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| Daphne |
In the studio of her uncle Werner Holz, an outstanding German artist, Birgit Hüttemann-Holz was exposed to Imaginary Realism/Phantastische Malerei from an early age. Intrigued by the contradictions of the human psyche, she began writing poetry.
While working as a Physical Therapist, she went to study literature, philosophy and education at the University of Karlsruhe, as well as German literature, philosophy, and media science at the Philipps-University in Marburg, Germany.
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| Polyhymnia |
A sudden move to the US triggered an end to her writings. A universal language was needed – a visual form that moved her words beyond the limitations of translation and geography. It wasn't long before she discovered the ancient Greek practice of encaustic painting.
Birgit Hüttemann-Holz's work is exhibited nationwide and internationally. She lives and works as a fine artist in the Greater Detroit Area.
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Craig Boehman: So what have you been up to lately? I got your notification about a new encaustic painting called Up North. Was this taken from a scene in Michigan?
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| A Place of Delight II |
Birgit Hüttemann-Holz: Yes, this is a quick winter study. Two weeks ago I went “Up North” to spend a few days at a cottage. People in Michigan do this often. For me and my family it was the first time during winter time. And it was bitter cold minus 27 degrees Celsius! The lake was frozen and people drove their cars over the ice to their ice fishing holes. It was surreal, endless whiteness, and a few blue hues.
CB: You have quite a few exhibitions lined up for 2011. Is there any one of them in particular that you're especially looking forward to?
BH: This year started with a big surprise. On January 2nd I received an invitation to the Biennale Florence in Italy, which takes place in December this year. I was stunned, thrilled, and super happy.
As you know I am a self-taught artist and have no academic art degree. I knew this invitation would put me on solid national and international footing. As an artist today, I am well aware how important it is to have a solid record of exhibitions, awards or other accomplishments. But there is a quest to conquer... Somehow I have to raise the participation fee, shipping cost, and travel expenses. Altogether could easily amount to $6000. Everybody around me raised their eyebrows and shook their heads. But I am still positive and thinking of a strategy – which brought me to the next exciting thing – in order to get more recognition and sell more paintings, I need more galleries who will represent me. In a heart beat, I signed up for the Art Expo in New York in March. Craig, I think of myself as well traveled: Indonesia, Laos, Europe of course, but I have never been to New York, and now I am exhibiting in one of the oldest and best known art fairs in New York. Obviously, it is good to have a lot of pressure. It pushes you forward to take extraordinary steps. I am on my quest so to say!
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| Each of Us In Another Place, Together and Apart |
CB: I didn't know anything about the encaustic painting technique until I asked you about one particular painting of yours that I wanted to use as the cover for a book of poetry of mine – thanks again, by the way. I gather at some point you were struggling to find an alternative to poetry when you first came to the US...how were you introduced to encaustic painting?
BH: My dream was to become a writer, a poet, ever since I was 13 years old. That is what I did. I was writing poetry, short stories, song lyrics, and I sang and played in a band. When I settled to become a physical therapist, my stack of poetry books on my nightstand was always higher than my book pile of anatomy and physiology books. My uncle Werner Holz was an exceptional artist, painting and drawing his dreams, nightmares and hopes. His medieval scenery immediately remind you of the Flemish Renaissance painters Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. I loved being in his studio, loved the smell of the oil paints, his baroque music that filled his studio and gallery, the little symbols and figures above the door frames, the collected shells, feathers, keys, animal sculls, bird skeleton, and ancient bells. His studio was a kid's heaven, a door to another realm. But there was also drama. He was an alcoholic. I think that is why I never pursued painting when I lived in Germany. While working as a physical therapist, I studied philosophy, literature and media science, still writing and performing music. The sudden change in my life, marriage, motherhood, and the move to the USA – triggered a stop to my writing. I was tongue tied between two languages. That's when I started to paint, taking the visual form as the needed universal language. Once my kids were a little older, I moved from acrylics to oils. It was a trip. I was instantly connected to my uncle, who had tragically died 20 years earlier, at the age of 42. Tears were running down my cheeks, and I was flooded with memories, images, music. I had opened that door again to those realms, and I had so many questions for him. But I found myself competing with him, which is a good thing because he was jolly good! Nevertheless, I began to wonder, what my language, style and true signature really is. One day a good friend talked me into taking an encaustic class. I had no clue what to expect, never heard of encaustic, never seen it before. In our first class we were taught how to make our own medium. We melted the beeswax combined with the damar crystals, and that smell made me smile the whole evening. As soon as we began to fuse and to paint with fire, I was totally hooked.
