We Will Sing As One In Solidarity

artchipel:

ARTchipel Artist

Mary Ann Wakeley (USA) - The Eleventh Hour. Oil Mixed Media on Strathmore Bristol Vellum (2011)

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• Tell us in few words about you.
I am from the Philadelphia area where I still live and work today. Despite the fact that I wear mostly black and have for many years, I love color. For me, color equals life. Art is a way to explore life. Line has always fascinated me too. From a very early age I can recall drawing a line on a piece of paper and then cutting it and watching it disappear. That intrigued me! I love lines and what they represent especially in terms of sound. The sound of the bow striking the strings of a violin have a moving effect on me. Drawing fine lines has a musical and moving effect on me.

Basically a quiet person, I enjoy being with people but most of the daytime hours I prefer solitude and find it necessary in order to create anything. I have no agenda as an artist. I take what comes through me to put on canvas, paper or wood. My emotions and what is going on in the world around me feed me and are translated into a visual form of some kind. It all happens in the moment I begin to work.

• What are your work process and techniques?
Often I will begin by putting random marks or lines down, usually in black using a ballpoint pen, pastel or conte crayon. I might then grab a brush and squeeze out some acrylic, blending over the lines or around them or both. A lot of times I will draw with colored chalk pastels and move the color around with a wet brush or hair spray and then add some white acrylic over it. I like to play with effects. I like to use my fingers to apply materials and have begun wearing latex gloves in recent months.

If I am feeling energetic I will work in large format on rolled canvas tacked to the wall. Often it is satisfying to do something smaller on paper that gives a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day. I tend not to labor over an individual piece. I work quickly, enjoying the physical motion of it, and will apply layers of paint and pastels until the piece feels complete and has nothing more to offer me. It is very much an interaction and communication with what is in front of me.

• What inspires and provokes imagination in you?
All things foreign and exotic inspire me. One of my favorite things to do is to sit and look through foreign interiors’ magazines and books. Even though I paint abstractly, I am more inspired by looking at portraits that use color and line in an unique way. A couple of my favorite portrait artists are Elizabeth Peyton and Alice Neel. Beautifully filmed movies set in foreign places especially in a countryside, also inspire me. And of course all kinds of music. Also, sometimes I burn sandalwood incense while I work or light a candle.

• Does your work reflect your person?
I think it must. I put all of myself into the work.

• The word you prefer?
Yes

(interview with artist by ARTchipel Dec-2011; visit also Mary Ann Wakeley’s Tumblr)

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