PORTLAND OPEN STUDIOS 2020

Portland Open Studios Tour

This is the first year I am participating in the Portland Open Studios tour. During this city wide annual event that takes place on the second and third weekends of October, more than 100 artists open their studios to the public. Any other year there would be a tour map that sends you all around town to get an intimate look at the creative spaces and processes of the local makers. And you’d discover new neighborhoods and a new favorite coffee shop or a brewpub along the way.

“Connecting with artists in their studios gives you the unique opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of their art and where it comes from”

— https://www.travelportland.com/events/portland-open-studios/

With this year's challenges, the tour had to adapt and go online just like so many other cultural events have already. At first I was pretty bummed because I was so looking forward to welcoming visitors into my space, showing my paintings, talking about my ideas and process. And as the year went on and pretty much all of my art presentation was happening exclusively online, I realized that there are great advantages to a virtual open studio tour.

Advantages of virtual artist studio tours

For one, I could invite my friends and collectors from all over the world to participate. I absolutely love my Portland art community. It has been nurturing and supportive ever since I started my journey as a painter 7 years ago. But I always want to take my art to other places, both nationally and internationally, so what a better opportunity to do it in a novel and intimate format of an open studio tour.

Talk about open: Open to the whole world! I love it.

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Technical Challenges and Solutions

I moved studios just a few months ago and while I love this space, it presents a few challenges. The main one is that there is no natural light. And coming from a large industrial loft with a wall of windows, it's quite a change. There was a lot of trial and error. I finally figured out how to light my work space properly just to discover that what is more than sufficient for painting, is woefully dark for video. 

It feels like an eternity since the last time I installed a show, and I can't wait to get all these small but mighty ladies up on my studio wall. It is so much fun to see them all together.

Installing artwork: A wall of babushkas

I am often so consumed by my projects and ideas, always working toward something new, pushing forward, that I forget to take a step back and take it all in. And installing artwork for this event gave me the opportunity to spend time with all these paintings and just be in their presence. It’s been a great experience, and new ideas and connections I haven’t noticed before emerged as a result.

You might wonder how long it took me to install this wall and honestly I didn’t count the hours, and it didn’t take days. Having curated a gallery for a few years, I have a lot of experience installing shows. My process might appear haphazard, but in reality it’s just a very intuitive approach to artwork installation. I hang shows the way I paint: I respond to the subjects and materials: I don’t think, I just move. And the same way as I am not afraid of mistakes on a painting (there is always more paint!) I am not concerned about trying a layout just to find out it doesn't work (there is always putty for the walls and more nails in the box.)

Here’s a little sneak peek of the Babushka Wall. Please forgive my less than stellar camerawoman skills. I recorded this while picking up the camera on the tripod and moving the whole cumbersome contraption around. Which made me realize something I never thought I would have to do, but: I have to buy a selfie stick for the official IG Live event! Yup, a selfie stick. They have stabilizers, so it will be less bumpy and woozy when I move around the studio.

How shaky is my camera work? 😅

Visit my studio virtually with IG Live

And you can see them all together, from afar and up close and personal if you tune into my IG Live on October 18th at 1pm Pacific Time. I am @postsovietart on Instagram. Here’s a link to my account and if you follow me, you’ll get a notification when the livestream begins.

You have to have an Instagram account to watch the broadcast. If you don’t or aren’t available at that time, send me an email contact@tatyanaostapenko.com and we’ll set you up with your own private studio visit.

But hurry, this orderly and well organized wall of babushkas will descend into the usual chaos of a working artist studio shortly after this Sunday open studio tour. 🙃

MURAL PAINTING DIARY. PART ONE

Strong and Silent Mural. Acrylic and latex on masonry. 10x20 ft. 2020
Location: SE Alder St between SE 14th and SE 15th Ave, Portland, OR

First day of mural painting is done!

As always, I was over prepared, bought way more paint, supplies and tools than was necessary.

I anticipated painting on a wall this large to be dramatically different from painting on canvas and it is. It's more fun, faster and easier 🤩

Many thanks to the Portland Street Art Alliance for this wonderful opportunity and for all the support.

