Janine Croxford
1. How did you find out about the Gallery and how long have you been
a member?
Martha Clayton Lee, an excellent watercolorist who was a member of the
gallery and used to live in the Fayetteville area invited me to submit
my work and apply for membership in the gallery. That was in about
February 2005.
2. I read that you grew up in the Congo and Kenya. Is that where you
developed a love of nature? What images of Africa stand out in your
memory? Have you ever visited the continent again?
Yes, I grew up in the (then) Belgian Congo and Kenya. I was born in
Arkansas but went out there as a baby and spent 15 of the first 17 years
of my life there. The other two years were in Florida and California. My
parents were missionaries, and my dad was born out there. I did develop
a love of nature growing up there. I probably would have done that
anywhere, but we certainly were exposed to a lot of nature there. My
earliest memories are of a place called Owicha in the Ituri forest. The
place where we lived was surrounded by the jungle and we went on lots of
camping trips among the Pygmies . Later we lived at a place called
Mwenda, in the foothills of the Ruwenzori mountains. That’s where most
of my childhood memories are from. My parents loved camping trips, so
they were the high points of vacations home from boarding school. When
Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960 I was in 8th grade. Due
to the political instability we moved to Kenya where I finished high
school at a mission run boarding school about 50 miles from Nairobi. We
lived on a mission station called Siyabei, in Masai country where my dad
had lived as a child. In 1963 my parents were assigned to open a new
station at Kalokol, a place on the western shore of lake Turkana in
northern Kenya. I graduated from high school at the mission boarding
school (Rift Valley Academy) in 1965 and came here to Arkansas to go to
John Brown University. Countless images of Africa stand out in my
memory. I always thought it was a wonderful place to live. The last time
I was there was in December of ’90 when I went out for a 5 week visit. I
also went out for a short visit in 1970.
3. I saw that you graduated from John Brown University with a BS in
Fine Art. Is that were you were introduced to etching?
No. Oddly enough, I didn’t do any printmaking at JBU. I graduated in ’75
and moved to Fayetteville and worked in frame shops. I got introduced to
etching by a friend who was an etcher. I was doing pen and ink
watercolors and figured that doing the line work with an etching would
be a way to speed things up. I got hooked on etchings, and still am.
4. What art forms did you work in before college?
Pretty much only music. My parents were both hobby artists, and
encouraged me and my brother and sister to do art-related activities. In
the ’50s in our little mission home in the Congo we had a kit for making
custom designed rugs. You would make a design on a piece of burlap and
then sewed various colors of yarn into it from the back side with a
thing that was a lot like a hand-crank egg-beater. When you got through
you turned it over and voila! Your own custom made rug. I also had a set
for making designs with beads, like wampum. Yes, we even had a
paint-by-number set. (That probably explains everything!) I still have
my mom’s set of books from an art correspondence course. I played
clarinet in band in high school and majored in music (violin) at JBU,
until I figured out I wasn’t going to be the next Heifetz. So I switched
to art. Anybody can do art!
5. I read that you work with the traditional “intaglio” technique.
Please describe this technique. When you etch your image into the
copper plate, do you trace the image from an original or do you
free-hand it onto the plate?
Intaglio etching is one of the more technical art media, something that
attracts some people and repels others. With the “traditional” etching
process I use you start with a piece of copper plate. You coat it with
an acid resistant material that dries to a soft film which protects the
copper from the acid but is easy to scratch through. You then create
lines by scratching through the coating and exposing the copper so the
acid can etch it. Wherever the copper is exposed this way, the acid eats
out a line (a small groove) in the surface of the copper. To create
grays and blacks in stead of lines you use a technique called
“aquatint”. You create an aquatint by applying a scattering of small
dots of the acid resistant material to the surface of the plate. When
you put the plate in the acid, the dots keep the acid from etching where
they are sitting but the dots are separated by exposed copper so the
acid eats the exposed copper between the dots and this creates a
“roughed up” surface which, like the etched line traps ink. The line
prints as a line and the aquatint prints as a tone. To print it, you
smear thick ink on the plate and then wipe most of it off. What’s left
is ink trapped in the tiny pits and grooves eaten out by the acid in the
copper. You put a piece of dampened paper on the inked surface of the
plate and run it through an etching press which has two large metal
rollers that mash the paper down against the plate. When the plate and
paper come out from between the rollers and you peel the paper off of
the plate, the ink comes off on the paper and you have an etching.
I usually do my free-hand drawing in preparatory drawings or on tracing
paper. By the time I start work on the plate I have a detailed plan for
what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it. Copper plates are
expensive, and changing your mind or realizing you’ve made a mistake in
the middle of the process can cost a lot of time and effort, so I use
lots of tracings and transfers when doing the plate-work. Even so, my
plans rarely survive to the end of the process and I usually veer off in
some unforeseen direction during the later part of work on the plate.
