Instructional Building Structure

Building Structure

Diane Kleiss

Building structure… from the bottom up… from the top down

I love the challenge and process that presents itself when just a spark of an idea is transformed into a visual, and then, the difcult part - building the piece to reflect that original idea. The trial and error involved in accomplishing this – to ‘speak’ the truth that I wanted to express – keeps me in my studio; a practice I started 66 years ago when I was 13 years old. Conveying that truth is my personal story, but I always want my pieces to have a universal message. As I survey the subjects and styles that my art has taken over the years, I see that I am greatly influenced by large worldwide questions, women’s issues, the environment, and the weight of our discarded trash. My personal perspective could stay hidden; the viewers are the ones needing to find the parts that speak to them. This is my ultimate goal: to keep the viewer involved in ‘looking,’ to be engaged, and maybe, if I am lucky, transformed in some way. In 2008, when I lived in Tucson, AZ, Miles Conrad had a workshop based on 3D-wax sculpture. It became such a defining moment for my art journey. Sculpture was it, what I was looking for, I was hooked! I wanted to experiment with this media and my head was bursting with possibilities.

When Women Were Birds #3 Encaustic, mixed media, cardboard, found objects 30 x 14 x 14 in

I started combining all my previous techniques of oil/acrylic paint, clay, and wood sculpting and applying them to encaustic, which would be incorporated in all of my later work. Some of the workshop participants soon formed a group; we wanted to share our trial and error learning process. Our once a month meetings, each in a different member’s studio, expanded our knowledge of this medium. Miles suggested we start a wax group and join IEA. We formed SAZWAX, Southern Arizona Wax. I eventually was part of the IEA board for three years and also went to the yearly conferences held around the U.S., which was another incredible learning and sharing experience.

Storm Watcher

I first started applying the wax to flat surfaces, pouring and painting layers, and then carving into the surface, building up the texture, depth, and detail that I loved. I used some of my finely chiseled tools from my wood carving days and also added some of the smaller metal wax scrappers. The trick with carving wax is the control of the heat gun in fusing. I use quick up and down motions, at low temps, and never hold the gun on one spot. I have always used an 8:1 ratio for my wax medium (eight cups wax to one cup damar resin). I did a series with ravens as a central theme, which I considered the harbingers of what was happening to our endangered habitat. This wax medium, found and formed in nature, added to my environmental themes.

Storm Watcher Carved poured encaustic on cradle board 16 x 16 x 2 in

Altered Worlds

I kept pushing this malleable material – “If I can do this, then maybe I can do that!” Its many possibilities opened up the door that transformed my approach to my ensuing work. I am always fascinated when pouring the colored wax: the push and pull as the colors either merge or repel when bumping up against each other. For my Altered Worlds, I used heated round metal pans, instead of my usual rectangle ones. Lifting the 1/4 inch thick sheets out, after cooling in the refrigerator, I found that the color blending was diferent on both sides.

Altered Worlds Encaustic, embroidery hoops, chain, twigs 8 to 14 inch in varying sizes

My first series using this process was Altered Worlds, pieces ranging from 8 to 14 inches enclosed in embroidery hoops and hung with a small linked chain and a swivel to turn slowly in a slight breeze. I did ponder how I would encase these. Finally looking through my bins of previous projects, I found some old embroidery hoops. After cutting and reforming the tops and taking out the metal pieces, they were light and strong enough and they worked beautifully! After cutting out a 3 inch circle in each wax piece, I inserted another one consisting of contrasting color forms to represent the ongoing changing environments in the world. Sometimes I added a small dried twig to represent dying trees.

Preserved Pods

The next series using this process was The Seed Project. This idea was sparked by reading about the worldwide effort to save native seeds by storing them in seed banks. After the pouring and cooling process, I picked the wax up, and warming it with my hands, I sculpted it into fantasy seed pods, sometimes adding actual seeds embedded in the pods. I then wound them with gold wire representing alchemy so that someday they would be worth their weight in gold, as I think the world has found this fact to be true.

I made 15 of them, each encased in 8 x 2 inch glass jars, sealed with gauze and wax, like my Mom had sealed her jars of jellies. Heating small metal numbered stamps, I pressed a number on top of the wax seals and rubbed graphite in the impression to make them stand out. I then made up Latin names on curio labels attached with gold wire to represent a genuine species.

Preserved Pods Poured sculpted encaustic, gold wire, glass jars, gauze, tags 8 x 2 in each jar

Four Seasons in Four Acre Plots

Encaustic was the perfect ‘glue’ that made it possible to accomplish my growing interest in using found recyclable objects in my work. I became so excited and fascinated walking roads and byways to bring that next prized found object to my studio. A large of-white scrubbing mitt picked up of the side of a road was one such prize. The textural piece had so many possibilities but it soon became clear: this was like growing shoots of grain, so evocative of the fields from my childhood farm.

I cut it up into 4 inch squares dipping it in wax, painting the bottom layer black for soil. I cut 16 basswood pieces the same size, and framed them in another piece of thin basswood. I glued in the waxed squares, attached four each to 9 inch boards. I cut the straight lines off dress pattern paper, another recycled material, and glued that around the edges to enhance the frames. My idea had jelled into Four Seasons in Four Acre Plots each 20 x 20 inches that was selected for the Museum of Encaustic Art’s permanent collection.