Danielle helped me out so much by patiently listening to my over-caffeinated chatter and keeping me organized.
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Thank you Shawna for stopping by to take amazing action shots and making me feel like a star with her multiple flashes firing simultaneously. I am so fortunate to know many fantastically talented photographers in this town. Some of them paid me a visit and took some great action shots. She made me feel like a real star with your multiple flashes going off while I was painting.📸

And Tracy, a wonderful local photographer and film maker I appreciate so much for being patient, asking awesome questions and doing only 3 takes per brushstroke. Tracy is creating a mini documentary about the creating of this mural. He’s been with me at the site almost every day filming me painting and being super supportive and tolerant of my incessant arm waving.
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And much gratitude for all of you who have supported this public art project by cheering me on, sharing it on social media, and contributing to the fundraising campaign. There are still many perks left for you to claim, check them out!

It's been so much fun, but not without challenges

I had a minor meltdown on the morning of the third day.

Really minor, I promise!

Every painting, no matter the size, goes through an ugly, awkward, unlikable stage. It happens consistently, yet it always sneaks up on me and catches me unawares. And the kicker is that it always happens when I think I am doing so well and ploughing through at an increased speed of awesomeness. Haha!

And to be sure, on the morning of the third day, just as soon asI arrived on site, it hit me: this painting, this huge mural, looks horrible and I don't know what I am doing!

🤯

I paced, shuffled paint cans, scowled and ranted about it.

My fellow artists who were working on their murals, graciously listened and offered support. And just like that my disgust and frustration lifted and I got my brushes out and went on to have a super productive day.

Thank you Kyra and Isis! 🥰

That pesky internal critic can get super loud, no matter what type of work we are doing. It's good to let it speak. It usually gets winded and runs out of things to say, especially when there is a kind and receptive audience.

Strong and Silent Mural. Acrylic and latex on masonry. 10x20 ft. 2020
Location: SE Alder St between SE 14th and SE 15th Ave, Portland, OR

ARTIST STUDIO PRACTICE ON LOCKDOWN

INTERVIEWS, DISCUSSIONS AND MUSINGS

This has been a busy month!

I know, it sounds strange because we are on lockdown and can’t go anywhere. But this is precisely the reason.

Suddenly the whole world is much more on my wavelength and a lot of the art world interaction and networking has moved online. While I love seeing artwork in real life, I sincerely dislike the party scene atmosphere of gallery openings and many art events. I hate mingling and making small talk. I like talking about things of substance and mutual interest. Art nerd talk.

And the format of an online studio visit, live video interview and email exchanges suits my nerdy, vehemently introverted self just fine. And now that everyone else is on board with me, I am thoroughly in my element. Yay!

And since a lot of recent questions and discussions come up regularly in my communication with both collectors and arts professionals, I decided to put some of them together in one place here.

Welcome to my breakfast nook video recording studio

It has great natural light for video recordings and interviews

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Q&A:

Q: Super interested in your palette. Does it reflect a time period?

A: it does. I always think back to the 90s, the post Berlin Wall Ukraine: lots of mud, dust and concrete with the occasional bright spot of a coveted imported plastic bag or a fake designer sweatshirt. All manner of brown grays with a sudden scream of neon green or extra saturated fuchsia.

This is a great question. It made me realize that this is precisely where my palette comes from. And I always thought it came from 19th century realism with a touch of Die Brücke…

Q: have you ever thought to use objects to paint on that are not canvas/board, or picked other shapes besides squares and rectangles?

A: I have considered it. While I have seen outstanding examples of merging of painting and sculpture, I am not compelled to create those myself. At least not right now while I am still interested in figurative representational painting.

I thoroughly enjoy the suspension of disbelief that the idea of a painting provides within the context of the Western art tradition. Akin to a theater stage once the actors enter it, transcends its nature and becomes an opening to a different world, providing a platform for imagination to unfold. I want to make my supports as non-self aware as they can be, as to make them all but invisible and simply provide the stage for the magic within.

Q: Have you ever felt that there is something that needs to be said? Or some hidden/past that can be revived?

A: There is an element of reluctantly indulged nostalgia in my work. I am repeatedly drawn to images taken around the time I was a child. I think a lot of my interest in the late Soviet and post-Soviet time is purely selfish and self focused. I want to re-live, re-experience my childhood. I want to understand the larger time and epoch when it happened. But ultimately it’s my memory and longing for a child-like perception of the world that dictates my reference choices.

Q: I think Americans react to something in your work, but obviously won’t understand the references. What do you think others are getting from your work and does it matter?

A: I am deeply invested in using reference images that are important, relevant and meaningful to me. I am certain they don’t communicate directly with an American audience, especially if my viewers aren’t too familiar with Soviet/Post-Soviet environs.

