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For today’s episode we sat down with abstract mixed media artist Nancy Crandall Phillips, who shares her artistic journey from ceramics and fiber arts to the richly layered encaustic and mixed media work she creates today. She explains how a deep interest in the chemistry of materials (acrylic vs. oil, wax, gold leaf, papers, texture paste) and an early education in composition and edges shaped her highly tactile, artifact-like surfaces. Nancy describes her iterative, experimental process, emphasizing cycles of excitement, frustration, destruction, and rescue, and how embracing “happy accidents” and letting materials behave on their own terms is central to her work. She also discusses the emotional side of being an artist, including taking breaks from painting, dealing with frustration, and building resilience and trust in the process. Nancy also talks about the practical realities of an art career—balancing freelance accounting work with painting, entering juried shows, joining art groups, and building relationships that lead to gallery representation and auctions. Nancy closes with advice for aspiring artists to persist, cultivate community, and actively create their own opportunities, and also invites listeners to explore her work on her website and Instagram.
Nancy’s FASO site:
nancycrandallphillips.com
Nancy’s Social Media:
instagram.com/nancycrandallphillips
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Transcript:
Nancy Phillips: 0:00
You develop a very thick skin, yeah, and you, and you, you have to be open minded to pleasant surprises that happen, you know. I mean, they talk about all, you know, the happy accidents that happen in painting. And you know you, you have to let go of your expectations and try to see possibilities that you can build on things that are happening, that that you didn’t expect, but are actually a better way to go than what you had originally planned.
Laura Arango Baier: 0:34
Welcome to the BoldBrush show, where we believe that fortune favors a bold brush. My name is Laura Baier, and I’m your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world, in order to hear their advice and insights. For today’s episode, we sat down with abstract mixed media artist Nancy Crandall Phillips, who shares her artistic journey from ceramics and fiber arts to the richly layered encaustic and mixed media work she creates today. She explains how a deep interest in the chemistry of materials, acrylic versus oil, wax, gold leaf, papers, texture, paste and an early education in composition and edges shaped her highly tactile artifact like surfaces. Nancy describes her iterative experimental process, emphasizing cycles of excitement, frustration, destruction and rescue and how embracing happy accidents and letting materials behave on their own terms is central to her work. She also discusses the emotional side of being an artist, including taking breaks from painting, dealing with frustration and building resilience and trust in the process. Nancy also talks about the practical realities of an art career, balancing freelance accounting work with painting, entering juried shows, joining art groups and building relationships that lead to Gallery representation and auctions. Nancy closes with advice for aspiring artists to persist, cultivate community and actively create their own opportunities. And also invites listeners to explore her work on her website and Instagram. For those of you who are watching the video version of the episode. We wanted to let you know the video quality of this episode on our end is not the best for that. We apologize, though this does not affect the quality of the conversation. Welcome Nancy to the BoldBrush show. How are you today?
Nancy Phillips: 2:34
Thank you. I’m well. Thank you very much.
Laura Arango Baier: 2:38
Of course, yeah, I’m so excited to have you, because you are actually our second abstract artist to have on the show. And I’m very much enjoying talking to abstract artists, because there are so many aspects of painting in realism that benefits so so so much from the abstract thought and the experimental side. That happens much more frequently with abstract than with realism. So I’m excited to pick your brain, and I love also your pieces. They’re so, so beautiful. I love especially all your blue pieces with the gold. You’re welcome. But before we dive more into your work, do you mind telling us a bit about who you are and what you do.
Nancy Phillips: 3:23
Well, I’m Nancy Crandall Phillips and I do currently, I do abstract mixed media work. I do a lot of little tiny pieces, and I do very large pieces, and I’ve been doing that for working in that way for about 10 years or so, using the same materials over the last 10 years, but it’s been a long evolution since I got started. I started out doing ceramics. When I was in high school, did a lot of ceramics. In high school, went to college, thought I was going to do pottery, and switched to fiber and fabric design, where I did a lot of mixed media, or I did a lot of soft sculpture work and weaving and print making and that type of thing. Then got out of college, worked in a bank for a little while, which I’ll circle back to, but then ended up working in the interior design industry for about 10 years, but always taking night classes in more ceramics, printmaking, drawing, that kind of thing. Then finally, after about 10 years, decided I really needed to make a change and go back to graduate school. And if I was going to go to graduate school, I was going to do something I loved. So I ended up. Uh, going to art school and still taking night classes at a really great art school, and doing my master’s degree at Cal State Northridge, which was much less expensive than a professional art school, but over that amount of time, got a lot of instruction in the materials that you use. I mean that what intrigued me all along was, well, when I first, let me backtrack a little bit, when I was in college, there was a presentation put on, incidentally, by a sales rep from Grumbacher who explained a lot about the chemistry of paints, and acrylic paints versus oil paints, and you know the differences in how they’re made and and talking about how the chemistry of it all. And you know what you can combine, what you can’t combine? You know, you can put oil on top of acrylic, but not acrylic on top of oil, and acrylic is essentially plastic, and that was a revelation to me. So anyway, fast forward through my early 20s, and I finished graduate school, married my husband, who’s a realist oil painter, and and started layering these things together. And eventually I I started working consistently on canvas and but I was always my let me backtrack a little bit one of my most instructive classes I took when I was beginning in