Mira M. White Art News

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Reflections 2015

It has been a full year since I last posted-- and quite a good year it has been! New teaching venues include the Richmond Art Center, Healdsburg Center for the Visual Arts , Marin Museum of Contemporary Art and an increased number of workshops in other states. I did a 3 day workshop in Dunedin, Florida and I was treated so well! And they want me back in 2016. I also am scheduled to teach at the Bascom Art Center in Highlands, North Carolina and a Pastel workshop through Dakota Pastels at their art center in Mt. Vernon, Washington. ( For more info on my upcoming workshops, please visit the workshop link on my website.) My wonderful workshops at the Mendocino Art Center continue. These folks are extremely supportive of my work and I respect their continued efforts to accommodate my artistic needs.

I was honored to be one of 6 featured artists in an Encaustic Magazine quarterly-- an online venue with a free subscription. In addition, I am currently exhibiting one of my encaustic pieces at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art in an exhibit called Another Way To Keep A Diary. It is a very rich and varied representation of professionals working with wax! Hmm, sold my huge drawing in the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art National Drawing Exhibition and am scheduled to teach an Abstracting the Figure with Mixed Media there in April 2016. My solo exhibition at the Mendocino Art Center in May yielded new contacts in Healdsburg.

I ended my 13 year consultancy with Venture high school in June. District office policies do change.... I loved working once a week with home schooled high school students in drawing and painting. Very rich experience. One door closes and another one opens...so it is said.

Stay tuned for more commentary-- hopefully it will not be a full year before I post again!

Friday, December 19, 2014

ADDED THOUGHTS ABOUT ART & TEACHING

I am an artist who teaches. Not all artists enjoy the dialogue that connects teacher with student. It can be a draining process. I, however, find the dialogue enriching and stimulating, a really vital part of my creative expression. My students and I learn from each other; in fact, I learn quite a bit more than they do! Just think, throwing out ideas to a group of creative minds- I can actually feed off their creativity-- it inspires mine!

My life has been pretty much devoted to developing and refining my skills , both in the technical realms and in my world of content-- finding fresh ways to put into a visual context my world view, my feelings and perceptions of both the world within and the external world. This inquiry intensifies in depth and in breadth, in the use of materials and what I try to say with these materials.

This pursuit now reaches into its 50th year and will never settle into a plateau. Creative growth demands continual becoming. I have a point of view, a vision. My art is my yoga. Now, with all this experience, the self critic that emerges within me non stop, to keep me from repeating myself, that forces me to speak authentically, to keep my work fresh-- it is these qualities that draw students to my classes. They know I will speak truly, honestly, and, usually, very much to the point.

My classes are for serious students who want to grow in their artistic work. And I welcome you to join me.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

My Wonderful Wax Workshop in Mendocino July 26-29, 2014

Here are samples of work by my workshop participants:

Gerald Barnes Encaustic/ Pastel 8"x10" panel

Barbara Hansen Encaustic/ Watercolor 8"x8" panel

Pat Ferrero Collage/ Mixed Media/ Wax 8"x8" panel

Kathleen Zeppegno Encaustic/ Mixed Media/ Panel 8"x8"

David Gray Encaustic approx. 4"x12" panel

Margaret Skiles Collage/ Encaustic 8"x8" panel

Susan Mann Encaustic/ Mixed Media 12"x12" panel

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

2 New Beginnings

I just purchased a 2013 refurbished Imac and am having a very skillful person load this creature up for me. We worked all day Monday and I spent 6 hours today manually transferring e mails to a workable system..

I finished at 1 pm and went into the studio to begin 2 new paintings. I have avoided these canvasses, which had tentative images upon them,; I just couldn't muster up the interest in the work that was there-- so- yesterday, before my computer person arrived, I covered both paintings with molding paste. Well, today, after 6 hours of picky computer stuff, I delved into these new pieces with great energy. Here are my new beginnings:

Acrylic 41"x48"

Acrylic 46"x48"

Monday, June 9, 2014

My New Skill: Painting Restoration........ The Turn---- has turned.....

One of my favorite paintings got damaged during my recent exhibition- the hanging wire broke and the painting fell straight down. It didn't sustain any very serious damage, just chipped paint in about 8 places. It seems that the fall just added to a problem with the painting. I had made the mistake of using cold wax with the oil on a flexible surface. And I believe the addition of the wax contributed to the cracking-- big learning!

Oil paint films are brittle- canvas is flexible. That should be a no brainer- acrylics on canvas, oils, wax on panels. SOOOOO--- yesterday I held my breath while I transferred the painting from a canvas to a cradled panel. No small feat, as this painting is 48"x36".

When I took the painting off the stretcher, I lined the stretcher up with the newly purchased panel and found about an 1/8" discrepancy- panel slightly bigger. I prepared the back of the panel 2 times with Lineco PVA glue and the back of the painting 1 time with the same stuff. Yesterday I lined up the painting, laid glue down in about 12" sections, as I laid the painting over the glue, with freezer paper on top and used my new $ 45 heavy roller to press canvas surface onto the panel. When I was done, I applied as much weight as I could on top-- buckets of water, rocks, boards, and left it for about 5 hours. It looks like the adhesion is good.

This morning I had to make the decision to slice off the sides of the canvas- I couldn't figure a way to apply the glue to get good adhesion. So, I turned the painting on panel face down on a smooth surface of freezer and wax paper, coated the back of the panel with PVA, then took a new razor and sliced the sides of the canvas off so the panel edges would be clean.

I just finished mixing a stiff paste of marble dust and stand oil and applied it to the sanded, chipped areas. Now it has to dry, is hanging in my hall wall. What a process! I don't want to repeat this process again!

The fun part will be painting the patched areas. Since its a textured painting I am hopeful that it will evolve without too much stress. Sides will be painted the same colors as before. Tune in for my next report!