From Field to Frame: A Conversation with Artists at The Byrne Gallery

Story by William Anderson

Local artist Craig Arnold was driving through Ireland in 2003 when he stumbled across the scene that he would paint 23 years later. “I came around this bend at the top of the road,” Arnold says, “when I literally slammed on my brakes and pulled over.” His painting depicts a narrow road lined with a stone wall leading past a small church in lush grasslands. It was featured in last month’s exhibit at The Byrne Gallery, “Places in My Heart.”

Arnold often takes photos of landscapes he believes will make good paintings. At this point, he has so many it can be difficult to know where to begin. He often leafs through his old photos waiting for something to jump out at him. For one painting, he lay down in a parking lot to capture the unique perspective of a flowering thistle in front of the famous T.A. Moulton Barn in Grand Teton, Wyoming. “If the scene invites you to stay and be there for a while, perhaps feel the energy of the place,” Arnold says, “then my painting has done for you what it does for me.”

Featured artists with gallery owner Susan Byrne.

From left to right: Flack, Arnold, Bollettino, and Byrne.

Laura Bollettino and Katie Flack are both plein air artists also featured in the exhibit. Painting has been a part of Bollettino’s life since her earliest memories; she remembers her mother painting at the beach while she and her siblings played. She has been painting professionally for the last several decades. Bollettino prefers plein air painting, meaning she works on-site, because it captures her interpretation of the moment. “It is very visceral,” she says. Because of time and weather constraints, the largest she will paint outside is 16 by 20 inches. “What is not pictured are the bugs,” she adds.

For Flack, it was a love of the outdoors that drew her to plein air painting. “I’m drawn to the quiet rhythms of the landscape,” she shares. “I aim to capture not just what a place looks like, but how it feels to stand within it.”

She often paints in two stages: she paints to 80% completion on-site, and then takes it home where she can come back to it later with fresh eyes. For Flack, painting is not about displaying her mastery of techniques. “I always ask what the painting needs,” she explains. Techniques are just tools to draw on when necessary. She views her painting as similar to journaling, as she can look back on her old work and trace her stylistic changes.

Anne Stine is an encaustic painter. Encaustic painting is a style where the artist uses molten wax and damar resin to enhance the way light reflects on the painting, highlighting colors. Stine demonstrated this style at The Byrne Gallery on May 31. She began applying a layer of writing ink to a wood panel, which she let drip down with gravity, creating a random pattern. Then she applied the hot wax mixture, melting it with a blowtorch. Switching back and forth from ink to wax to a scraper, she slowly revealed a beachy landscape in the painting.

“Painting with encaustic can be frustrating, but maybe that is good,” Stine says. Because she paints professionally, she cannot always wait for the creative spirit to seize her. She finds that if she just starts painting, she will often find the right spirit. “Sketching is something you have to do every day,” she says, comparing it to working a muscle.