college, taking art classes was about composition, and it was given by an advertising a former advertising executive guy and he and so the whole class was about composition and and how what your eye does with different elements in a comp, in a composition, and talking about how if you have a piece that touches the edge, your eye will immediately go there first. But even more exciting that then that is something that almost touches the edge, and the tension that that, that there’s tension there that you that will grab your attention anyway. So through that, I I have always paid a lot of attention to the edges of things, and I loved Canvas, you know, painting on stretched canvas, but the edge of the stretch canvas bugged me because it was so boring, you know, just Canvas wrapped over stretcher bars. So I started tearing my canvas. I would actually buy painters Canvas wash it in the washing machine because and I would rip it and then wash it in the washing machine so that they had the frayed edges, and so that it wasn’t completely flat. And then I would stretch it on a board and staple it with staple gun, so that it was stretched but uneven along the edges, almost like a carcass, like a skin of a of an animal, you know? And because, in the end, I was interested in my pieces looking like old leather and sort of like artifacts. So I worked that way for quite a while. And so I would work, I would take a piece of canvas, stretch it when it was wet, then it would dry and shrink back. Then I would paint on it and layer. I started collecting papers. I made paper for a while myself too, a little bit. And so I have, I have flat files full of a collection of rice papers and tissue papers. And every time I went to art supply stores, I was buying, you know, exotic papers of all kinds, and layering those on top of the canvas, because and sometimes painting them and layering them down. And when you when you layer them with acrylic medium. The paper itself often disappears, depending on what kind of paper it is and that, and then layering paint on top of that, especially watered down paint, so that it sort of decomposes and settles in all those little crevices. Is, and you can see the little you know, particles of pigment in there is always works for me. So I work like that for a long time. And then would would have, when the paintings were done, I would take them off the the plywood and stretch them over a stretched canvas, so that the edges overhang the stretched canvas, so that they would hang on the wall like they were floating, like a floating piece of canvas or animal skin or whatever, which was fun and lovely but impractical in the real world. And so, you know, you’re always worrying about the edges, and especially if there were paper overhanging the edges, which was which really floated my boat, those get wrecked pretty easily. So finally, I decided this is ridiculous. I need to do something that’s a little more practical in the real world, and that galleries wouldn’t be intimidated by handling, and that wouldn’t get damaged in shipping. So I started buying cradle panels and and then I discovered texture paste, which is a lot like clay. And so I started working the way I work now, which is smearing texture paste all over a cradle panel, then taking canvas and or paper, and then mushing that down on top of the wet texture paste so that it sort of oozes out the sides like clay. And that gives you all kinds of opportunities to embed all kinds of other stuff in there too. So, so that’s the way I’ve been working for the last 20 years or so, and slowly accumulating more stuff to embed in there. And somewhere along the way there, my husband started making the cradle panels and started doing a lot of framing himself. So we were making a lot of frames, and I was doing the gold leafing on the frames, which found its way into my work, because gold leaf is so fun, so and then other things started, you know, sticks. And we, we eventually, about 20 years ago, we moved from LA out to Northern California, out in the country, where we have a lot of Manzanita up here. And so there’s a lot of sticks around that are very intriguing, and so I started attaching those on and, you know, using wire and, you know, pieces of metal and just stuff that is hanging around. Then, about eight years ago or so, we were both in a art auction event up here at the Crocker Museum, and where everyone had big pieces they were auctioning off, but also little tiny pieces that they were donating for an a smaller live auction. And I saw a little piece there with gold leaf in it and other stuff that was just lovely. And met the artist, who was an encaustic artist, and she said, Oh, you know. I said, Oh, tell me, you know, you can embed gold leaf and encaustic. And she goes, Oh, yeah, you should really check this out. So I joined her encaustic group and went over to her studio a number of times. And so she’s my friend now. And so I started layering encaustic on top and and embedding things in that, and working with the the three dimensionality of wax on top of other papers and embedded stuff. And really, really having a lot of fun exploring wax when it’s translucent and when it’s opaque and and how incredibly frustrating it is to try to make it do what you want to do, and working out Ways to work with it in spite of its inability to let you control it. So anyway, that’s sort of brings you to how I’m working now,
Laura Arango Baier: 14:55
yes, and it’s fascinating, because. It feels like, you know, it’s a very experimental, like I mentioned earlier, iterative process where you come across one medium and you’re like, Huh, I’m going to try that out. And then you come across another medium and you blend them, and then it continues to kind of like become a bit of like a step ladder situation, or,
Unknown: 15:20
like, exactly that
Laura Arango Baier: 15:23
adding stuff. And I really, really love how the I feel, like, the very common sort of thread that I’ve noticed is you mentioned, like, how you wanted your canvas with, like, old leather. And of course, you were in the fiber arts, which, you know, natural materials, type of thing, and then jumping on over into like encaustic and like paper, and how both of those materials are very translucent, and playing with the, you know, Hide and Seek sort of aspects of like layering, which I really love, too. It makes me very curious about encaustic too, because it’s such an ancient technique as well. It’s something that’s been used throughout humanity for such a long time. Such a long time. Yes, I love love that so much. But yeah, and what you mentioned about encaustic being like such a difficult medium to use, I think the last time we spoke, I said that kind of sounds like watercolor. So it, from how you’ve described it, too, it sounds like it’s harder in that aspect as well.