This is just my style and habit. There is no reason why etching can’t be
as loose and spontaneous as any other art or printmaking medium.
6. Do you make a set number of prints of each etching (limited edition)?
Yes, I usually limit my edition size to 275 prints. I’ve found that I
can usually get that many before the plate starts showing signs of wear,
which is the limiting factor.
7. Please describe how you color your prints.
I usually print using some shade of black, or maybe a paynes gray or
some other dark color. I might ink a plate with one main color and then
rub in other colors to give some chromatic variation to the print.
Almost all of the color in my etchings, however, comes from hand
coloring each one individually with watercolor. I like the color effects
that watercolors offer and I like the rich lines, tones and textural
effects that etching offers.
8. How long does it take to make one of your prints from start to
finish (include time it takes to etch the copper plate)?
It varies widely, of course, but in very general terms I’d say it takes
maybe a week or two to complete a plate, then fifteen to thirty minutes
to print an individual print from the plate, then less than or more than
an hour to hand color each one.
9. You are making glicee prints of your work now. How can you tell the
difference between this type of reproduction vs. an original?
Giclee reproductions have gotten to be very good. I usually tell the
difference by looking or feeling for the embossed edge around the image
created by the damp paper being pressed down around the edge of the
plate in an original. Also by the kind of paper they are printed on.
Both are on 100% rag paper, but the originals are on thicker paper that
has more surface texture and maybe a deckle edge whereas the giclees
tend to be on thinner and smoother paper. It’s hard to tell the
difference just by looking at the image. My prints have a sticker on the
back that says “Hand Colored Etching”, “Monochrome Etching” or “Giclee”.
I believe full and clear disclosure is imperative.
10. Have you pursued other types of artwork recently?
Not really. I spent the last year doing small experimental/technical
plates in connection with a book I was writing, but it was still etching.
11. What kinds of artwork do you like?
Just the good stuff. You know, “that which pleases”. Okay; I don’t care
what medium it is, two dimensional or three dimensional, etc. I like it
to be about universal issues rather than personal issues, or better yet,
not about anything except maybe “wholeness, harmony and radiance”.
Anything that I come away from feeling like “wow! I just met somebody
really interesting!”.
12. What artists do you admire?
Pretty much all of them, in various ways but two of my all around
favorites are Van Gogh, and Walter Anderson.
13. I heard that you have written a book(s). What were they and do they
include any of your etchings?
One book, and the title is “Etching with Permeable Grounds”. I did (I
think) about 170 small (2.5 x 4 inch) plates to illustrate various
mostly technical things so I guess those were all my etchings. There are
also 7 larger images (5 x 7 and 8 x 10 inch plate sizes, but the larger
ones had to be shrunk to fit on the page) that serve as illustrations
and also relate to the techniques discussed in the book. A “ground” is
the coating referred to above that protects the copper plate from the
acid. Permeable grounds are a fairly recent addition to commonly used
etching techniques, and are made of a combination of soap, grease and
pigment. They are designed to break down in the acid over a period of
time, and so give more interesting results than the more traditional
grounds that block the acid completely. The book is scheduled to be out
some time in April this year.
14. Please describe your studio. What do you love about it? What would
you change?
My studio is a small (20 x 25 foot) rent house that we had moved on to
the property, and I think it may be as close to a Heavenly mansion as I
am likely to get. It’s just big enough to accommodate all my etching
equipment (i.e. jammed full of stuff) and still give me room to work.
It’s not anything fancy, which is good because with the inks, chemicals
and acids associated with etching things tend to not stay “fancy” very
long anyway. What changes would I like? Maybe a little bit more room.
15. What advice do you have for artists that are just starting out?
I think Joseph Campbell’s advice to “follow your bliss” (and as he later
amended it to “follow your blisters”) is good.
Richard will be giving a talk on Thursday, May 3 at 5:30 PM in
room 213 in the Art Building, at the University of Arkansas, about my art and career followed
by a demonstration of permeable ground in the print studio, for the
University Print Club. The woman organizing it is Shasta
Philips-Blackford (email sblackfo@uark.edu). Richard thinks it’s one of those
“free and open to the public” deals, but the demonstration will only
have room for about 15 people.
Our next interview will be with Susan Bell, who is a fiber artist.
1. Hi Marg. How long have you been a member of Heartwood? How did you find out about this gallery?
I drove by and shopped at Heartwood Gallery. One day I happened to be talking to Anita Hejtmanek and she mentioned the application process and 6 years later I am still showing the pottery here.