I don’t expect to have a universal appeal or deliver some manner of pan-cultural message, yet perhaps the limited palette, my muted color choices, and interactions between the figures and the environment can convey a certain sense of unease, unfinished transition, unsettling change and displacement.

Q: what does the material mean to you? How does this relate to your content?

A: The material reins supreme for me. I am all about paint, the act of painting. The malleability, the unpredictability as well as ability to describe form exactly, to represent the light and create veritable shadows… I am in love with paint!

I’ve always wanted to paint. My content is just something that holds my attention well and long enough to indulge in the luxury of smearing paint around.

Q: Have you considered creating a series, a story that pulls the viewer in?

A:  All my recent shows are strongly unified by content. Thematically and visually they are a series. My work was included in a group show at the Ford Gallery a few months ago. The show title was Around the Narrative Lens. The curatorial idea was to show artists whose work is often perceived to have strong narrative and to engage in a dialog about such perception and artists intention. I feel like all my paintings are a part of one large series. A disjunctive, non linear narrative, for certain. More Faulkner than Steven King. 

Q: can a painting capture or take further the idea of preservation that treats paint not as a preservative but as blocks of raw intensities. (raw = the light of a moment or a gust of wind on a particular day)

A: Oh, do I dearly wish for raw intensity. I certainly do! I want the abandon of gesture, yet at the same time I absolutely have to improve my representational skills. Perhaps I’ve been focusing on accuracy too much and it’s time to indulge in some abandon.

Sargent and de Kooning on the same surface… Not too high of a goal for after seven years of painting, right?

Q: When piecing together a picture plane with some recognizable elements and blurred edges/spaces, I wonder what (content-wise) ends up on the surface? Similarly, what is cut out and/or reassembled?

A: Sometimes there are new elements that emerge, say, glowing under-painting suggesting smoldering fire, etc, but usually once I’ve decided loosely on the composition, the content takes on the guiding, yet secondary role and the painting becomes an exercise in paint handling and formal decision-making.

Q: is the abstraction and ambiguity you seem after in your work related to the politics tied to your process, or do they want reconciliation?

A: I feel like abstraction and ambiguity has more chances of transcending the very specific time and place and have more universal psychological impact. I also don’t want to come across as preachy and insisting on a particular solution. I am more concerned with intimate individual experience and how it’s affected by the larger political forces.

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GROW OVERWINTERING VEGETABLES IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: PLANT IN THE SUMMER - EAT ALL WINTER

BETTER THAN THE PRODUCE AISLE

Overwintering chard is seriously off to the races!

So grateful to live in this mild Mediterranean climate where sturdy vegetables can grow through the winter without any special accommodations.

The only tricky thing for winter growing here in Oregon is having to start seeds in the heat of our super dry rainless summer.

I start mine in re-used nursery six packs, keep them in a shady spot and water twice a day until they are ready for transplant. And all the fuss is so worth it because this way I get to eat fresh chard, sprouting broccoli and all manner of collards and kale all through the winter.

It's especially awesome to have fully grown vegetables in the garden at this time of year when we are just planting new crops and the new harvest is still at least a month away.

FRESH CARROTS ALL WINTER LONG

45 pounds of overwintering carrots from one 4x8 ft garden bed.

🥕🥕💪🏾⁠ ⁠

Clearing out the weeds, I mean, erosion control cover crops, and getting ready to sow Korean radish (Kimchi! 🥢) and peas. ⁠ ⁠

I feel so fortunate to have my community garden nearby. Portland is such a fantastic place for growing food year around.⁠ ⁠ Is it warm enough where you are to start spring plantings? ⁠ ⁠ 🌱

FOOD NOT LAWNS

What was your first instinct once you realized just how serious and far reaching this pandemic was going to be? Did you also rush to extend your vegetable growing domain?! ⁠
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My household's response to the impending apocalypse was a run to a lumber store to get rough cut cedar to add extra garden beds to the back yard. ⚒️⁠
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We are glad we did it 4 weeks ago because everyone in our neighborhood had the same idea just a week ago and the store has been sold out for a while now.⁠
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It didn't rain too hard today so we braved extension cords outside and build us two 10 ft by 3 ft garden beds. Not that hard to do, but now I gotta transfer 2 cubic yards of dirt from the driveway to the beds in the back yard. ⁠
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I got a nice new wheelbarrow, but it's still gonna be hard work. But it's so worth it!⁠
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🥕🌱⁠
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What was your first instinct once you realized just how serious and far reaching this pandemic was going to be? Did you also rush to extend your vegetable gr...