Unknown: 16:27
It is. There’s less
Nancy Phillips: 16:30
in some in some ways it is because I’m, I’m into all the layering aspects of stuff, but there’s very few things you can layer on top of encaustic. So it’s, it’s limiting in that way. And, I mean, you can’t really put oil paint on top of encaustic. You certainly can’t put acrylic. It won’t, won’t stick. And part of working with encaustic is, I mean, you’re, you’re, when you’re, you’re painting with melted wax, and then you take a heat gun and have to seal it to the layer underneath, or it will pop off. So you’re working flat with melted wax, with a heat gun, and a heat gun, you know, pushes air out, so it’s, it makes it all move, which is annoying, unless it moves in a way you appreciate. So you learn to work with that too. But anyway, it’s very I find it, I don’t know, evocative and satisfying and infuriating all at the same time.
Laura Arango Baier: 17:45
That’s what’s that’s what’s fun about it, right? It’s, I think it wouldn’t be quite as fun if it wasn’t so challenging. You know? Yeah, I think there’s a very healthy amount of resilience, of course, that one has to, have to work with challenging mediums, but if you really enjoy it and you enjoy the challenge, then it’s totally worth it. And it’s funny, because I was just discussing that with with a friend, where if it’s too hard, you won’t want to do it, yeah, and if it’s too easy, you don’t want to do it. You need to have that like level of discomfort that makes it feel like achievable, so that it feels satisfying, and then you want to do it again. Yeah, yeah. And I was gonna also mention how the way you’re describing the process, too. I’m curious to know, what is your favorite part of the process that you’ve developed over time? I Huh?
Nancy Phillips: 18:45
Well, I I love starting out because all things seem possible. And usually I start out with a plan that that works for about, you know, an hour and a half and then, and then, something doesn’t go according to plan, but in a in a good way. So I find that I I, I make a lot of adjustments along the way, and feel free to change my mind, which you have to if you’re going to do this kind of thing. But starting out is a lot of fun, and usually I get to a point about a third of the way, and I work, let me backtrack a little bit. I work in in layers of things that that at the beginning, at least have to dry for periods of time. So I’ll work for a couple hours on a piece, and then have to go away and come back the next day and do some more. So it’s so it takes me a week or two at least of consistent work to get to a point where. I feel like I’m finished on a piece, and sometimes even longer. So they’re waiting periods when, when things are drying and changing. And, you know, acrylic paint, I I start out with with acrylics which change color as they dry, and I’m a lot of water down acrylics that that move around as they dry and pool in different places in different colors. Work. You know, there’s a big difference between, you know, phthalo blue and ultramarine blue in what they do to each other, what they do to the layers underneath, how they dry, how they pool, all that kind of stuff. So so usually things go along pretty well for the first couple days, and then they all fall apart and and then I go through a period of trying to figure out how I’m going to rescue this stupid thing that’s driving me crazy. And I assume I’m not supposed to swear on these things.
Laura Arango Baier: 21:08
Oh, you can, it’s all good if. Anyway, I totally agree.
Nancy Phillips: 21:15
So anyway, usually there’s sort of a long period in the middle there where I’m trying to rescue it and, and that’s, it’s always gratifying when something happens where you think, oh, you know, this is great. It might actually survive after all. So that’s always a fun part. And usually I’m, I’m doing more experimenting, in the end, with little, you know, tweaking of the converts of the composition. You know, the way, if you’re, you know, if you’re an oil painter, you’re really hitting those highlights that really sort of pull it all together. You do that, and I do that in abstract work as well. And, you know, trying to decide at the end, you know, well, am I going to do wax on this part. Am I going to try to, you know, am I going to throw some gold leaf in there, or some other metallic something? Or lately, or for the last several years, I discovered pigment sticks that you can use on top of encaustic, but you have to care, be careful then, about what you do on top of the pigment sticks. But that’s a whole new thing, of how you can manipulate the pigment sticks. You can, you know, draw with them. You can then go back with paint thinner and mush them around with your fingers, or whatever other things you want to do anyway, kind of those finishing touches are, are gratifying too. So there’s, there’s, there are particularly fun spots along the way with agonizing frustration in between. But that, you know, makes it all worthwhile in the end, usually,
Laura Arango Baier: 23:23
yes, oh man, I love that. That is, it’s very poetic, because it’s always so exciting at the beginning, you know, it’s like a, I think if I see it in a graph, you know, it’s like the excitement. And then it drops like a lot, and then it goes back up towards the end to a very satisfying, hopefully satisfying finish. But I think it’s also really interesting, because there’s this sort of like in the creative process. Along the way, there’s also a destructive process, you know, there’s like this back and forth between you, you know, you move three steps forward, two steps back, sometimes or five steps forward, one step back, and it’s, it’s the same with oil painting too. There’s a lot of push and pull, push and pull, but it’s really cool to see it in a more, I guess, gosh, a more experimental way too, because it is through that experimentation that you discover so much, right? It is you discover, oh, well, like how you said you can’t really use the pigment sticks. Or, like, if you do use a pigment sticks, you can’t really do something on top of them without destroying them. So it’s, it feels much more scientific. Kind of like how you said that, you know, the chemistry side of like, working with materials was what interested you. And I love to like that. Do you ever find that you might start a piece and then you you just, there’s like, no way to salvage it? Have you noticed that happening? Or do you are you able to save like, a good amount of them?