2. How long have you worked in clay? Have you worked in any other media?
I have been working in clay since 1992 when I was lucky enough to enroll in the LSU Ceramics Department when Linda Arbuckle and Joe Bova were instructors. Prior to this I had worked in watercolor, acrylic, oil, charcoal and graphite.
3. I read in your biography that you went to LSU Baton Rouge. Is that where you learned how to work in majolica? Linda Arbuckle, known in ceramic circles as ‘’the Queen of Majolica”, was one of my instructors. So, yes, that is where I learned of the process.
4. Can you explain the majolica process (materials, clay, firing temperature, number of firings, etc.)? The name is thought to come from the medieval Italian word for Majorca, an island on the route for ships bringing Hispano-Moresque wares from Valencia to Italy. Majolica is highly decorated earthenware with a glaze opacified (made white) with tin oxide. The ‘’J’’ in majolica is pronounced ‘’Y’’. Some spell it Maiolica. If pronounced with a hard “j”, majolica refers to the lead-based glaze ware produced in Victorian England of the 19th century.
I use terra cotta clay (red) as the earthenware and a tin-based glaze-both I make myself. The bisque firing is taken to 1970-2000˚F which is higher than most earthenware. I believe it makes my ware more durable. The ware is then glazed. All drips must be sanded smooth as this glaze doesn’t move during the firing. Next the decoration-overglazes and/or oxides are applied on top of the glaze. The glaze firing is taken to about 1800˚F.
There is a true love-hate relationship with this technique! I can get beautiful detail because the glaze doesn’t move, but, because it doesn’t move, any gas, dirt water imperfections of any kind will stay after the firing.
5. Is there any similarity to painting images in the majolica process? The brushes used to apply the overglazes and oxides are the same as I used for watercolor, but the glaze is more absorbent than paper and if oversaturated with water, the glaze will come off the pot.
6. How do you come up with the images you use? I generally use photo references for the images, but the ideas will come from anywhere-magazines, news stories, poems, gardens, artworks, artists, etc.
Do you sketch out your work before you paint your pottery? Sketches are done mainly when I do a commission to give the customer an idea what the finished image will look like. When working on my work, I enjoy trying to work directly on the glaze.
7. Tell us about the piece you have entered into several gallery/artist competitions (I don’t know if competitions is the right word) and what competitions they are (gallery name and state). One summer we had a very large garden which turned out to be a lot of very hard work just to feed the wildlife! The “Waiting for the Garden to Come In” mug is one of three that deal with that experience.
8. When did you start making the cups with the softly folded bases? What do you love about them? Those pieces began when I was throwing a stem for a wine glass. As I was working, the piece collapsed. The form reminded me of a wave which reminded me of Hurricane Katrina-we were living in Baton Rouge when it hit. This gave me an idea for a mug that had houses inundated with water and trees. The inside had a birds-eye view of a hurricane in it. I began making a whole lot of collapsed bases for mugs-George Orr (The Mad Potter of Biloxi) did work like this. I love the idea of controlled chaos, which I believe is what working in clay is!
9. Please tell us about your terra cotta angels. Those angels were a result of my grief over the death of my mother. On the 5th anniversary, I just couldn’t seem to work on anything. She had always loved the idea of angels, so I began making some free standing ones-which morphed into ornaments that included doilies from my grandmother. I loved and miss both of these women, so these are my tribute to them. I try to keep the prices low because both women had to live through the depression of the 1930s. I know how they could make a “penny scream”.
10. Describe your studio. What do you love about it. My studio is an old metal horse barn that I put a concrete slab in and took out the stalls. It is very lofty and I have views of the fields with cows, horses and beautiful sunsets. In the summer, I can raise the garage door that faces south to get a nice breeze. Is there anything you wish you could change? I would love to have running water up there as-well-as a toilet!
11. Is there any other art form you would like to explore besides clay? I would love to learn to weld and incorporate metal forms with the majolica.
12. How would you encourage artists that are just starting out? Learn as much as you can, never quit learning, never be complacent, push limits, don’t let anyone tell you “you can’t!”, work , work , work!
13. What types of artwork do you like and what are the names of some artists that you admire? I love any type of art. Chrystal Bridges is a real boon for us who love art! I tend toward ceramic work. Some of my favorite sculptors are Debora Butterfield, Robert Arneson, Kirk Wilder, Richard Notkin, Tip Toland, Beth Cavener Stichter, Lisa Lockman. Some of my favorite potters (right now) are-of course Linda Arbuckle-Posey Bocopolous, Romeo Cuomo. My mug I use every morning is by Chandra Debuse.
Thanks you so much for answering these questions. Next, will we interview Richard Stauffacher.
If your artwork can hang on a wall, then we want to see it. Please contact us at the gallery and arrange to bring in some examples of your work along with a short bio. The members will vote on your work and get back in touch with you. We are open 11-6, Wed.-Sun.
