fluence magazine

fluencejan-feb 2010ricco/maresca, new york

WILLIAM HAWKINS: ARCHITECTURAL

PAINTINGS

Also in this issue:Hiroyuki Doi’s Bold Art fromTiny Circles

IntroducingMiriam Wosk

On the cover: Detail of Mt. Vernon

c. 1988oil enamel on Masonite

36 ins. x 48 ins.

Right:Mt. Vernon

c. 1988oil enamel on Masonite

36 ins. x 48 ins.

fluenceA magazine about artists, art discoveries and more

FEATURES JAn/FEb 2010

WilliAm HAWkins: ArcHitecturAl PAintingsby Edward M. GómezAn exhibition of the self-taught master’s images of buildings and monuments calls attention to his vision of the urban landscape.

Hiroyuki Doi: A Big, BolD Art of teeny-tiny circlesby Edward M. GómezA Japanese artist creates meditative compositions and voluminous forms in ink on handmade paper.

tecHnology AnD tHe toucH of tHe HAnDby Edward GoldmanFor mixed-media artist Miriam Wosk, transforming her works into tapes-tries and prints has brought unexpected—and welcome—surprises.

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WILLIAM HAWKINS: ARCHITECTURAL

PAINTINGSAn exhibition of the

self-taught master’s images of buildings

and monuments calls attention to his vision

of the urban landscape

By Edward M. Gómez

To make a living, the self-taught artist William Hawkins (1895-1990) tried his hand at just about everything dur-

ing his long life—raising farm animals, serving in the U.S. Army in World War I, working as a plumber, driving a truck and even run-ning a bordello. Similarly, when it came to making art, very little es-caped the eager grasp and transformative power of his imagination.

At Hawkins’ home in Columbus, Ohio, in the early 1980s, the young artist Lee Garrett, a recent graduate of Ohio State Univer-sity, discovered the older man’s artwork. He also learned that he had been a pack rat for a very long time. In Hawkins’ apartment, located one floor above a barber shop, Garrett found that, over the years, the eighty-something art-maker had amassed an astonishing array of cast-offs, including old pipes, appliances, motors, wheels, pieces of sheet metal, cans of house paint and weathered boards.

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Parliamentary Buildings with Three Girls, c. 1986, oil enamel and collage on Masonite, 39 1/2 ins. x 48 ins.

Hawkins found inspiration for his paintings in the photos of buildings and monuments he clipped from magazones and stored in a suitcase.


fluence jan-feb 2010 3

In a 1997 monograph, the author and researcher Gary Schwindler recalled that Hawkins “never stopped collect-ing” all kinds of materials that could be turned into works of art “even when he didn’t need to.” (See Schwindler’s int, “You Want to See Somethin’ Pretty?”, in Frank Maresca and Roger Ricco, eds., William Hawkins Paintings (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), page ix.)

The artist told Schwindler: “You’re step-pin’ over money if you don’t pick them up....I’m nothing but a junk man.” In fact, as critical recognition of Hawkins’ richly expressive painting style and in-ventive ideas has grown since his work’s first-ever public showing in an exhibi-tion at the Ohio State Fair in 1982, so, too, has appreciation among art lovers in the U.S. and abroad of the energy and enthusiasm—call it magic—with which Hawkins turned his funky finds into enduring emblems of an unbridled creative spirit.

As the big block letters with which he inscribed his name and often identified his subject matter, right across the bot-toms or the sides of his paintings, rou-tinely indicate, Hawkins was born in eastern Kentucky on July 27, 1895. He was known to have been proud of his mixed white, black and Native Ameri-can ancestry. Brought up on a farm by his maternal grandparents, he became

Ohio Statehouse No. 2, c. 1985, oil enamel on Masonite, 39 1/2 ins. x 48 ins.

skilled at caring for animals, construct-ing and repairing fences, and operat-ing special tools and equipment. Once, during his teenage years, after hitching a team of horses to a plow as an omi-nous-looking storm rolled in, Hawkins was struck by lightning as it bounced off a nearby fence. He survived that near-death experience, an alarming en-counter with the forces of nature that convinced the youth that the life that lay before him would be a special one.