Nancy Phillips: 24:53
Yes, I have a stack of them over to the side that I’m trying to keep out of the. Out of the view of the camera, yes, but often I find that if I if, if things are really going badly, then I don’t care anymore, and I can be really reckless with it, and that’s when better things happen. And I’ve done a number of commission pieces where I’ll I, if I do, if I get a commission for a piece, I try to do two or three, because I find that if I’m if I just do one, it’s it’s too precious. I’m too tentative with it. And if I do two or three, then I can be much more casual and reckless. And the one that I initially started out with, that I think is really going to be successful, is not nearly as successful as one of the others that I was less, you know, I was more, you know, carefree about So,
Laura Arango Baier: 26:05
yes, that is so important, because there’s so much you know, when we put a canvas right, we’re right. We have a canvas ready. It is so easy to put so much pressure on ourselves for it to be the best thing we’ve ever done in our entire lives. It’s like, this is going to be the masterpiece. This is the one. But it is awesome to have that idea of like, okay, I know this piece is important. It’s commissioned. I’m going to make three so I know I have space to, you know, let myself play and not be so overcome with, like, the worry and fear of, oh my gosh, what if this doesn’t turn out and I have to start over? It’s good to have that wiggle room of, like, Okay, I’m going to play around a little bit and not put so much pressure on myself, because I mentioned this earlier. But there’s something, and there’s something really limiting imperfectionism, right? Like it’s such a box that we put ourselves in, you know? And of course, the way that you work, it’s hard to stay in the imaginary box of perfectionism, which I think is so healthy, even if it is frustrating.
Unknown: 27:20
Yes, definitely. So I
Laura Arango Baier: 27:25
also wanted to ask you, if you’ve had since you’ve, you know, you’ve had this very long time to be able to experiment and play and learn and repeat the process over and over. Have you had any recent or big aha moments in your work that have really, you know, changed your perspective in your work, or have helped you move forward as an artist.
Nancy Phillips: 27:58
I think it’s a little bit that way, when I start working with incorporating something new, starting to work within caustic was a little bit like that. It changed. It definitely sort of took me on a little off ramp to a little bit different esthetic in the work that I do. And then pigment sticks have sort of expanded that a little bit too. But there hasn’t been anything dramatic. There was a period I after. There was a period after I got out of graduate school where I did pretty consistent work for about, I don’t know, eight years or so, and then got frustrated. It was just going nowhere. So I took, I took a couple years off, and didn’t paint at all for about a year or so. And we were living in an old house at that point, and we were restoring this old house, which you use a lot of art materials when you’re I mean, when you’re working with wood, you work with a lot of the same stuff you work with when you’re an oil painter. And so when we find when we finished that and I went back to painting, somehow that sort of reinvigorated the work that I did and and I think probably at that point I I started working a lot more with acrylic than oil paint, because you can you. You can cover it up and start all over again. Easier you can you can abandon that and start again. Easier with acrylic than you can with oil paint. But anyway,
Laura Arango Baier: 30:19
BoldBrush, we inspire artists to inspire the world, because creating art creates magic, and the world is currently in desperate need of magic. BoldBrush provides artists with free art marketing, creativity and business ideas and information. This show is an example. We also offer written resources, articles and a free monthly art contest open to all visual artists. We believe that fortune favors the bold brush, and if you believe that too, sign up completely free at BoldBrush show.com that’s BOLDBRUSH show.com. The BoldBrush Show is sponsored by FASO. Now more than ever. It’s crucial to have a website when you’re an artist, especially if you want to be a professional in your career. Thankfully, with our special ink FASO.com/podcast, you can make that come true and also get over 50% off your first year on your artist website. Yes, that’s basically the price of 12 lattes in one year, which I think is a really great deal, considering that you get sleek and beautiful website templates that are also mobile friendly, e commerce, print on demand in certain countries, as well as access to our marketing center that has our brand new art marketing calendar. And the art marketing calendar is something that you won’t get with our competitor. The Art marketing calendar gives you day by day, step by step, guides on what you should be doing today right now, in order to get your artwork out there and seen by the right eyes, so that you can make more sales this year. So if you want to change your life and actually meet your sales goal this year, then start now by going to our special link, FASO.com/podcast, that’s FASO.com/podcast, yeah, you know, I You mentioned something there that I like, because I relate to it. I also took time off in painting. And I think exploring other things can really reinvigorate painting or just like creating, because it kind of puts you, it takes you outside of, like, maybe, like, the same sort of bubble that you’ve been in with painting, and it allows you to gain a new perspective. For some people, it might be reading books. I know reading really can change you, especially when it’s fiction instead of nonfiction. It can really give you some crazy ideas. But home renovation, that’s, you know, in in many senses, it’s crafting, yeah, so it’s, it’s very much like, adjacent to painting, like you said, so much of the same things are used. And it also gives you, I don’t know, there’s something weird about, like, learning a 3d construction of some sort, yes, yes. Suddenly go like, Oh my gosh. I just realized this thing about painting that I hadn’t noticed, which is very funny, because it’s a 3d thing that gets transferred into a 2d level, and it’s like, whoa. It can be really mind blowing. But having that time away, I think, is so important for some people, especially how you mentioned if you get frustrated, and it’s if it’s just not going anywhere and it just feels very dry and you’re not excited for it anymore, it’s very good to step away. Yeah, well, since we’re on that topic, actually, I wanted to ask you, when you stopped painting for those years, because for me, I had a bit of a crisis. Did you happen to go through a bit of a crisis too, in terms of your artistic identity, so to speak.
