Carol Tippit Woolworth
VL
VISUAL LANGUAGE
contemporary fine art
VL
May 2013 Volume 2 No. 5
ARTSPAN Artist Spotlight
artspan
Carol Tippit Wo
What is your favorite way to get your craetive juices going? Every morning I take a brisk walk around the Brandywine Creek with my dog, Bridget. The natural beauty of the area, and all of its wildlife, helps to focus my ever chattering brain. When did you realize you loved art and wanted to be an artist? I’ve always loved to draw, as long as I can remember. One Christmas my grandma sent my sister and me (I must have been 8 or 9) oil paint-by-numbers kits...and that first whiff of linseed oil was the clincher. I LOVED IT! Who has been your mentor, or greatest influence to date? My greatest influence would be Priscilla Bender Shore. Art in my family consisted of a painting from Woolworth’s. I babysat for Priscilla, who lived across the street. Her paintings were incredible, like nothing I’d ever seen before, and her studio was an integral part of her home. I’d spend hours contemplating each painting, determined to paint like her some day. In fact, she did swimming pool paintings, and a few years ago, as an homage to her, I did some myself. I visited her website later and there were her bathers...nothing like my memory! But they were just as wonderful. Who is another living artist you admire and why? Brad Wright. I’m not sure if he still paints, but about 30 years ago in Santa Barbara, when I had a studio there, he took me under his wing, forced me to unlearn all the academic stuff I’d learned in school, and introduced me to a color palette I’ve used ever since. His work is a complex layering of color and texture, much more abstract than my work, but filled with so much life and emotion. An endless adventure to enjoy. What is your favorite surface to paint on? Right now I love to paint on gessoed bristol. It creates such a hard surface that the colors sit on top of and remains brilliant. I take a piece of bristol, the thickest I can find, then gesso 3 layers, sanding down each layer before applying the next one. What is your favorite brand of paints to use? Maimeri Puro from Italy. They are very pigmented...brilliant colors. Do you have a favorite color palette? I’m not sure if you mean the physical palette...of which I use a grey and glass. Or color, which is the palette of colors I learned from Brad Wright. 12 colors hand mixed, with a couple of other colors (cad yellow med, turquoise, cobalt violet, quinacrodine red, naples yellow, thrown in to mix things up. This palette is based on complementary colors, light to dark, dark to light. What is your favorite color in your closet? A very tough question! I love color so much, but oddly enough black is the dominant color...green a close second. You seem to paint a lot of landscapes. What prompted this? I travel to France a lot and have fallen in love with the graphic fields and towns, and the magnificent plane trees that line the roads and village streets. When not in France, which is most of the time, Lancaster County, PA, is a good alternative. The silos remind me of castle turrets, and the the fields are just as beautiful. In fact I’ve learned to appreciate Lancaster County after France, realizing beauty is truly everywhere.
caroltippitwoolworth.com/
oolworth
Contemporary Fine Artist
How often do you paint? how many times a week? I try to paint everyday at least for 30 minutes which then turns into a longer stint. If I can’t paint I at least do something that has to do with art to move me forward. 20 hours a week seems a good average. What is the one thing you would like to be remembered for. Color. There are many culprits that can crush creativity, such as distractions, self-doubt and fear of failure. What tends to stand in the way of your creativity? Oh goodness. Where do I start? I’d say self-doubt. My inner voice is always questioning myself...who do I think I am trying to be an artist? Whose going to like this? You don’t know anything...blah blah blah How do you overcome these obstacles? Reading about other artists has helped. Almost all of them go through a period while painting when that fear of failure pops up. Also, I just force myself through. I’ve come to realize there are no bad paintings. They can always be fixed, nothing’s etched in stone. The beauty of oils is that the more layers you lay down the more interesting the final piece, so all those mistakes just go into the process of finding the way to a successful painting. What are your inspirations for your work? The incredible world around me! Which work of yours is your favorite? Right now it would be my Large Vessel Painting. It’s from my latest series of Vessel Paintings which is a play on Native American pottery vs my own personal journey.
caroltippitwoolworth.com/
ARTSPAN Artist Spotlight
artspan
Carol Tippit Wo
Aix-en-Provence 9x12 oil on paper caroltippitwoolworth.com/
oolworth
Contemporary Fine Artist caroltippitwoolworth.com/
Up Close and Personal What book are you reading this week? Women In Love by DH Lawrence Do you have a favorite televion show? The Spiral (French detective series). What is your favorite food? I love food in general! But if I must choose something I guess I’d have to say...um...the exotic flavors of Indian cuisine. What color sheets are on your bed right now? Dark grey What are you most proud of in your life? My life! I’ve had such wonderful things happen, have met incredible people, traveled to fascinating places, and been handed opportunities that have constantly moved me forward. The sum of my life to date would be what I am most proud of. Who would you love to interview? Nicolas de Stael. He managed to create paintings of landscapes, figures, still lifes, honed to the simplest of shapes. And he had a rather hard time of it... Do you have a passion or hobby other than painting? What is it? Cooking. I love being in the kitchen, turning a bag full of groceries into something delicious...an alchemy of sorts! Who would you love to paint? Umm, Albert Einstein. What a face! And what an engaging person to have sitting there while I was painting. If you were an animal what would you be and why? A welsh corgi. I have one and we’re just the same! Bossy. Curious. Playful. And a bit shy. Loves to eat. If you were stranded on a desert island and could only take three things, what would they be? A knife. I could use it to get food, carve designs into rocks and cliffs, whittle animals from driftwood, draw in the sand. Complete works of Shakespeare. It would take me a lifetime to read through the tome. And the beauty of the language and images, the diversity of comedies and tragedies and sonnets, never a dull moment...and perhaps even memorize some things. My corgi, Bridget, for company and amusement. Share something with us that few people know about you. I’m a worry wort! I worry about everthing! And tend to think
the world is coming to an end.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? South of France
ARTSPAN Artist Spotlight
artspan
Dordogne Spring 2005 36x32 Oil on Linen
caroltippitwoolworth.com/
Carol Tippit Wo
oolworth
Contemporary Fine Artist
Luberon Valley 6 x 8 Oil on Paper
caroltippitwoolworth.com/