By the time he was 21 years old, Hawk-ins had fathered a child, but at the insis-tence of a shotgun-toting aunt, he left


falo are among the most indelible im-ages in all of his multi-themed oeuvre; so, too, are his pictures of various archi-tectural subjects, including the Alamo, the construction of the Statue of Liberty and assorted banks and hotels.

Hawkins often used bright colors in audacious combinations that recall the exuberance of 1960s-era pop art or even the outrageous palettes of German expressionism, with their hints of psychological tension or high-pitched emotion. Whether dominated by single, large, space-filling subjects or packed with numerous figures, col-

the infant and its mother behind and in 1916 headed to Columbus to begin what would become a long life as an urban jack-of-all-trades. Ultimately, he would also become an inventive artist whose distinctive style would earn the praise of critics, curators, collectors and other artists around the U.S. and overseas.

Hawkins began making art in the 1930s. For someone who had grown up on a farm, where he had learned to hunt and trap small animals, care for livestock and breed horses, animals were among the first subjects he depicted. Hawkins’ renderings of dogs, dinosaurs and buf-

Log Cabin, c. 1986, oil enamel on Masonite, 35 ins. x 57 ins.


Title Goes Here, 1980, enamel on Masonite, 40 ins. x 60 ins.


Historical Monument, c. 1986, oil enamel on Masonite, 45 ins. x 56 ins.

laged elements and decorative patterns, including those that serve as borders to frame each image, Hawkins’ composi-tions often feel animated and convey a sense of real or imagined stories unfold-ing. (In fact, those who knew the artist well have recalled that Hawkins was al-ways an entertaining storyteller.)

From January 7 through February 20,

2010, Ricco/Maresca, the exclusive representative of the Estate of William Hawkins, is presenting “William Hawk-ins: Architectural Paintings.” The exhi-bition features a selection of emblemat-ic images of buildings and monuments whose vivid blends of bold colors, geo-metric shapes and brushy pattern-mak-ing have earned Hawkins’ paintings, which he usually made with enamel on


William Hawkins, with an automobile he decorated himself, at his home in Columbus, Ohio, in the early 1980s. (Photo: Roger Ricco)

An inveterate pack rat, who collected all kinds of cast-off materials, the artist once said: “I’m nothing but a junk man.”


Jordan Memorial Temple, c. 1986, oil enamel on Masonite,

35 ins. x 57 ins.

board, the admiration of outsider art aficionados and contemporary-art col-lectors alike. Paintings on view in the exhibition depict such subjects as Ohio’s Statehouse, in Columbus, which Hawk-ins had seen many times in person, as well as the British Houses of Parlia-ment, in London, and Hearst Castle’s Neptune Pool. The British-government buildings and that luxurious section of the 20th-century, American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst’s vast estate in California (which is now a state historic site) are subjects the artist would have known only from photos in magazines.

In fact, Ricco/Maresca co-director Frank Maresca recalls, “Hawkins, who was always scavenging through the trash, used to clip photos of subjects that interested him from magazines. He would carefully fold his clippings and store them in a special suitcase that he would dip into for inspiration when thinking about what to paint. Just like many academically trained artists, in his own way, Hawkins was methodi-cal and disciplined about doing the re-search that informed his art.”

Hawkins once observed about his work as an artist: “I don’t copy what I see. I make it better.” (See Joanne Cubbs and Eugene W. Metcalf, “William Hawkins and the Art of Astonishment,” Folk Art,

fall 1997, page 60.) In recent years, as critical attention has focused more and more on the various technical and the-matic affinities the works of self-taught artists may share with those of their formally trained modern and contem-porary counterparts, Hawkins’ art has earned praise for its audacious use of color and the strong sense of design that is evident in its inventive composi-tions.

Now, with “William Hawkins: Archi-tectural Paintings,” admirers of this definitive, American self-taught art-ist’s work will have an opportunity to examine in detail Hawkins’ distinctive representations of what, for him, ap-peared to have been iconic symbols of the built, urban environment that for much of his life had both challenged and intrigued this former Kentucky farmboy. - f -


right: State Capital, Albany No. 2, c. 1986,

oil enamel on Masonite, 64 ins. x 48 ins.

left: Neptune Pool, San Simeon, c. 1986, oil enamel and collage on Masonite, 32 ins. x 49 ins.

