“The Listening Shore”
16″ x 16″ Encaustic on birch panel
Connie Pickering Stover is a self-taught artist best known for her intuitive abstract work which is displayed through the challenging mediums of encaustic and watercolor painting. She is also well-known for her years of work in the fiber arts, where she exhibited, won awards, and taught nationwide. Story-telling through abstracted forms and dynamic colors has long been the focus of Stover’s work. Her careers as a graphic designer and business owner have spanned all the technological progressions in the graphic arts industry from early hot-lead production through to the digital age.
First, I paint abstract watercolors which act as a framework for my final hot wax (encaustic) overpaintings.
Encaustic painting medium originated with the ancient Greeks over 3000 years ago. It is a technique in which colored pigments are mixed with hot beeswax and damar resin. Each layer of hot wax is “burned in” to the previous layer and there is no limit to the number of layers that may be used to create a piece of art. This process produces paintings with visual depth and color clarity.
My Inspiration
A profound awareness of my ancestral connections triggers an emotional response too deep and mysterious for words. For me, art-making is a creative process of finding the yet-undiscovered pieces of my story. My private vocabulary of marks, scratches, and gouges give voice to that story. The lines of my work represent the familial lines that connect me to my artistic ancestors going back at least seven generations. Creative expression through writing, music, sculpture and painting continue through the next generations – my son, cousins, nieces, nephews, and grands continue to connect us to our ancestors artistic journey. It’s humbling to think about.