Nancy Phillips: 33:50
I not real, not, not really. I mean, it’s, it’s always been sort of up and down. It wasn’t dramatic.
Laura Arango Baier: 34:05
That’s good, yeah, because I think it’s also, it can be so defeating too. When you take time off, yeah, it makes you feel like, gosh, I’m a failure. Or, why isn’t this working anymore? Is this even what it should be doing? You know, especially
Nancy Phillips: 34:21
if you’re if you take time off when you’re not liking what you’re doing, yeah, when you’re consistently unhappy with your output, it’s, it’s a little depressing. Yes, yes, yeah,
Laura Arango Baier: 34:35
it can be very tough. But I think yourself like, Okay, I’m just stepping away for a short period of time, right? I’m just gonna take some time off. I think that that also really helps with not having so much pressure about like, oh my gosh, I’m just stop. I quit, I give up, because that’s very different. But that also makes me wonder, so you mentioned also that your creative process when you’re creating a piece. 90s, you can find yourself in points of frustration. How do you handle or like, what keeps you going, experimenting on?
Nancy Phillips: 35:15
Can you repeat that? I you, yeah. I you,
Unknown: 35:18
so did. I blanked out for just a second.
Laura Arango Baier: 35:22
Okay, yeah, no, I can repeat that. So when, when you’re working on a piece that’s really challenging for you, or like, when you reach a point when you’re creating a piece that gets challenging, what keeps you going, even when it gets really tough,
Nancy Phillips: 35:40
I walk away from it for a couple days, and usually leave it somewhere where I can see it sort of out of the corner of my eye. And fortunately, we have, we live in a house with a big family room next to the living room, and the family room we’ve converted into studio space so I can I can see what I’m working on in the studio out of the corner of my eye when I’m doing normal life stuff. And that helps, and usually stepping away from it for a couple days and trying to let go of what I thought my next step was going to be, and sort of entertain possibility of doing something radically different. And if I mean, I, because I work in layer of thing, layers of things. It, it’s, I can always put another layer of, you know, I can, I can decide to cover that all up with a, you know, a layer of paper that I’ve painted somehow to, you know, if there’s, if there’s parts of it that I think are really going wrong, I can, I can pile stuff on top of that, to obliterate it somehow and keep, I mean, I find that that if I keep working on it, it gets it’s better than just walking away. You know, usually, usually, the things that our best are things that have gone sideways part way through. You know, things that have come together easily are not as interesting in the end as the ones that I’ve had to save somehow.
Laura Arango Baier: 37:37
Yeah, yeah. It’s really interesting. Because I feel like, like you said, it’s a bit of a balance of, like, okay, working more or stepping away. Because even in oil painting, we also have the issue of, like, overworking, yeah, where a section of a painting just looks like it’s been touched way, way, way more than it should have been. And then, like you said, areas that are just oh, they came together really easily, and they’re not as fun or as, like, nice. So I think that’s really interesting, especially with, you know, how I find that I think abstract in that sense, might be a little more challenging, because you are so dependent on the abstract forms of composition, compared to, you know, like with a realistic oil painting, where you can just lay things out and it’s a it’s a lot more obvious to the eye what things are, because you’re already telling them, this is what this is with abstract that it seems like much more of a challenge to like you said how you had focused a bit more on composition. What would you recommend to someone who maybe wants to improve composition? How much of it is experimentation, and how much might be like looking at other artists who have worked on composition? What have you done to improve your composition?
Nancy Phillips: 38:58
I would say, look, look carefully at paintings you like, and pay attention to what you like about them and where you’re looking and what’s happening there where you’re looking. I think it. I think a vast majority of learning to make successful artwork is learning to stop to not, you know, just whack away endlessly, you know, to to, you know, put down a brush stroke and don’t do three or more. You know, it’s, it’s, really, it’s taken me forever to just not overwork things. And. And you know, to see what one brushstroke will do. And especially because I’m working, I work a lot in materials that move after I put them down. I’m not working in impasto oil paint, although that’s what I love looking at. Just to let, let the paint do, do what it does. And, and, you know, step back and, and, you know, stop messing with it so much. Yeah, yeah,
Laura Arango Baier: 40:37
that just reminded me too of something that I thought about, which is dialog, right? Having a dialog like you’re saying with the painting, like it’s, I think it’s a lot easier to notice too and abstract, because you have such a very particular conversation with the materials, because you have, especially with a caustic how you’re describing, that it’s such a challenging thing to work with, you have to have a dialog with them, and that material is telling you, this is what I’m going to do, and you got to figure out how you’re going to react to me, because this is what I’m going to do, right? Yeah? And I think that’s one of the bigger challenges, but the way you’re mentioning it, yeah, I think having a bit more of like that, allowing the medium to speak to you, which doesn’t necessarily always happen with oils, in in a realistic sense, I think it’s a lot more obvious with the abstract.