Hawkins always boldly painted his name and birthdate, and often the name of his subject matter, right into his compositions.

right: State Capital, Albany No. 2, c. 1986,

oil enamel on Masonite, 64 ins. x 48 ins.



Hiroyuki DoiA big, bold Art of Teeny-Tiny Circles

by Edward M. Gómez


one of the most basic shapes in nature and in art, as elegant in its simplicity as it is powerful in its symbolism, representing such resonant themes as fullness, unity, strength, vastness or even the fecundity of the protective, enveloping womb.

In Japan, the circle appears frequently as the subject of the callig-rapher’s art, even though, technically, it is a symbol and not one of the borrowed Chinese characters (kanji) with which the Japanese language is written. Zen buddhism’s influence can be felt in interpre-tations of the circle as a symbol of the universe or, by contrast, as a symbol of the void. It can also refer to a spirit-lifting sense of enlight-enment that transcends the woes and distractions of the fleeting, fickle, weary material world.

Consider the humble, ubiquitous, perfect form of the circle,

Opposite page: Untitled (HD 0109), 2009,

59 ins. x 38.5 ins.; right: Untitled (HD H0307), 2007, 43 ins. x 31 ins.; both made with oil-based black ink on Japanese

washi (handmade paper)


In Zen aesthetics, the simple circle gives visible form to a moment in which the mind is free of intellectual clutter, and an artist’s unified body and spirit find expression in the making of a sure, impulsive, unencumbered mark. The painting that results is both the reflection of an enlightened state and a tangible record of a gesture that refers to and expresses that state. Such spontaneous mark-making is never modified or embellished later. Its clarity, simplicity and purity are es-sential aspects of its expressive power.

The Japanese self-taught artist Hiroyuki Doi, who was born in nagoya in 1946, instinctively understands—and has been deeply moved by—the communicative power of the circle as a form and as a symbol. The circle is the basic form that he uses to incrementally build up and elaborate energetic, abstract compositions.

below: Untitled (HD 49Z06),no date, 25 ins. x 39 ins.; oil-based black ink on Japanese washi (handmade paper)


images” has “provided relief from the sadness and grief” he has felt since the death, more than 35 years ago, of his youngest brother from a brain tumor. Since that time, as Doi has observed, he has created works that simultaneously have alluded to such themes as “the transmigration of the soul, the cosmos, the coexistence of living creatures, human cells, human dialog and peace.”

Doi has written that, for him, “using circles to produce

Above: Untitled (HD 1-C02), 2002,

13.5 ins. x 53 ins.; oil-based black ink on

Japanese washi(handmade paper)

The artist, who uses pen and ink on Japanese washi (handmade paper) has recalled: “by drawing, I started to feel calm. I started to feel that something other than myself allowed me to draw these works.” The varieties of washi Doi has used for his drawings have in-cluded those made with fibers from the bark of such shrubs or trees as the kouzo (known as the paper mulberry in English), the ganpi and the mitsumata.

Doi’s untitled ink drawings in various formats include both small works depicting single, blob-like forms and larger pieces that recall ancient painted screens or hanging scrolls, and whose compositions suggest fluffy cloud formations or sprawling constellations. Doi, who today is based in Tokyo and is a retired master chef, makes his ab-stract drawings using only black, fine-point pens, which contain an archival-quality ink. (The pens he uses are marketed only in Japan.)


Opposite page: Untitled (HD 10808), 2008

18 ins. x 15 ins.;oil-based black ink on

Watson paper

With these most basic materials, Doi creates connected, meandering clusters of circles, from random sprinklings of tiny dots to sprawling agglomerations of bubbly, bobbing cells.

The visual textures of his voluminously modeled forms belie his pa-per’s flatness and the simplicity of each work’s constituent parts—all of the thousands of miniscule circles that make up each image. Doi has observed that the act of drawing has allowed him to “feel calm.”

He never starts working on a new drawing with a particular com-position in mind but instead allows each new image he creates to evolve spontaneously and to organically find its final form. The art-ist’s work sessions, he says, are often long and intensive, and medi-tative in character. Doi has recalled that, “at some point, I started to feel that something other than myself was allowing me to draw these works.”

like relief maps of other-worldly surfaces—sometimesthey seem to depict imaginary islands adrift in peaceful or tempes-tuous seas—Doi’s compositions pull a viewer’s gaze in to examine the details of the richly textured forms he brings forth; they could be lunar craters, swirling eddies, surging ridges or gently arcing bays.