Mediterranean Sunshine for Soviet Construction Workers

Brighter Future
oil on canvas
19x25 inches
2019

Soviet construction ladies get a Mediterranean makeover.

Back in the studio after some time away. So nice to play with paints again!

I was away in Spain and Italy for two and a half weeks, and I can definitely feel the trip’s effect on my palette, and not in a way I suspected it would happen.
I thought it would be all dramatic chiaroscuro imprinted on my brain from the Prado and Venetian churches, but instead the Mediterranean sun left the strongest impression with all the saturated light color, bright yellows, greens and pinks. I am surprised and excited about this new development.

Oil painting paint out time lapse: from Barbie to Soviet construction workers #contemporarypainting #feministpainting

I made this painting in response to an open call organized by the City of Seattle for their Portable Works Collection. They already own one of my pieces, the Carousel, but they definitely need more. I am sure they do. So, I decided to make a companion piece, a different generation of soviet/post-soviet women and turn up that color and saturation another notch.   

For so long I was attached to the idea of creating images of post-soviet spaces by staying true to the local color palette. All the memories of the dreary melting slush and muddy ruts of my childhood kept showing up in my canvases. I would often get comments that my work was so recognizable, especially locally here in Portland, because of its distinct muted color palette. This was especially true once I started using oils and could really get into the rich hues of grey-black-brown mud and dust.

But recently I have been moving away from a literal interpretation of my reference material and my memories. It’s been a curious exercise to think, feel and see the same content, now re-interpreted in more saturated, lighter color.

I actually had to hide my earth tone paint tubes away from myself. Hid them in a far corner of the studio storage so that finding them in the middle of painting frenzy would be more challenging than figuring out how to mix a dark color wish such vibrant hues on my palette. It’s been fun!

I would love to know what you think about this new development. I know a lot of you enjoyed my previous palette and color.

Do you love these these new summer colors or if you are already missing the rich natural tones from before?

Let me know in the comments or send me a message

Thanks!

Out with the recent, in with the brand new

I am starting a new series of paintings and I will be sharing my process with you here. I am new to recording a posting video, so please bear with me, I will learn and get better!

As soon as I got all those canvases up on the walls at The Joinery, I got new surfaces up in the studio. Ready to start a new project!

I am still working with my favorite photo content: casual snapshots from the former Soviet Union and post soviet spaces. But now I am treating my references with less reverence by using digital editing tools and fracturing, duplicating and erasing images.

Usually I stay away from digital media. The whole reason abandoned my pursuit of digital photography and became a painter was to get away from the screens. But this process is painterly and I anticipate it allowing for much more freedom and expressive mark-making.

This is a time lapse of the first painting I am making using this digitally altered reference material.

I am brand new to video. I am totally open to all and any suggestions on how to improve it. Tell me how to make it better.

Like the Masters

I am a contemporary painter, but I am deeply influenced by the traditions of European and Russian art.  For better or worse, classical painting techniques are rarely taught in American art schools. So I found a book that promised to reveal the secrets of the Masters in step by step instructions.  The tutorial images look more like 80s soft core porn: unrealistically round perky breasts and half open puffy lips of the models are lovingly emphasized by dramatic chiaroscuro.  But I would not be deterred and followed the prescribed steps and painted my soviet citizens instead.

There is a craft aspect of this method that is appealing and soothing. There is a relaxing quality in having set parameters and knowing what the next step is. The palette is extremely simple and  I feel like I can really focus on the subtleties of light and shadow. This is something that was always challenging and overwhelming in my usual approach where I attack the canvas and attempt to solve for all the unknowns simultaneously.  The traditional approach to oil painting does feel more like craft, more like following in the footsteps of the other master craftsmen that have perfected a method. And it's very different from my past painting experiences in which come up with the method as I go.
 

While "learning from the Masters" I decided to really focus on my subjects, to isolate them from their environment, to elevate the beer drinking factory worker and the bored toilet plunger sales girl using the classical portrait techniques.  This way I can focus on finely rendering facial features and give special attention to the way the clothing drapes the body. I want to paint the worker's smock and the shop girl's bulky vest like the luxurious finery of the stately nobles of the past who were the predominant subjects of such portraiture. I want to do this because I know so intimately how that drab blue-gray worker's smock drapes and folds, how hateful those standard issue uniforms were. I had one too.