Nancy Phillips: 41:34
Yeah, kind of but I mean, I think look at, I mean, if you’re a realist painter, look at your realist painter heroes, you know, we you, you know, look at John Singer Sargent and his, you know, his individual brushstrokes are like little abstract paintings. And that’s one of the things that makes his work so amazing is that, you know, if you take, you know, a little tiny snapshot, it looks like, you know, Mark Rothko and, and that’s, that’s the hard part is, is, You know, letting an individual brushstroke speak for itself, and and, you know, let it be paint on the canvas, instead of, you know, paint by numbers, you know, a solid block of, you know, titanium white, you know, inside black lines. And that’s, that’s what I do, just on a different scale, I think. And, you know, incorporating different stuff in there too, but, but it’s, it’s letting your materials do what they do best.
Laura Arango Baier: 42:56
Yeah, yeah. And trusting the process to an extent. Because, gosh, I mean, when it’s like, especially with encaustic, or, like, any of the materials that you use that want to do what they want to do, you almost have that you have to let go so much. You have to surrender so much to the process. How, how is that experience been for you? Like, did you have, you have you noticed that you’ve built a bit of resilience towards, like letting the materials do what they want. You develop a very thick skin,
Nancy Phillips: 43:29
yeah, and you, and you, you have to be open minded to pleasant surprises that happen. You know? I mean, they talk about all, you know, the happy accidents that happen in painting and and you know you you have to let go of your expectations and and try to see possibilities that you can build on things that are happening that that you didn’t expect, but are actually a better way to go than what you had originally planned, at least. And I mean, I I just finished a piece. I’m entering in a in a show tomorrow where there was all kinds of interesting things going on, but there was way too much interesting things going on, and what I ended up doing to save it, in my opinion, is just, I mean, it’s a relatively medium sized piece, which I usually don’t work medium size. But in this case, I am, and I ended up focusing on a piece, you know, that was like two inches by three inches, because it was interesting, but there was just too much. Noise in the background. So I had to basically isolate that little interesting spot in order to let that be the focal point and be interesting. And, you know, let the back just, you know, take a rest, you know, and, you know, fade into the background so that you’re not so frantically distracted by, you know, all the other things going on in the composition. So it’s not what I intended at all when I started this piece, but that’s where I ended up. And you know, so far so good. We’ll see,
Laura Arango Baier: 45:46
yeah, and you know what it I find that that is so interesting. And I think it happens to anyone who’s creating anything, whether it’s painting a craft, anything where, like we might have an idea of what something, you know, what we want something to turn out to be, and then we have to, you know, come to a compromise where it’s not going to look like that, no matter what. It might come close, but sometimes it might never do that. And I think it’s because in sometimes we have, like, some somewhat of, like a dream, like, way of seeing things where, like in a dream, you know, things don’t always make sense. Like someone’s arm might be coming out in a funny way, but in the dream it looks normal. It’s, I find that it’s, there’s also that practice of, like, imagination that gets translated, and then you just have to deal with reality.
Unknown: 46:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
Laura Arango Baier: 46:41
And then I also wanted to ask you, because you do sell your your work, which is awesome, what was it like for you when you you started selling more of your work? Like, what because you, you had mentioned to me you actually did some freelance work on the side. What was it like for you when you were balancing those two things, oh,
Nancy Phillips: 47:03
it’s, it’s always been that way for me. I’ve I, when I first got out of college, I worked in a bank for about a year and a half and learned about finance, and then I worked in the interior design industry, and I thought, Oh, great, I’m going to do all this arts, Arty stuff in the interior design industry, and that didn’t happen. I became the accountant, but that’s always been a skill I have in my back pocket, and so I’ve always been able to freelance that and do art at the same time, and that’s helped a lot. So, so that, I mean, I still do accounting a little bit, not very much, but, but it’s, it works. It works and it helps, you know, run a household with a couple artists in it,
Unknown: 48:09
yes, for sure, but
Nancy Phillips: 48:14
it’s been, it’s, it’s been nice to have, I can, I can, I can see how they sort of influence each other. It’s, it’s nice to have something that’s neat and tied up in a box, and when you’re done, you’re done and and you can put it aside. And then there’s this other thing that you know is hardly ever neat in a box, and but, but, you know, I’m still making order out of chaos in in the artwork that I do so and actually, I mean, in the just the artwork I’ve sold, I mean, I’ve been in a number of different galleries, and they’ve always, it’s always been sort of a fluke that has gotten me in the first, the first gallery I was in, I’ve always entered, did a lot of entering jury shows, and, you know, accumulating those lists on my line, on my resume. And I was getting something, I went into a frame shop to get a piece framed that was going in a show. And the framework, I said, Oh, you know, this is just like all the stuff I framed for this gallery over there. You should, you know, show your work over there. And that’s how I got into the first one. And then I forget how the second or third popped up. And then my husband was in a gallery in Massachusetts, and my brother went in there and started chatting with the owner, and she said, Oh, you know, what does your sister do? Well, she’s an artist too, and so she invited me to an invitational show, and my stuff sold, and then she it. Ended up selling quite a lot of my stuff over the years. So it’s always been sort of fluky things like that. But you never know who’s going to see your work where and think they can sell it and, you know, develop a relationship. So one thing sort of leads to another, at least for me, it’s worked that way. But you got to get your work out there where people are going to see it. So you have to enter a lot of shows and join a lot of art groups. I mean, I’ve, I’ve been in a lot of art groups over the years, women artists, mostly sometimes abstract painting groups, encaustic groups, and a lot of those sort of came and went over, you know, covid But, but you know, they have exhibits, they show and then you know your stuff is out there. And you just never know,
Laura Arango Baier: 51:01
yes, yeah. I mean, it’s one of those things that I’ve mentioned, I think, a few times on the podcast, which is, it’s fine to be, you know, an artist who’s in their studio, but in the end, if you want to get your work seen and sold, hopefully you have to step out of the studio, right? You have to go out and talk to people, or, like you said, you know, you went to a framer and the framers like, oh, this, this, and that, you know, go check those people out. They might like you, right? So having that, you know, human connection part, I think, is so underrated. And you mentioned to me, I think that you also started with, you know, you were also doing auctions as well, like going to those events.
