We had our local International Encaustic Artists (IEA) meeting last night as the temperature reached almost 100 degrees. This is unusual for Portland and even stranger because I still have sweat pants in the wash from when I was so cold a couple of weeks ago!

Karl with his new work

We welcomed a new member, Karl, and enjoyed the work he shared with us. Judy Wise and Melinda Fellini gave us the scoop on the recent IEA retreat in Carmel while we tried to cool down with a nice beverage. I also shared the first copies of my book, Embracing Encaustic, which arrived the day before. Below is guest artist Andrea Benson reviewing her work in the book.

Andrea reviews her work in Embracing Encaustic

I have a few advance copies, but the bulk of the books have yet to arrive. It will officially debut at the National Encaustic Conference in Massachusetts on June 8, and by June 15 it will be available for purchase at www.embracingencaustic.com.

Our demo this month was by Susan Freedman who has a new stencil cutting tool we all wanted to try out. It’s made by Fiskars and makes cutting stencils with paper a snap! We we’re all duly impressed by how easy and accurate it is. I think what she had is an older version of the Ultra Shapexpress. It’s around $20 and from what I saw it will be worth every penny.

We were also delivering our work for the show Jim Talt arranged in Newberg next month at the Newberg Gallery (more on that soon!), so that spawned various impromptu critiques as the night wore on…

Today was the first day of the Mt. Tabor Art Walk. I braved the heat and did my wax demos despite temperatures in the 90’s. I was rewarded with many enthusiastic customers and a great response to my book.

My studio will be open again tomorrow from 11 am – 5 pm. You can download a free art walk map here if you’d like to join me on Sunday. I have small works on sale for $35 – $45, which is a rare occurrence so come by and see what you might like. Two of them are posted below: