Logos Enkaustikos Deanne Row

from Wax Fusion - Fall, Issue VII:2022

Alchemy

Logos Enkaustikos

Deanne Row

My sculptural practice began as an outlet for stress and frustration, during a period when I had neither time nor space to paint. It was an accidental form of therapy, that soothed my mind and kept my hands busy tearing paper and diving elbow-deep into papier-mâché paste. To me it makes perfect sense that art born of stress would take an introspective turn. By the time I turned that first ball of paper into a figure, I was out of the stressful situation and ready to experiment with my encaustic paint.

Since that time, sculpture has taken on a life of its own, separate from my painting practice. It is more rooted in expressionism than realism, allowing me to explore nature, personal history, mental illness, culture, and injustice. Over time, I have found meaning in various types of paper based on physical properties such as strength, translucency, and its original use. The symbolism of the material is likely not relevant to anyone but me, but I can only hope that the finished work will spark the viewer’s imagination.

Reading on the Job

For me, the muse can be the written text. When I am layering papier-mâché, I am not only manually “reading” or feeling the material to manipulate it, but also, quite literally, reading the material as I work. The text and images influence my artistic direction and emotional responses, which are visible in the finished work. As I continue to construct the form, I add found materials that resonate with the piece.

A good example of work influenced by the medium is Trespassing. It was sculpted from newspaper articles (surrounding the #MeToo movement) and packing paper. In my visual vocabulary, packing paper symbolizes protection and safety. After using my Dremel tool to carve the face, I coated the sculpture in cold wax rather than encaustic. This minimized translucency of the paper, which could have confused the eye by allowing text to show through from the other side. I added found metal objects and built a knothole in his side, in which a secret object could be hidden or displayed.

**Trespassing (Boundary Lines) Papier-mâché, cold wax, packing paper, found metal objects 20 x 14 x 8 in**

**Abundant Mother (detail) Papier-mâché, encaustic, phone book pages, found stone, metal 23 x 8 x 8 in**

On Abundant Mother’s face, I used a heat gun to force the encaustic into the fibers until the excess ran of, in order to make the paper translucent. I intentionally left the paper in this raw, natural state and added no extra layers of clear medium for depth and shine. I love the way this emphasized the paper fibers instead of hiding them.

The opposite is true on Pluto’s face: I used opaque white encaustic to coat his face and model parts of his ears, eyelids, and lips. The sculpture’s base has only clear medium to highlight the papier-mâché, and the planet’s coloring was achieved with scraped-back accretion.

**A Small Matter of Gravity (Pluto 2.0) Papier-mâché, encaustic 18 x 10 x 10 in**

Like many artists, music inspires my creative mood in the studio, and sometimes it actually finds its way into my work. We Didn’t Start the Fire was inspired by the social commentary in the Billy Joel song.

I added a mix of burnt materials to further the idea of “fire” and used encaustic color to hint at flame on his wire beard and the top of his head. The sculpture’s matchstick shape was just a humorous after-thought.

**We Didn’t Start the Fire Papier-mâché, encaustic, wood, metal, bark, wire, pebble 27 x 9 x 9 in**

Cycle of Life

The Remembering Tree began as a study of the nourishment provided by dying trees to birds and bugs and bacteria, which then fertilize the soil for the next generation. After some soul searching, I decided to adhere collected obituaries (normally deemed of limits to my papier-mâché) on the hollow of the tree, and it became more of a Celebration of Life than musings on the cycle of life.

Other than in the hollow, the newspaper ink is only distinguishable in the deeply carved wrinkles on her face, a testament to the joys and sorrows she experienced in life. (Isn’t that what we tell ourselves about our own wrinkles?) “Horn of Plenty” mushrooms flourish on her head, and the paper “bark” was stained with dark brown furniture wax to give the feel of age and dampness.

**The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (details)**

To begin The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I brushed layers of clear encaustic medium onto the papier-mâché, then blasted it with the heat gun fully to saturate the paper. I then applied thick layers on the dome of the head, allowing me to create a consistent depth of wax when I scraped it back.

The haunted look of the cursed mariner was achieved with a blow torch; I hollowed out and scorched the facial features before painting them. I hand formed the tubular coral structures and built-up accretion to create algae, moss, and seaweed. I added seashells and tree bark that I had collected. His scalp, which reminds me of a distant view of Earth, is translucent from hot wax saturating the fibers, showing wonderful organic patterns. Like the Earth, his body has become a living host for the marine life sculpted from encaustic wax.

**The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Papier-mâché, encaustic, found seashells, bark 13 x 10 x 10 in**

In Reforestation, I examined many ways that trees are processed into usable materials, and I then reassembled a “tree” from them. Is it still a tree if it has been pulped, processed, and reassembled from lumber, cardboard, paper, and resin?

This piece includes a variety of paper types and techniques: common papier-mâché strips, wadded and compressed paper, machine-shredded paper cast into “particle boards,” and a combination of these laminated into a “log.” The encaustic paint begins low on her trunk, mostly transparent, and grows more opaque as it reaches the tree’s crown of new growth. Incised lines in the green encaustic hint at leaves.

**Reforestation Papier-mâché, encaustic, wood, cardboard, steel 71 x 20 x 16 in**

About the Author

Deanne Row grew up near St. Louis, MO, in a family of artists and musicians, which influenced her interest in the arts from an early age. While in college, she worked as a traditional candle carver on the Savannah Riverfront; little did she know that wax would come back into her artistic life much later. To the horror of her parents, she dropped out of the Savannah College of Art and Design halfway through her B.F.A. program, with only one painting class under her belt.

Deanne now works from her studio in St Charles, MO. She has been concentrating on developing her sculpture practice, but still paints whenever she can. Recent solo shows include Myth or Memory (canceled due to Covid); The Ship of Theseus, at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild; and the combined works of these shows at the Quad Cities Airport, Moline, IL. She has received IEA’s Emerging Artist grant and an Artist Support grant from CERF+ to improve her studio. Deanne was humbled by an invitation to exhibit alongside many of her encaustic and cold wax heroes at the Texas A&M Wax Applications Invitational.

You can view Deanne’s work at www.GalleryRow.com www.instagram.com/galleryrowfineart