Unknown: 51:46
Yes, yes, yes,
Nancy Phillips: 51:51
yeah, we find that that local community galleries and and museums have art auction Invitational things. So we so my husband and I both get invited to submit work to those venues, which are always, I mean, it’s always a great place to meet other artists and see what the other artists in the area are doing, and get your work out there.
Laura Arango Baier: 52:18
Yeah, definitely, yeah. And how have you found these events? Have you like, has it been the internet, word of mouth, like, how have
Nancy Phillips: 52:28
you just they’ve been art through gallery owners that represent us. I seem to be on boards of museums, and somehow our names get on lists and so,
Laura Arango Baier: 52:44
yeah, that’s, of course, over time. I mean, as you build your, you know, reputation, but in a way, it is building your reputation where you start getting seen more, yeah, it definitely makes it easier to find those opportunities.
Nancy Phillips: 52:55
Yeah, and if you join art groups, they’re always talking about where, you know, everybody’s talking about where they’re showing and where they’re entering, and you piggyback on your friends, you know, I mean, you know, there’s a lot of word of mouth out there that you can take advantage of. So it really helps to get out of the studio and get interacting with other artists who are doing what you’re doing and going to, you know, conventions and things like that. Yeah, yes, yeah, exactly.
Laura Arango Baier: 53:25
I mean, you have to seek those opportunities out, right? I mean, something else that I’ve mentioned, which is, like, I think there are a lot of people, maybe not a lot of people, but it has happened to us at some point where we think, Oh, maybe an opportunity will follow my lap, right? It’s like, it might in the future, but you need to start building up, like, to get to that point,
Nancy Phillips: 53:43
you need to create your own opportunities that you can take advantage of.
Laura Arango Baier: 53:48
Yes, yes, yeah. It’s, it’s a little less common that they fall on someone’s
Nancy Phillips: 53:53
lap, not out of the blue, rarely, yes, exactly.
Laura Arango Baier: 53:57
It’s usually a bit of, like, a cause and effect thing, or like, oh, maybe you did a piece for this one thing, and then few years down the line, someone’s like, remembering you. It’s all this person might be perfect for this thing, but you have to have had that experience first of like, having put yourself out there in the first place. No one to find your work if it’s if you’ve never put it out there,
Unknown: 54:16
right, right, right. Yes, absolutely, yes.
Laura Arango Baier: 54:22
And then I wanted to ask you, if you have any final advice for someone who wants to become a full time artist,
Nancy Phillips: 54:33
I would say, don’t give up, but have a day job, maybe not necessarily a full time day job. I mean, that’s, that’s why I chose this accounting gig, is because I could do that on freelance, on my own, you know, I have, I’ve, I worked for companies for a while, but I hated. I hated being told what to do and where to be when, and it just worked for me to be able to to have my own clients and do it when I wanted to, so that I could do other things when I needed to. And that’s just, it’s i It’s I think, particularly these days, in this day and age, it’s very difficult to be able to make enough money doing fine art to pay your bills. It’s very, very difficult. And, you know, but some people do it and, but you gotta work hard at it, and you gotta, you gotta get yourself out there and, and I think I don’t do workshops myself, although I’ve I’ve done a couple little day things with artists friends of mine, showing them, you know, how I work with encaustic on top of acrylic, on top of all the other media that I use. But I think that’s how a lot of artists are doing it these days, and it’s a great way to sell your work too. You know, I mean, people who take your workshops love your work, and, you know, put two and two together and take advantage of the opportunity.
Laura Arango Baier: 56:35
So, yeah, it’s a good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a it’s, I think it’s good to be honest with ourselves, in that sense, like how you’re saying, like, if, if living below your means isn’t necessarily a possibility, it is good to have a steady day job to help support, you know, an artistic career, in some sense. And I mean, that’s a pragmatic way to do it, so you’re not starving, unless you have really great family support, which not everyone has. But if you do, that’s awesome. That’s very lucky. Yeah. I mean, so much of being an artist is, you know, it can get really tough financially because it it, you know, again, bring it back to the resilience, resilience within your work, right? But also resilience in the fact that sales are going to go up and down, right? You’re not going to be selling all the time, and you have to be able to plan ahead for those moments where, oh my gosh, like, I haven’t sold in a few months. What can I do? And having that financial anxiety can be really, really tough for some people. So having, like you said something to fall back on that is a skill that you you’ve learned, whether it’s accounting or you know anything that is usually, I mean accounting, for sure, is always in demand. So I think that’s a very wise decision. But if someone you know doesn’t like numbers, right, finding something that they’re good at, that they know that they can put to use in those challenging moments, I think is very, very smart for sure.