Four Seasons in Four Acre Plots Encaustic, scrubbing mitt, dress pattern paper, basswood on cradle board 20 x 20 x 2 in each

Highway Beautification

Another such Eureka moment was gazing at a ditch full of cast-of cigarette butts during a walk in Tucson. I immediately saw the finished piece in my head. What was I thinking? I ran home, retrieved a plastic bag and rubber gloves, and picked up 1,500 cigarette butts. I dipped each one in wax and smokedsmudged-side up, glued them in two 36 x three inch basswood frames. I made a highway centerpiece using handmade paper, painting the highway’s dividing line down the middle with white wax batik and dipped in brown dye. This particular Tucson highway had received funding for the Arizona Highway Beautification Project, and thus my title: Highway Beautification. It was another one of my universal statements about saving our environment.

Highway Beautification Encaustic, cigarette butts, handmade paper, wax batik, dye, basswood 36 x 10 x 4 in

A Symbiotic Relationship

In 2014, I started using cardboard as the structural forms for many of my sculptures. I liked the idea of recycling this throwaway material by turning it into a beautiful object inspired by Jimmy Grashow’s cardboard art. Plus, it was so easy to cut into shapes and hot glue together. One such cardboard sculpture again became my raven as metaphor.

I picked up the palm fronds that fell to the street in Tucson. The wood from the ends of fronds was easily carved for the beak and legs, it was covered in textured wax, and the wings were added using the palm fiber.

A Symbiotic Relationship

Symbiotic: A mutualistic relationship where two organisms of different species “work together” with each benefiting from the relationship.

The base reflected that symbiotic relationship when I added hand-drawn buildings around the wooden base as the humans’ ‘nests.’ I then formed thin black-wire-shaped houses and incorporated them in the bird’s nest, which was made of paper wrapped wire painted sepia brown.

All life on this planet has to figure out how to coexist with the loss of habitat from our growing industrial world.

We all are looking for that perfect safe nesting place; location… location… location.

A Symbiotic Relationship Textured encaustic, cardboard, carved palm fronds and fiber, paper wrapped wire on 2 x 9 in wood base 24 x 18 x 12 in

When Women Were Birds

I finally found a context to summarize a lifetime of environmental focus when I read Terry Tempest Williams’ book, When Women Were Birds. It led me to mythological stories about women growing wings and flying. I read another myth of ravens sitting on your shoulder to tell you the ancient stories, if we only stop and listen. My sculpture #1 included this raven.

This latest three-part series was a definite challenge! I knew I wanted the sculpture to be life-size. I started out with styrofoam heads, and while using many techniques and materials from former projects, I also added some new ones.

Along with recycled cardboard, I incorporated my homemade papiermâché made from running brown paper bags through a paper shredder. This became the perfect cohesive material that could be pressed with texture and/or painted with wax or shellac.

Xeroxed Gampi paper was perfect for my black and white tree photos to use as embellishments. To further an earthier, natural color scheme, I again used found objects – dyeing an old rope, crumpled brown paper, and adding wooden curtain rings – as an ornament for a unifying look. Cutting thin strips off sheets of cork, I made an edge design with my wood burning tool for trim around the hats.

The big challenge came when I decided I wanted the sculpture to have a shellac/ wax burn texture! One major hurdle was the way my pieces were constructed. How did I not ruin areas by starting a fire?

Aluminum foil was the answer. I carefully attached pieces of foil around each burn area to protect the other wax areas from melting or starting a fire. In the end, I had to lay the sculptures down, and as the shellac burned, I slowly turned them to avoid having the melting wax run off. Miraculously it all worked!

This series was a work of love; pieces that reflected a lifetime of studio practice.

I was honored with Best of Show for When Women Were Birds in

Metamorphosis

Tubac Center of the Arts

A national-juried exhibit in partnership with the

International Encaustic Artists October 1 – November 15, 2021

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

Terry Tempest Williams

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Next page, When Women Were Birds #1, #2, and #3 Encaustic, mixed media, cardboard, found objects Each is approx. 29 x 16 x 13 in

Diane Kleiss was born in an Iowan Heartland community, where life was all about the land and the seeds. This heritage resulted in several art series over the years honoring that life-giving environment – Mother Earth.

After receiving a B.A. at Itasca Community College in Grand Rapids, MN, she continued at the University of Minnesota, Duluth and received a B.F.A. – K-12 Art Education degree and a minor in Art History. During that time, five stimulating summers were spent taking weeklong workshops at the Grand Marais Art Colony in northern Minnesota, surrounded by likeminded artists and inspiring lake and wooded vistas, her art expanded and flourished. After graduation she taught grades 1-12 art for five years at the Minnesota Cromwell School District. She also owned a resort for 20 years on a remote lake filled with nature’s bounty, further inspiring her environmental art focus.

In 1994, she moved to Tucson, AZ, trading rippling lakes for earthbound mountains filled with ancient rock surfaces. She became involved in several art organizations, also continuing to teach art in schools, art centers, and in her studio.

In 2008, she turned to painting and sculpting with beeswax, an ancient encaustic medium that she could pour, carve, and mold. Now directing more attention to her own studio practice, she began building a body of work and joining other encaustic groups to expand her techniques and knowledge of this medium. Her art evolved and this led to acceptance in exhibits around the U.S.

In 2013, she moved to an art-based community in Silver City, NM, another area with mountains, trails, and inspiring vistas. Each new space, landscape, and connection with eclectic artists have pushed her art in new directions.

In 2019, she received the Edwina Milner Women in the Arts Award, and in March 2020, she launched a retrospective at the Francis McCray Gallery of Contemporary Art at Western New Mexico University, Silver City. NM. Her studio backs up to the hills and wilderness, where the ravens and deer visit her daily.

Ravens Nest - Adapting Cardboard, papier-mâché, copper pieces, cutout fashion clothes, Juniper branches 29 x 34 x 8 in

You can view Diane’s work at www.dianekleiss.com www.instagram.com/Raven2feet www.facebook.com/dakleiss