An enthusiastic traveler who enjoys exploring the artistic traditions and cuisines of other cultures, Doi began visiting museums in Europe in the 1970s in order to acquire a very personal understand-ing of Western art history. He also became familiar with the aesthetic and stylistic traditions of East Asian painting.

In his own work, though, the artist does not intentionally emulate any known technique or style. However, Doi does recognize the unabashedly hands-on quality of his creations and acknowledges that it is something unusual or rare in the contemporary-art world. In today’s “age of a computerized society,” he notes, “I believe work made using human hands has to be emphasized more.”


Untitled (HD 10308), 2008,18 ins. x 15 ins.;oil-based black ink on Watson paper

Considering the construction of his distinctive images both symbolically and philosophically, Doi notes: “Suppose every creature is a circle, which exists in this world. How many of them could I draw?” Apparently, a lot. Of his incessant drawing of tiny circles, he says: “This is my life’s work and my challenge.”

If something about Doi’s circle-making feels inescapably—per-haps even irresistibly—obsessive, for artist and viewer alike, it may also, he suggests, reflect and express the life force itself.

“By drawing circles,” he says, “i feel that i am alive and existing in the cosmos.”

Untitled (HD 48Z06), nd,25 ins. x 32 ins., oil-based black ink on Japanese washi (handmade paper)


Based in Santa Monica, Cali-fornia, artist Miriam Wosk’s

richly textured works combine such disparate materials as frag-ments of old paper, paint, metallic foils, jewels, wire and other found objects. In her mixed-media creations, these materials come together in complex, atmospheric compositions that celebrate na-ture and evoke a world of dreams. Some of her works are as large as murals. Buoyed by their vibrant colors and a joyful sense of life, they also suggest a heightened sense of time, mortality and the fragility of existence.

Technology and the Touch of the Handfor mixed-media artist miriam Wosk, transforming her works into tapestries and prints has brought unexpected—and welcome—surprises


Ricco/Maresca is pleased to be intro-ducing Wosk’s multifaceted art, espe-cially at a time when many collectors, curators, critics and artists themselves are expressing a growing sense of in-terest in the quality—and visibility—of craftsmanship in works of contempo-rary art.

Recently, Wosk spoke about her ideas and techniques with Edward Goldman, a Los Angeles-based art consultant whose “Art Talk” program is a popular feature on Santa Monica’s KCRW radio station. Wosk described her first-ever experience seeing one of her mixed-me-dia designs transformed into a limited edition tapestry. That edition of eight pieces was produced by Magnolia Edi-tions, a fine-art print-making studio in Oakland, California, which is also in-volved in paper-making.

Edward Goldman: About your tap-estry “Big Red”: John Nava, the artist, tapestry-maker and co-owner of Mag-nolia Editions, visited your studio and chose one of your mixed-media collages, featuring an image of a lobster and its parts, to make into a tapestry. The origi-nal image is about five feet by four feet large; the resulting tapestry measures about eight feet by five feet. It’s a more mysterious and interesting artistic prod-uct than the work on which it is based.

You used metallic thread that added some kind of inner glow to the piece, and you added crystals, too. It’s a com-bination of what technology allows you to achieve, plus your personal touch.

Miriam Wosk: I started with a collage made of tiny bits of vintage wallpapers, patterned papers and natural-history prints. The subject matter refers to nature, but what really intrigued me were these bits of patterns and the new patterns they might create, and also the interaction between the natural world and the ornamental world. It was like Antoni Gaudí’s benches in his Parque Güell in Barcelona, where all these dis-parate fragments [of pique assiette tile] create a new whole.

EG: Why did you choose such an exotic image—that of the lobster? You’ve depicted serpents, spiders and insects before, but the lobster is such an un-usual subject.

MW: I think a lobster is one of the most magnificent creatures on Earth, one of the oldest. It dates back to pre-historic times, and its form is almost extraterrestrial. I’ve long been attracted to the shapes of its shell, claws and body.

EG: Was it a challenge for you to trans-form your original image into another medium? What was required of you as an artist?


