Karen’s Website - https://karenbubb.com/home.html
What kind of mediums do you work in?
My primary medium is encaustic, which is an ancient Greek and Roman process of using hot wax and Damar Crystal which is a tree sap from Malaysia and pigments. You melt those on a hot palette and then I paint on wood. So that's the primary medium that I show in but I also really love materials, so I also work in gouache and watercolour. I've had a sketchbook practice for a long time, so I love to draw. I do small hand-built ceramics, Kerry Moosman is a teacher that I've had for several years doing burnished pots. And then I also learned how to do stained glass, so I do some pieces in glass some printmaking some lithographic printmaking on glass and stained glass.
What’s been your favorite medium to work with?
I would say encaustic is definitely my favorite. Encaustic is super versatile, I've worked at it for years. I took a workshop from an artist named Eve-Marie Bergren and I really fell in love with it. The material is really pliable, you can do a lot of different things with it. You can collage with it. I love the natural feeling of the wax and the smell of the beeswax. It has a beautiful look too, you polish the surface of it and it the Damar polishes up really beautifully. I can draw into it with tools and carve onto it, so the the single medium can be used in several different ways and get a lot of different looks, so that's definitely what I work in the most
What inspires you to come up with your ideas?
You know historically I've done several series that are inspired by travel. So it started with a trip to China in 2005 and I came back and made several pieces about that trip to China. I've done a trip to Cuba, Germany, Italy and made work about that. My most recent series I had a one-person show at the visual arts collective and that was inspired by this longer process where I was doing ancestral research and I found family members back to the Mayflower. Then I was doing hypnotic past life regression with a hypnotist and making work about what I experienced and saw in those regressions. So that's the most recent series. Much of which you see around me right now was more personal and it was more based on kind of this combination of existing ephemera such as family photographs and then experiences that were just imaginatory experiences through this process.
How do you begin a painting?
I work best when I'm working on a series so I identify kind of the parameters of that series and then within that series I'll often have kind of series within a series. So for instance this last project that I worked on. One series was working specifically from historical photographs from my family, so I'll find a photograph that I like, I'll draw that on wood I'll paint the wax on the wood and then I start letting surprises happen. So I'll start experimenting with the medium. I really love materials and I like things that have a life of their own, so I'll play and follow with that material process as well.
What kinds of challenges do you face?
As an artist in general my major challenge is that I have a full-time job and I'm not a full-time artist. So I have very limited time frames in which I can work, and so for me it is being very disciplined and carving out money to have a studio, time to be in that studio, and then developing very internally motivated projects that I identify myself and work towards. So it's really that kind of process of what it means to be an artist. And then it's executing on that, hitting my deadlines, getting in the studio. For me it's really more about getting out of my head and into the materials and into the process. I am in school right now, and in my job, I do a lot of things that are really focused on intellectual processes, so getting getting out of my head and being in the materials is the most challenging.
Does having a dedicated space help?
Yes, I love having a studio! I can't imagine being an artist, particularly in the circumstances that I'm working in now, if I didn't have a studio space. This is like the Playhouse, so it has all of my materials. It has an altar to my processes. It has a dedicated space so that I can come and go and don't have to clean up what I'm working on. So for me having a studio space is absolutely essential to being able to be an artist.
Does having studio space help you find the motivation to work?
Yes it definitely does. I try to come here every weekend, even if it's just for an hour and even if it's just coming to sit and stare at the walls. I'm really dedicated to being here a part of every weekend, and then I come some in the evenings as well, or I'll come by in the morning, so it gives me a touchstone. It's only a half a mile from my house, so it's also very accessible to my home environment and that makes it easier as well.
What kind of challenges have you faced as a progressing artist?