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| Dialogue with Eve |
CB: Do you still write poetry? For those who have not seen your work up close, they might be surprised to see words here and there – in English – at least some of the words I've spotted. Am I seeing snippets of poetry?
BH: You make me smile! You are a very good observer! Yes, there are snippets of poetry. The words in my paintings are the most urgent and important ones. But I do not write poetry anymore; I am still disconnected somehow. I am thinking in poems sometimes...you know when your inner voice rushes you through your mind and you are taken by surprise to find a whole beautiful finished poem on your tongue? And this occurs more and more in English, now. Have you ever had a dream, where you spoke a foreign language perfectly and you observed yourself in that dream, because you are not a native speaker and you are looking for words most of the time? That's how it is.
CB: Is it just coincidence that your encaustic painting and your inspiration that derives from the feminine came to us by and large from the Greeks? Of course, the feminine goes back some 20+ thousand years in the archeological record, but a lot of our heritage comes to us by mythology from the Greeks...
BH: Is it a coincidence? Yes, and absolutely not! I am a Greekophile! My parents took me to the Acropolis when I was 5 years old, I admired the Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna, Italy at age nine. I remember standing at the Lion Gate at Mycenae visualizing Cassandra and her tragic fate, as a teenager. It seems as if I am revisiting the places of my childhood, my European roots. All the great places I have been, the archetypical figures of myths and religions are finding their way back into my images. They are opening up a very personal dialogue. Why do I love icons? Who is Mary Magdalene? Why are my landscapes based on poems by Yannis Ritsos? How many memories do I have? The encaustic painting process deals a lot with loss and restoration. Two days ago I painted four hours straight the sweet face of my daughter; she is posing for my Ariadne painting. I was really happy with her features, so I took the blow torch to fuse the layers – whoosh – gone. Everything gone! Wax melts incredibly quick, especially in very delicate details! Oh, was I frustrated. But hey! Look at Ariadne's fate! I am studying the female figures in mythology and religion, maybe because I am not at home in any confession. I was raised catholic – as a child I was immersed in the rituals but I soon realized that not everything is adding up. At 13, I did not want to go to confirmation unless there would be women allowed to become altar girls, and I was going to become the first female Pope. At 23, I read Ken Wilber's Up from Eden. This was a key experience. He handed me the thread out of the labyrinth. He traced humanity's cultural and spiritual evolution. He was looking for the primary patterns in religions and cultures. Loss and restoration – this is what life is all about .These are the immanent patterns of any hero trip in mythology, death and resurrection – hopefully to find a better place – in my paintings, at least. I reworked Ariadne’s face, and she looks much better now!
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| Epiphany I |
CB: You once told me a very interesting story about one of your paintings. Can you recount the tale behind On Welfare?