Big Red tapestry and beaded chair2007-8, jacquard tapestry with metallic threads and Swarovski crystals92 ins. x 65 1/2 ins.


MW: I’ve been looking for a way to do tapestries for years. In the past, I had had test swatches created by tapestry-makers who wove by hand, but none of them were able to recreate the detail of my work. However, in Magnolia Edi-tions’ process, an image is translated digitally. It goes onto the finest looms that recreate it, almost like pixels, bit by bit; each thread helps create the whole image, translating it into a tap-estry. It pulls the whole thing together in this very rich, lustrous material.

EG: I believe they’re using more dif-

ferently colored threads than it has ever been possible to use before. The most luxurious tapestries of the 17th and 18th centuries—fewer colors were available then. Now, with computer technology, [tapestry-makers can] re-produce the most delicate color combi-nations.

MW: I’m sure that’s true. I livened mine up by including many metal-lic colors—gold, bronzes, peaches, silvers—because I wanted the whole thing to shimmer and shine. Then I gave it an extra, handmade touch of multicolored crystals, so each piece [in

The Golden Serpent, 2007-8, paper collage and painted metallic foils on canvas, 64 ins. x 118 ins.


Flying Around, 2007, paper collage on canvas, 95 ins. x 57 ins

the edition of tapestries] is unique. The beginning of the process [involved] translating the image into layers on the computer. The whole thing was done by e-mail, and each color became a layer. I had to imagine which colors might translate into the best threads in this process.

EG: Did you feel sure about this tapestry-making tech-nique or did you feel like you were entering a new territory?

MW: For me, the process of making art is most joyful—and working with my hands, making something myself. That’s when I loose myself in time and feel most truly alive. This creative process was on the computer and it was fascinating, but it didn’t get to me in the same way making something by hand does. However, when the finished product came, and I saw how beautiful it was, I was enthralled. Then I put my handmade touch on it with the crystals. The finished tapestry is much more glori-ous, monumental and magnificent than anything I could have created with my


Big Red, Detail2007-8, jacquard tapestry with metallic threads and Swarovski crystals, 92 ins. x 65 1/2 ins.

EG: Imagine if Joseph Cornell, years ago, had had the chance to work with this technology when he was building his small boxes, [those] small theatrical stages on which his magic was played out. This particular, interesting new work of yours made me think of Cor-nell’s boxes.

MW: Well, this [lenticular-print] piece also started as a handmade item, as a collage, which seems like a very fluid way for me to work. I can juxtapose things that may never come together otherwise. It comes to me naturally,

own hands. EG: About your lenticular prints, in which a lenticular lens is used to pro-duce images that have the illusion of depth...

MW: I’ve loved that process from the first time I saw those kitschy, old len-ticular postcards. There’s something magical about this illusion. [This print-ing method] had been used for commer-cial purposes before. Now, here was an opportunity to use it to make a limited-edition print in conjunction with a mas-ter printer, and I loved it for my work. I chose a collage I had made that had the look of going back into space. I traced the image by hand on tissue paper and created about eight layers; each one was then meticulously transcribed on the computer by the printers into this world of deep, illusionary space. You can tweak the color, change the minut-est detail—the computer is a magical tool. I was surprised and happy with the result, but it’s a leap of faith—you don’t know what you’ve got until you see the final printed piece. I was trying to create that illusion of outer space and inner cellular space. It’s a metaphysical outlook. I imagine I’m riding through the universe on a light wave. [I think of] Einstein’s work, quantum physics—a bizarre cosmos of my own making, which is symbolic of space, time, color, movement.

The Mystic Flower of the Soul, 2003, acrylic, starfish, jewels and mixed media on panel, 58 ins. x 58 ins.


working with the cut paper. But [the new] technology took it into a whole other realm.

EG: These new projects of yours defi-nitely offer surprises for people who fol-

low your work. As long as you challenge yourself, things are going in the right direction. Should we expect another tapestry or another lenticular print soon?

MW: I hope so.


Bones of the Golden Serpent, 2008, paper collage, painted foils and butterflies on canvas, 41 1/2 ins. x 53 1/2 ins.

fluence magazine

Documents

artist william hawkins

hawkins home

hawkins apartment

new yorkwilliam hawkins

art discoveries

art lovers

bold art of teeny

oil enamel