Wyse Talk with Jan Doyle and Regina Thomas

[Music] [Music] hi I'm Jim Doyle and this is wise talk thank you so much for tuning in to the show today's guest is talented creative artistic her name is Regina Thomas welcome to the show no thanks June I'm so happy to have you here now Regina I understand you're a collage mixed-media artist yes what is that exactly well collage has anything to do with tearing paper and applying it to a support canvas and mixed-media is just what it says it's mixing different mediums it could be different types of paint acrylic wash water color inks graphite charcoal it's and mediums we also in today's day and age have a lot of gel mediums the companies make for acrylic that could give them texture and other different types of looks which I'll talk about with you later yeah I just had a quick question that came to my mind would you ever consider mixing photographs and thread as mixed mirrors so that's yeah a lot of people with digital photography today they incorporated into fine art as transfers or doing that or using textiles and threads so yes absolutely so the death the definition is it seems to be enlarging abroad it is because there's so many things creative things available to artists today that weren't before and I know you'd like to get those and play with everything I'm always pushing the envelope and trying to teach myself thump something new which I have to say I was really impressed with when I met then you said that now when you start a piece you're you look at a blank white canvas now what that's the hardest part I think for most of the people I know that are in the art field it's kind of intimidating you see this white thing and you're supposed to come up with something creative so for myself I usually just throw some paint on the canvas by throwing I do mean literally splashing into one or taking gloves and smashing it around or just using brushes and palette knives and do that but before you start that process with the actual goodies the the mediums primer is important I urge that even today when you can buy canvases that are pre primed by the factories they're white that's comp that's gesso which is a chalky white substance and just like when you paint a house you have to prime the walls first so that the paint doesn't suck it all up it's the same way with us and it also makes the campus easier to work on so I urge you to gesso it and then start throwing some stuff on it now some people like to think about it ahead of time I don't I am pretty much just going with the flow and seeing what comes up and eventually something comes out that's almost sounds like it is difficult it's like you go to I saw your studio I have studio nd I might ask and you go down and you look at your canvas and and you just create from that blank slate then that sounds now very I very rarely have anything in mind there is a thing that you used to do as children where you would doodle yes and you'd make all these different doodle things and then you're supposed to find something in that doodle it could be a bird a snake a tree and that's coming of what I do with the gesso I apply it thickly and leave it very textural most of the time and somehow I'll keep studying that and then putting the paint on and I'll start to see things oh that's that's a very interesting process now we're going to start looking at some of your and then going into specifics but the first piece is called watcher in the woods right and I understand that's behind you yes so can you explain to me a little bit about this piece your inspiration I have some favorite icons that I like to put in my art trees or my absolute favorite I just love trees and I study them all the time I find them almost more beautiful bare because the barks are so interesting so this piece again I had just primed the the canvas and started working and created the series of trees and as I was doing it and looking making it very textural and trying to make the bars more interesting I started to have some fun with it and left some areas where it almost looks like a face or an eye looking at you mm-hmm and I don't know how many people go for walks in the woods but sometimes it can be a little interesting where you feel as if you are being watched so I think a lot of trees have faces in them and I'm looking right and I remember when I saw this in your house I did pick out an eye but I liked looking at trees in nature and picking out different parts of the body in a tree they're fascinating you know trees are just beautiful to me there's nothing like it it's our anchor between heaven and earth so know as I say I just apply mediums and I keep layering and texturing this is many many layers to achieve this one of the mediums that I like to use in the trees not everywhere but some places if you can see this closely is crackle paste which I'll talk about later yeah and crackle paste is just just that it causes cracks yeah it causes cracks in the bark which you see when you look at real trees now none of my work is supposed to be realistic but it is it represents a tree when you look at it go back to a detail and now if you look over here okay good good this one area I don't know if I'm covering you're doing a fine job this one area here if you look very closely looks like there's someone in that bar I see that and that's what I like is when people look at my work from a distance they like it but then they keep getting in closer and they all say most of my people who come to my shows say they always find interesting things in it and that makes me happy now that was very good now I just want to speak a minute so you have shows and you exhibit out a gallery to be a little bit about that I started in Boston area and then when I moved here to New Haven I started to join different organizations like New Haven Peyton clay is one creative arts workshop there's a whole series and I'm right now being represented in Center Brook near Essex at Spectrum gallery and so