I think there's the idea of what it means to be an artist, and that people think you're going to make art and be famous, or that it's all about showing and selling. So I think for me it has been two parts; one has been to try to understand the role of art in society and to understand my place in that. I have chosen to be both an administrator, a person who acts as a bridge between artists and bureaucrats, but also to not stop being a maker myself. I've met a lot of people who begin as makers and then they become administrators and let go of that maker part of their life. So for me it is to hold on to the love and passion and value of being a maker, and continuing to find inspiration in the world, and then giving myself permission to do the work to make things. I think often times as an adult people see spending time, or materials, or money on art making is something that is silly, or extra, or a hobby and therefore not worthy. For me it's to continue to value that part of who I am and what I do in the world.
Why is art important?
Art is the way that we share with each other and with ourselves what's important to us. So it's part of how we communicate our stories about our culture, our families, who we are, our identity. So for me as a maker, it is part of how I process the world and understand my own experience as a human. And then it is part of how I connect with other people and share that, and have conversations about that, and hopefully inspire other people to think about things that they might not have thought about otherwise. As an artist, I seek out art all the time. I travel whenever I have the opportunity and go to look at art, and it gives me a window into people's lives. To time periods, to places that I wouldn't have otherwise, and it inspires me in terms of the potential that we have as human beings. I feel like it is part of what drives us to be something more than we are, to not settle for mediocrity in our lives. To strive for greatness in our own ways, and as a social act to then invite others to participate in that conversation, and to acknowledge others as well in that process.
Do you find yourself having trouble completing projects?
I'm really good at follow through, so when I set up a project I typically will set up a deadline for that and a timeframe, and then I give myself some flexibility within that. I'm a really productive person, and so once I commit to something I always follow through. So for me, follow-through is not the difficult part of it. For me it is probably over commitment and having so many things going that it's more difficult for me to go as deep into those things as I'd like to. So sometimes I don't finish things, I don't hit the mark in terms of, I'll look at something and say “well it's completed but I'd like it to be deeper or more complex.” That is, I'd like to scale back a little bit on my responsibilities so that I can make things that have more complexity and more depth to them.
If you set a deadline do you stick to that even if it's not “complete”?
I do, mm-hmm, yeah. This last show I gave myself two years to work on it. I think it's also adjusting expectations. I finished the show and I was happy with what I did, but I also see the 20 things I can do in addition to that. So I recognize that completion is one part of the process, then you'll continue to develop and evolve ideas past that.
Do you strive for perfection?
I think trying to be better is part of part of what we do. I think for me, it's also trying to let go of the perfection and let things come through that are more organic and less about perfection, more about beauty and what happens in the process. So it's a balance
What has it been like for you being an artist in Boise?
I think being an artist in Boise has actually been a wonderful thing for me. One, I think financially to be able to afford a studio space outside of my home has been great. I have felt really welcomed in this community. I feel like the artist community of Boise is very encouraging. I found a great support system. I think the thing that is difficult in Boise is that there's not a lot of opportunities to show, and there's not as many people who are serious collectors. Often times people will collect work from other cities, or other locations. So I definitely recognize that in terms of the ability to make a living as an artist, if I were to try to make a living as an artist, I wouldn't be able to do it. So I'm grateful that I have a day job, and that I make money in a different way. But that said, I have as many opportunities as I want to show. I've always been able to make that happen. And because of commute times, and the closeness of everything here, I feel like I've also been able to maximize my time in between work and home and life and being an artist. So I really feel like Boise is a fertile place to be an artist. For me it's also been important to share that. So to have other artists continue to work here, stay and be here. That community of artists is really important to me as friends, as colleagues, as encouragers, so that's been really important to me as well.
Anything else you’d like to say?
People often will identify that you are either an artist or you're not. People self-identify very young. They choose to not be an artist because they're not going to pursue that as a life path, and I really feel like I want to encourage people to challenge themselves to find what is creative within them. Because I feel like everybody has something to say and that experiencing the world through the process of making is really gratifying. I do understand that not everyone will choose to invest on the level that people like myself who feel this great passion to do it. But I feel like it's something that everyone can do in some capacity. So I think that's important to me, but I think for me the other piece is that... I'll continue to make work, because it's how I understand what it means to be human. When I stop making work, that's when I stop. That's when I'll stop. So I think it's something I will do until the day I die.