First National Encaustic Conference, Part 2

on the Salem Ferry

On Friday, before the conference started, I decided to make a trip to Provincetown (on the tip of Cape Cod) to visit the Ernden Fine Art Gallery. They showed my work last summer for the first time and I hadn't been able to visit before. I didn't let them know I was coming because I honestly wasn't sure I would make it!

Joanne Mattera and Nancy Natale gave me some helpful travel tips and I was able to figure out a way to do it. I had rented a car since I flew into Manchester, NH, but in order to drive to Provincetown, I would have to go through Boston. Now, I had been to a conference in Boston a few years ago and had made the mistake of renting a car, so I knew that driving in Boston is a dicey proposition...

Ernden Fine Art Gallery, Provincetown, MA

So I got up early and took the ferry from Salem to Boston. From Boston, I took a ferry to Provincetown. I surprised Dennis, the gallery owner, when I showed up at the gallery. Of course I took some photos...

Ernden Fine Art Gallery, Provincetown, MA - my work is on the right

I was impressed with the gallery. Since one wall was mostly windows, they had built some portable walls to create more hanging space. I really like the work of the other artists that they represent. I feel like I'm in good company.

Another reason for the trip to Provincetown was to meet up with Mary Richmond, a blogger that I have corresponded with occasionally for a few months. She's a ceramic artist and painter and also a writer and naturalist. We had lunch and she drove me to the beach - it had been too long since I'd had my toes in the sand, and it was great to get a tour from someone who is so knowledgeable about the area.

Mary (l) and me (r)

My visit was far too short, because too soon I had to catch the ferry back to Boston. The ferry back to Salem wouldn't have gotten me back in time for the start of the conference, so I took the train. And in order to get to the train station, I had to take the subway. Luckily a nice woman in the ferry office looked up my route and told me how to do it (silver line to the red line to the orange line and then the train - during 5:00 Friday rush hour to boot).

I'm always so jealous when I visit a city with public transportation!

Anyway, I arrived at the conference at the beginning of Joanne Mattera's keynote presentation, so it worked out perfectly.

Joanne talked about the history of encaustic and some of the early pioneers of the encaustic process in the 20th century, expanding on the information in her book.

Here are a few of the notes that I scrawled:
The Fayum portraits -
The painters might have used bicarbonate of soda to mix their wax.
They were painted during a 300 year period.
Metal and gemstones were applied to the wax.
The gold leaf was most likely applied after the person's death to symbolize the passage to the next world.

There was a get together of the International Encaustic Artists after the keynote at one of the area hotels, but I was beat from my "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" type of day, so I decided to skip it.

I ended up going back to my hotel and grabbing a bite to eat in the hotel bar/restaurant. There was a "loud talker" in the group sitting next to me so I couldn't help overhearing their conversation. I thought at first that they were professors or something because they were talking about historic places to visit in England and then some kind of organization that they were in. After a while, though, I realized that they were witches!

Only in Salem...

Oh, I forgot to mention - the next day Dennis sent me an email saying that he had sold one of my paintings!

Release - 12" x 12" - collage, oil, and encaustic - SOLD!

Linda Womack blogged about her experience at the conference, too. Check out her blog, Embracing Encaustic.

To be continued...