I do work whenever she has different exhibitions the one coming up I think it's going to be in February and March at the end of February March is black and white so right now I'm having fun challenging myself doing some just black and white work well I've been to that gallery and it's a it's a wonderful gallery yes it is it's a beautiful space now I also understand you give workshops their workshops and classes so and that kind of moves right into your sample boards tell me a little about your sample boards and what you do with the workshops and classes well I tried all my classes that I do for five weeks I start my students out with learning things about painting or coal ash usually coal ash first which is using papers you'll notice a lot of papers in my work and we'll be talking more we'll talk that but then also learning what the mediums there's so many mediums that you can use and these are from Golden's so this is what I do those I make sampler boards for them and this is liquitex I like both companies I don't get any money I'm not promoting them but I do recommend them and you can see that I don't know how closely you can look but different let's see this one says modeling paste and if you go to a store you'll see samples to showing it but I went once my students after a few five-week sessions want to learn more about working with the painting medium then I want them to learn about all the gel mediums because they always say well how did you do that and how did you do that well this is how it's it's not magic it's actual gel products that change the look of the paint now this this is very interesting because what you have here is I see self self-love self level leveling gel gel and you have samples of it as someone who doesn't have any background information on this I could go back to my sample board and say oh that's why this is what we talked about in class right and actually I even find the campus interesting this is these are very you can buy these at a place like Michaels or any art supply store we could get them in packs of five and they're just canvas but their panels now they're hard to work on but I mean hard in touch as I look at this one on the gels I'm noticing on there are some things with you have like sparkles in them and this one has sparkles inside it and this one is like a chalk paste that you you I talked to see you I really can't turn it towards you because I'm not because I don't like you know and this one has does it say it says it's clear granular gel oh right yes so that's also known as glass bead gel and it looks like little shiny glass being okay I see that this is the one we're looking at okay and this I can see that in here so when you send your students home and they have a sample board this is because an invaluable learning tool it is and I want them I always give them printouts and have them do something like this so they'll remember when they're on their own and they watch it because it's expensive so you won't they want to if you're going to purchase something make sure you really use music this one is a coarse pumice mm-hmm that's like a sand as you can see these are those granular gels or I have this product is liquid Texan this is the same idea the glass bead it's just a little different each company makes it differently let's see if I can find it's hard to tell because it's white but just and there's crackle paste which I used in the trees and you can see the cracks in the panel that's not showing up as well as it doesn't person but I understand what you're saying now right behind me or using what you have to the aquarium what is the Aquarius as a piece I'm just going to take this over the Aquarius really shows you how you can make different things with it the gel medium but in this I have it's an abstract to try to kind of express what the ocean is so I have Asian papers specialty papers that I paint it over now tapers like race papers but and where did you get those well I some of them I used to live in Singapore for several years or you can go to art supply stores today or online of course and you can order different varieties I just like to recap you've lived in England you've lived in Asia yes and I'm just sitting yeah you're in the United States you've gotten around yeah you've just gotten around are you that kind of woman alright so go hey I'm just saying that this is paper as you see it stunts it divided into three parts so this is a gel medium uses that that supposed to look like mother-of-pearl or oysters and gives that very texture oh look and then down here I have a very a variety of glass bead gel in it to make the water look more sparkly it's may be hard to see on camera and I also use it's like a glitter but it's in I don't have a sample of it that you can buy these little paints that have broken up chips that glow so this is a very textural piece I don't know how well you can tell but nicely isn't I shine in there yeah this part and then this part and it's all using all of those mediums gels as well as the coal eyes using the paper but I changed it to make it my own so how does this how long does something like this take to dry oh well again this is several layers so when I'm working I'm usually working on at least three pieces at a time because I want to give it time to dry and then I go back in so this piece probably gently took because the composition is fairly simple and abstract probably by the time it was finished maybe in three days well I have to say that's oh that's something that I'm not sure I would be able to you handle you have three separate projects distinct projects going at one time how do you keep everything straight I don't know I just look at the canvas and know what I'm doing and I I don't plan anything so that's the beauty of my work I just keep adding to it and looking and whenever I finish a piece I will keep it hung in my studio against a wall and look at it for several days or a couple of weeks because sometimes something