Nancy Phillips: 58:13
Yes, yes. It’s necessary in this day and age, anytime.
Laura Arango Baier: 58:20
Yeah, yeah, but, yeah. I think, you know, artists will always exist. I think we’re very stubborn people. You know, we love to do what we do, and we will find ways to do it no matter what. And that’s, I think the biggest thing when you’re an artist is just remembering, man, I love to do this, and I will find ways to do
Nancy Phillips: 58:42
it, yeah, yeah, yes. And when people buy from you, it’s, it’s very gratifying. I mean, it really, you know, is an affirmation of all of that.
Laura Arango Baier: 58:58
Yes, it really completes it. Yeah, it feels amazing, because it’s like, oh my gosh, someone actually wants this, this piece that I agonized over and cried over, and it’s awesome. Yes, awesome. Human connection is beautiful. But yeah, I am now extremely curious about encaustic. Thanks to you. I, you know, have studied a lot of in art history, and I’ve studied a lot of paintings that used encaustic and like old techniques, and I find that fascinating. So I think I will definitely reach out to you if I have any questions about encaustic, just like you know, many of our listeners,
Nancy Phillips: 59:37
YouTube, yes, source of all knowledge, source of a lot of knowledge.
Laura Arango Baier: 59:45
Oh my gosh yes, especially for less well known techniques like encaustic, or less popular, I should say, because it is so niche that you know, the people who do know, they really, really want to share this information. They i. I agree. I mean, there’s so much that can get lost over time if we don’t take care of, you know, collecting that information and spreading it out to others, it can be really, really tough. But then I’m grateful for all those people on the internet who do these niche things and like, they’re like, We need to put all of this on there, because it makes life easier for the ones who do find it like ah,
Nancy Phillips: 1:00:25
but, but beware that that encaustic has its chemical dangers too. I mean, you don’t go messing around with it without learning about because you don’t want to incorporate encaustic and thinners make really bad. They make fumes that are very toxic, so you want to have good ventilation and all that, don’t, you know, sit there in your bathroom, you know, melting wax, very bad idea. So educate yourself before you start messing around with that stuff.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:10
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it’s the same with with oil paints too. I mean, you don’t want to be breathing in turpentine, no, much you don’t want to eat while you’re using lead
Unknown: 1:01:20
white, yes, yeah. So pay attention to that chemistry part, yes,
Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:26
yeah, because it can be very life or death. I mean, I’ve heard of instructors that I’ve had in the past who are, you know, always using oil paint, and now they have, you know, heavy metals poisoning, or have had it, and it’s good to just avoid it in the first place. So it’s good to know, yeah, the safety precautions of encaustic, you know, kind of like how an oil paint you should never, ever, ever leave a rag crumpled up that has oil paint on it, unless you are very much wanting to burn down your own house. Yeah, yes, which I don’t think many of us do. But yes, that’s a very X point. And then, if someone wants to see your absolutely gorgeous encaustic paintings and other paintings that you’ve made, where can they go? Check them out.
Nancy Phillips: 1:02:12
I have a website, Nancy Crandall phillips.com that has all of my work on it. And also, I mean, there, you should also know, I mean, I have a friend who I helped set up a pottery studio a number of years ago, which has gotten me back into pottery. And there’s, there’s some pottery on the website too, but that’s just for fun, really, because once you’re addicted to these art, material things you can never quite get away from them. So anyway, I agree Nancy Crandall phillips.com is where, and I have an Instagram page too that I’m very bad at maintaining, but hopefully I will be better of that in the future. Awesome.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:03:00
And then I will also include all of your links in the show notes for people to go check it out. And then if they watch the video, they will have seen your gorgeous work, which it is so nice. Please go check it out, guys. It makes you really want to try abstract because it’s just, it’s the qualities in it are. So I don’t know, there’s something very peaceful about your work that I
Nancy Phillips: 1:03:25
thank you. I feel like, like, the way my compositions work out. Usually are very sort of landscape. You know, they’re like, anyway, they’re they’re reminiscent of abstract landscapes to me in my head, but anyway, thank you very much.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:03:45
Well, thank you, Nancy, this was a fun conversation. I am definitely going to go investigate encaustics, and who knows, maybe I’ll start playing around with some abstract to see if I can let go of all that perfectionism that realism tends to track you too.
Nancy Phillips: 1:04:03
Contact me anytime.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:04:07
Yes, I will definitely keep in touch. Thanks. Thank you to everyone out there for listening to the podcast. Your continued support means a lot to us. If you’ve enjoyed the episode, please leave a review for the podcast on Apple podcast Spotify, or leave us a comment on YouTube. This helps us reach others who might also benefit from the excellent advice that our guests provide. Thank you.
