Finally! Finished Encaustics UFOs!

the theme for this week's Iron Craft challenge was UFOs*. and let me tell you, i have sooooo many UFOs!!


i have several quilty projects that i was hoping to get done, but i got my days mixed up and completely forgot that i'd signed up for an encaustics open studio day at The Upstart Crow today - i was sure that it was friday!


so instead of binding a quilt, i found myself pulling out all of my encaustics supplies from last fall when i took a 3 day class with Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch. it was a really amazing class - though looking back now, i realize that i never got around to blogging about it! Trish is a wonderful teacher, and i'd been enamoured with encaustics for so long, so i was really excited to take the class, and it definitely didn't disapoint. after the class, i worked on a few pieces and finished up the piece that i made my mom for her birthday, which i blogged about for the iron craft challenge that was "home" themed.


(wondering what encaustics is? according to the website encausticartist.com, "From the greek enkaustikos which means “to heat” or “to burn”. Encaustic is the name for both, a medium of pigmented wax, and the process involving heat, by which the medium is applied and secured" i described it in the post with my mom's piece as "an art technique that uses wax, oil colours, collage, image transfers, and so much more, all in multiple layers to create an image with an incredible depth to it.")


after that, i put all of the encaustics away, because i needed the space for other projects. i kept intending to pull it back out, but never found the time, so i signed up for this open studio day to get myself back into it.

and i actually finished something! (maybe) because encaustics works with wax and heat, there's a lot of cooling time in between layers, and since i can never work on one thing at a time, i had soooo many in progress pieces - or UFOs! i got further along on a number of pieces, but these were the ones that i actually finished today.




i still need to clean up the edges of the wood blocks, trim a bit, that sort of thing, but i'm still really happy with how they turned out.




i LOVE how this piece turned out! it's soo soo many layers, and in person you can really see the depth. i think the base had a shellac burn or a white glue burn, but that's been completely covered by the later layers. i inscribed straight lines, circles, and typewriter letters in the wax while it was warm, then rubbed black oil colour into the impressions and kept layering and layering. i did an image transfer in the corner, using an image that i photocopied about 9 years ago, of the pattern in one of my favourite scarves.




oh, i love this one. masking tape was laid down across the board, and plaster was applied, and then the tape was removed. once the plaster dried, i burned the board, creating the black lines with the white plaster. i didn't do as many layers on this one, because i wanted the wood to show through. i inscribed some dots and lines, used a violet oil stick to highlight them, and added another layer. i incised two sizes of circles, and used the black oil stick to bring up the contrast.




i don't know if this one is actually finished or not! i had a whole different base started, but i decided that i hated it and used some coloured wax to start up a new base. i love the bright green. i did an image transfer using one of the images from the pre-released bonus files for issue 8 of Craphound - remember, i blogged about Craphound last week? i'm thinking of inscribing a row of circles on the left side and highlighting them in black.....




i might add to this one too... the texture from the topmost layer of wax is really awesome, so i might highlight them a bit with some oil. in deep red maybe? we'll see. the base is plaster again, but much thicker than the circles piece. the strips of tape were used again, which created an indent to hold the pieces of fabric measuring tape. i don't think i'm going to trim the edges, i like the overhang.


i've signed up for another open studio in september, and i'm excited! Trish is coming back to teach classes again this fall, but i don't think they're in my budget. maybe i can manage one of the days... i hope!!





*unfinished objects

Queer Health - mixed media embroidery

this is the second piece that i had in the art show. i finished it the day that it had to be dropped off (i know, i know....), so i didn't get to post pictures of it earlier, and besides, i kinda felt like waiting until after the show to post it anyway.

i had mixed feelings about the piece going into the show, but the various reactions i received during the opening night party helped a lot. it just felt very simple, childlike almost. these aren't colours that i use regularly, but they were the colours needed to convey the message.



the original inspiration for this was the number of transguys in my life who i care about so very deeply, and worry about as much as i love them. our medical system is, in most cases, not set up in a way that male-identified people feel comfortable going for regular PAPs, exams, etc. it breaks my heart when i hear of another trans guy who has been diagnosed with a cancer that could have been prevented, or caught sooner.



about a week after i starting thinking about this piece, i ran across a really amazing campaign coming out of toronto - Check it Out Guys, so obviously there are others who feel that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

so i started thinking about queer health in general, and the number of doctors who tell cisgendered women that if they're only sleeping with other cisgendered women, they don't need PAPs, which is complete bullshit, and i can't believe it's freaking 2010 and doctors are still so misinformed.



(and i know that the correct term is actually STIs, sexually transmitted infections, but i didn't know how many people outside of the sexual health field would be familiar with it, and i didn't think it would be as visible in the embroidery)

i really wanted to find a way to make the piece more inclusive, and so i spent a few weeks wandering around asking random questions of friends and acquaintances who were AMAB (assigned male at birth), which definitely got me some funny looks! i was curious about prostate exams, and prostate surgery, that sort of thing. everyone i talked to said that they'd never had a dr use a speculum for a prostate exam, and none of them were at an age when prostate surgeries are as common. i did a google search for anal speculum, but all of my results were for kink sites. and while a lot of stuff used in kink does have non-kink used, i wasn't sure if anal speculums were one of them!



i also asked trans women i knew if they required PAPs after bottom surgery, and was told no (though now, after doing more research, i realize that some trans women do need to get regular PAPs, depending on what kind of surgery they had)

since i wasn't able to do as many designs that focused on specific communities, or for that matter, on specific body parts, i did 3 more pieces in the pride rainbow colours.





i cut a piece of plywood for the base, and painted with with multiple coats of semi-gloss white paint.



then i marked where the speculums would touch the plywood and drilled a hole in the speculum and 2 in the plywood, so that the piece could be tied on with clear fishing line.



the speculums have a few dabs of clear glue in a few places where they rest against each other, just to add a bit more security.


and i left the bottom plain wood, with a few labels glued on.




so... what do you think? it was interesting watching people's reactions. some people immediately realized what the embroidery was done on, and got the meaning and appreciated it, but there were also people who seemed very embarrassed when they realized what they were!