isn't right and I can't figure out what I need to do so I understand what you mean by that because I have a design wall because I do something totally different from you but I I do need to just look at it and you and and through the process of looking right it talks to me I don't know dear does your work talk to you since some days it doesn't talk to me and I have to walk away that's why I do more than one project at a time that's what not so because sometimes you can keep working on one piece you get frustrated and you can ruin it so it's nice to be able to hang it up and keep looking at it and thinking I can't tell you how many times I get them photographed and I use my husband as a professional fine art yeah he's got bad I've seen this were they're pretty good yeah so he photographs my work and then a couple of weeks later I'll say oh I need to have more work I have to have more photographs done because I changed does he make you make them cookies or something to do that yeah I mean does he work you out of work I just was wondering when one thing that sort of resonated with me here when we were doing our pre-interview in your studio is that you always like to try the new products oh yeah and why is that why why isn't it like well I know how to do it I'm just gonna stick with what I know why new products I think everybody's different and I started art late in life and a lot of my work has been self-taught I started with some workshops with some artists to kind of get a leg up but it's just interesting to me I get bored very easily mm-hmm and so I do that and I also teach so I can't teach to my students if I haven't myself worked with the materials now did you have an art background in college no I did not you know my mother in law was a professional artist from Newtown school in Pennsylvania and she introduced me to galleries and museums and then she bought me my first set of oils and I was barely 21 but then eventually my husband started doing international and I quit the paints away because I had to watch children and I couldn't do both right right and I didn't pick it up again until I said to you I was I always loved art and appreciated art my daughter picked that up she went to RISD she graduated there and a fine arts degree but I myself I had to wait till later in life which was kind of nice maybe I appreciate it more and I'm not as nervous but when you get older you're not as nervous about what other people think and it makes no and it makes me happy and when I get positive responses because that's what I want my art to do I don't want to shock anyone or upset anyone I just want them to get a good feeling and do want to get intimate with the piece mm-hmm well that's probably why you're in gaol reason and you do you do very well just the shows and you've made a comment that you see it from a distance but then you like people to come closer and find other things in it now I I understand you have this is in front of me it's called cityscapes cityscape now you have a class on this and I did have a 5-week class on that where do you teach your class spectrum gallery in Center Brook near Essex and this is odd 300 pound archival arches paper that's that's a thick a very heavy and I did that because when I I always do a sample of what I'm going to teach and I wanted to teach them how to make painted and Angele plated papers and then to cut shapes basic rectangle squares circles triangles and create their own cityscape I don't have them do what I do but I leave that at the clasp so they can borrow from it or get ideas for it but you're not interested in having them mimic it exactly no because I don't I think that's kind of limiting to the students and some of them have I've had students who are professional artists and just want to learn something new to maybe add to their work and then I have people who really don't know much about art at all and I want them to have fun with it and go home with something that they can feel proud that's that's a good thought that really is now we're on a new series of five week series and and I get a lot of return students and we're doing tearing papers and creating painted paper collage and I'm letting them pick out their own composition I've showed them because not all of them can draw how to do a carbon paper on top of the already painted surface and some are doing birds somebody trees horses cows still-life whatever they want to do and clear the papers can't cut it but tear the papers this time and go with the curvature of their work and we'll see how that goes well I think that's fantastic after talking with you I just want to take one of your classes because I thought that not that I ever expect to grow up and be just like you but I just like the idea and and the playful part of it and have fun yeah and understanding I know nothing about it and I think because knowing you and knowing I know nothing about it it's okay because you said something to me where you take every student where they are you know and you walk around and you take every student and you help them move forward and I thought well I don't care if I make a mess you know I don't know anything anyway I'll say to them it's only a piece of paper or a canvas and we can throw a gesso over and it just makes the work more more text oral that's that was my phone yeah now there's a word I'm not going to even try to say because I know I'm not going to do it oh the title of this piece and I can't say it so what is that Shannara I dare you to say should not I dare you to say it look it up and say it all by yourself Shanaya enough now that's this piece over here his piece again was done on 300 pound paper and mounted on a frame by a very well-known framer here in this area Dwight Petersen and he would do a lot of my bigger pieces and knows how to really show them all I thought I always thought it was her husband who did this no no he's done some basic framing for me but when I have bigger pieces that I want to have