BH: On Welfare is an oil painting that I did in 2008. I used an image of a Danish photographer named Jacob Holdt as reference. I struggled with Detroit because it is the city of much controversy and with the highest segregation. You cross one street in my neighborhood, its name is Alter, and literally, you are transported – as you leave time and space behind you, in a totally different world. Villas versus abandoned, burnt down houses and store fronts. People on both sides make hostile comments. At that time it really bothered me, so I browsed the Internet and came across this website American Pictures: Racism, oppression and social injustice from Jacob Holdt. He traveled the US extensively in the seventies with nothing more than five dollars per day and a cheap camera, and lived with the poorest of the poorest. He gives lectures all around the world and sells his photographs. When I saw Welfare Mother under the category “urban underclass”, I immediately felt the attraction. I asked him permission to paint this image. Two months later he answered. He just came back from another trip around the world and said,”Yes sure! By the way my agent just told me that this photograph was purchased by Sir Elton John.” Of course, I thought this is totally cool. But it also showed me that people, and in our case, a lot of artists from various backgrounds, are happy to share and help each other out. That is why I answered your ad, when you looked for a cover image for your book I Broke Up with My Haiku. Regarding Detroit – I soon made a similar experience. If you look close enough, you find all the great people who believe in Detroit and in humanity, have a dream. Exceptional people that make me say: I am proud to be Detroiter.
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| Lottchen |
CB: Let's talk poetry for a moment. If your landscapes are based on poems by Ritsos, who are your influences for poetry, if any? And what's your opinion on Rainer Maria Rilke? I can't read his German poems, but I do subscribe only to Stephen Mitchell's English translation of Sonnets to Orpheus, a personal favorite for many years.
BH: Yannis Ritsos is my favorite poet and my greatest influence. He was nominated nine times for the Nobel Prize for literature, but since he had received the Lenin Peace Prize he never really had a chance. He was close to the Communist Party in 1931. At that time all intellectuals were in opposition to the right-wing dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas. During the Greek Civil War, Ritsos was committed in the struggle against the fascists, and was sentenced to spend four years in detention in various camps of so-called "rehabilitation": Limnos, Agios Efstratios, and Makronissos. Between 1967 and 1971, the military junta constrained him with deportation to Yaros and Leros. There he painted beautiful
portraits on pebbles. He is a great example because his work was burned publicly; he sought new ways to express himself, exploring surrealism through access to dream-like, half-awake stages called lucid dreaming, complex associations, explosive symbols and metaphors, and a lyric voice which shows the anguish of the poet. I was a teenager – passionate, rebellious, and romantic – and he was my poet hero. I also loved Paul Celan, Hilde Domin, Pablo Neruda, and Gottfried Benn. When my husband and I came to the US, we arrived with nothing but 4 suitcases and one travel bed for our 4 1/2 month old son. The only boxes that I had packed and shipped were filled with poetry books from Yannis Ritsos. It was here in America that I discovered Rainer Maria Rilke. My mom had sent me a CD called Rilke Projekt- Bis in alle Sterne in 2004. His most famous poems were set to music and interpreted and recited from German actors, writers, and singers. For more than two years I painted listening to this CD.
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| M. Magdalene |
CB: Ever think of translating any of your poetry into English? Maybe Mr. Mitchell is available...
BH: I thought about it several times, but right now I am a happy paintress!
CB: I'd say that your encaustic monoprints stand out as something different from your hallmark work with portraits and landscapes. How did those pieces come about?
BH: I love monoprints, they a painterly prints. I was looking for new ways to collage paper into my paintings. I thought of written poetry and interesting designs on Japanese paper. Last year, in a summer academy in Germany, I bought a plate heater. I painted with different kinds of wax and pigments on that heated surface – put paper on top, rubbed it down, and pulled the print. I received surprising, stunning images – playful, but very exquisite. They intrigued me to illustrate poems.
CB: Do you have a sense of what's in store for you and your work in 2011? Any new strategies for the blowtorch?
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| Birgit & Flame |
BH: What’s in store for me? Hopefully my paintings are in a store and selling. I am convinced that working everyday will push my approach and work to the next level. The interesting part is, while you are doing it, you don’t know where your journey will transport you to. In hindsight, all becomes very clear! You are referring to the fusing process with my blow torch?
CB: Yes.
BH: Very very often you loose your image to the hungry flame that licks the wax and very fine details that you worked on for hours...are gone in a second. I don’t know. A lot of encaustic painters are using a more gentle approach with a heat gun or lamps to fuse the layers. I am impatient. I love to paint with fire!
To view more of Birgit Hüttemann-Holz's work, visit her website
