmakers themselves.⁠