in a show Dwight was the person the go-to person a lot of the artists in New Haven use him this time I thought this was you married a talented man and I was extremely jealous I'm not as Jonathan it was Oh cuz I I noticed the frame you didn't I loved the framing yeah he does wonderful work and he always makes my work my presentation is everything it is and he does a beautiful job and it's probably hard to tell here but I I am known for my very uneven raggy edges I like to go over the paper and so he that really highlights and it's a floating mat and I not sure what he uses to pull it out a little bit from the surface of it but this is all Asian because I did live in Singapore and you can get these papers today here but also when my husband would go to Asia to different countries he would bring back vintage papers use the frost the China from China and whatnot so I did that and then I have a thing when I go on vacation my husband makes my girlfriend and I sit in the backseat and we the read books or I sketch so I just have a little books I'd buy usually at Barnes & Noble that are these beautiful leather books with mulberry paper yeah yeah and so I take pencil and do pencil sketches and of course it's always nature leaves and whatnot and bring them back when I come home after a trip and every once a while pull them out and embellish them paint them a little bit more add some ink and so I thought they'd be pretty in this particular piece different leaves very interesting the case and the thought that I had because I know when you travel you when you try to bring back gifts it's difficult because you your cousin you're constrained by size and weight but to bring back paper he can find out and it's easy to bring it back and he brings back paper and he's good for gold but the next happy yes cheap way to go you know girls want jewels i want paper wow did he pick a right woman cuz this is very very pretty it's very very pretty and it's taken it's interesting to look at and I liked hearing about how that you used your sketching dog and you can integrated some of my own work that's not my forte necessarily but as I say I don't do anything to be photographic in realistic in any way shape or form so it's kind of how I see things now we only have a few minutes left I just wanted to get to that other piece behind you another one of my favorite icons are dwellings naive dwellings and there's the tree and I also have the birds especially Ravens I think there's something special about the Raven and that reminds me of Edgar Allan Poe that well yes if you want to go dark I'm not trying to go door okay but I ain't agreat this is called kindred spirits and it was a two-part series and I don't really show these I've so far kept them at home and but they're some of my favorite work and I just have fun making these simplistic dwellings and I at this time I put the tree the bird the whole nine yards and I use old vintage papers materials the foil you see in there I think that was gum wrapper foil really I'm like a bag lady when Bob goes to New York he's a photographer we'll go early in the morning and he'll be trying to photograph and I'll be in the back with my raincoat with the big pockets picking up papers and trash from the school I think it's so upset I said you forget what I do 50 years he's not gonna go leave you now after 50 years I remember when I was at your home you told me to look in your living room dining room area and said take anything you want off the wall and bring will bring to the show and so these are some of the things yeah these are some of the things that I I really don't show in galleries and what yes I will eventually but they look really nice right now in my other home that's only three years old and yes I kinda hate to part with some of them they're beautiful no I I might director is gonna tell me again how much time we have left because I did forget but I really quickly want to see that piece over there well this is caustic art this isn't caustically oldest art form is using melted wax and pigment and and I and I am learning teaching myself I've taken a couple of weekend courses with some well-known and caustic artists so that I could learn how to safely do it but it's melting wax and adding pigment and I also have old papers underneath and talk more about it I just wanted to make sure the audience is still learning these and I have probably about eight pieces of work maybe that could be even be is showing itself do you have a website yes I do what is your website it's Regina regi na M is Marie Thomas th o mas at comcast.net I just realized we have the same middle name my middle name is Marie oh yeah we're sisters so um and if people wanted to contact you that would be the way to do is through your website right Regina M Thomas and they can look up and find out more about you and where you're going wait a minute comcast.net that's my email okay so calm calm I do this all the other way you can get hold of me and I forget that and you want to contact her and you can always contact me Joao at BC TV or you can contact me through JM d teach at comcast.net and either way we'll get in touch with her but this was really extremely interesting and to bring to know how you developed as an artist it all started with your mother in law so the other lots are not all bad that's kind of line welder do you know and was quite talented and and she brought you we owe it all to her and but we really owe it to your husband because you met her through your husband absolutely so he's at the root of your creative genius oh sure I give him but your work is wonderful and I hope I get to take one of your classes in the above year great thank you so much I mean I really appreciate it thank you [Music] you

Channel: Jan Doyle

Views: 174

Keywords: Regina Thomas, Collage, Mixed Media, Artist, Chinoiseries, Spectrum Gallery, Encaustic

Id: jTduPIsNnHY

Length: 29min 35sec (1775 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2018