LiDona Wagner

Gift of A Mentor

Recently I spent two weeks in Ventura, California in what is called Open Studio. This annual gathering of artists is an opportunity to support and encourage one another and to receive professional feedback from abstract artist Katherine Chang Liu. Some artists attend every year. I go every other year.

Making arrangements to do our art in a place away from our home studio is something of an ordeal. Not only do you have to make all of the travel and lodging reservations, you have to anticipate the work you will do, pack all of the appropriate materials, and ship your “boxed-up studio” to Ventura within the designated time frame.

Preparing to Work With A Mentor

This year I struggled with the Open Studio requirement that you bring eight images of recent work. Two years ago I began a body of work related to humanity’s migrations out of East Africa to every corner of the globe. At that time I focused on our common origins in Africa, completing five paintings in the first year after my last Open Studio. These were published in our book, Art Twenty-Eleven, so I could hardly call them “recent work”.

Since then, I had gotten sidetracked into publishing PILGRIMAGE Wonder Encounter Witness and helping edit four other books. I had also taken 18 months to teach a Heritage Mandala class based on the migration journey of each participant as revealed in individual DNA tests. I did this because I wanted Children of Eve to be grounded in my own truth. Researching each stage of my migration journey and those of my students had resulted in binders filled with articles and online material.

Completing the Heritage Mandala, I tried to get back into painting large again by pulling out former unfinished paintings and practicing on them. I got one quarter-sheet painting out of that endeavor. I call it “My Multicultural Fertility Goddess.”

So my compilation of “recent work” consisted of two paintings: my Heritage Mandala and my fertility goddess. Wanting to conform to the eight images requirement and at the same time be honest, I pulled out two of the visual journals I’ve been keeping over the last couple of years and photographed six pages. That may have been fortuitous.

A Mentor Knows You

During the first two days of Open Studio, each artist has a twenty-minute session with Liu in which she reviews the eight images and discusses what is evolving in the artist’s work. Reviewing my images, Liu allowed as how my mandala could be in a section of the Eve exhibition on my own journey. Good. However, my fertility goddess seemed “too hip” for the Eve series. My heart sank. Continuing through the images, she asked, “Are you into book arts?” “Sort of,” I replied tentatively. I mentioned that I’d been thinking of having installation components with the paintings.

My recent lack of productivity must have signaled an impasse. Liu said, “When content is so large, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Why don’t you go geographical? You think that way and it brings to mind the culture, the fabrics, the language and food for you. You’re a writer, so start writing. I know you. You work by chapters. Start with Southeast Asia since that’s where the first migration went.”

“Can I use collage?” I queried. “Collage is part of your vocabulary,” she replied. “What about installation components?” I asked. “Your sketchbooks can be part of the exhibition." Bingo! "They can be on pedestals in front of the paintings to which they relate. Maybe you can have some things on the floor.” Relief swept through me.

I went to my space and immediately made a chart of the geographical chapters. I could see how some of the research material I had gathered might be included in the sketchbooks. I took out a new sketchbook and began writing about Southeast Asia. I decided the underlay for each composition would be geographical. Next day I pulled out my maps and began tracing Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands (SEAPAC).

The geography of SEAPAC is huge. I determined that I wanted Southeast Asia and Australia to be dominant. I decided the islands needed to be two smaller paintings that would visually overlap with a bigger Southeast Asia painting. Together it would be a triptych, with each piece hanging at different distances from the wall.

I brainstormed in my sketchbook, recalling experiences I’ve had in that part of the world. One evening as I reflected in my hotel room the sketch for the triptych flowed from my pencil onto the page. Over the ensuing days I got a good start on the triptych.

A Creative Cyclotron

Most mornings during Open Studio Liu makes a visual presentation. Two I especially appreciated were on Installation Work and Abstraction. Other presentations also fed my imagination.

After the first two days of individual reviews are done, Liu makes daily rounds. She systematically goes artist by artist from one end of the room to the other, checking to see if we have questions. It is not that I or other artists could not figure things out on our own. It is that having her eye helps us move faster.

For example, I had purchased some cloth to experiment with it as collage material. When I showed Liu the sketch for the triptych and told her how I was thinking of using the cloth, she commented, “In working with fabric, use it where wrinkles won’t matter and do layers.” She also suggested that I do another part of the design in layers of paper. I saw immediately that this would complement the cloth, making it not a singular collage element.

The two weeks of Open Studio are an incubator or cyclotron. Mostly we artists work in a semi-conscious trial and error way. When a mentor holds up a mirror and describes to us what she sees us doing, it accelerates our learning process.