Original artwork description:

The title comes from the poet Wallace Stevens writing about the Connecticut River, which I can see from my home, but which does not have waves such as this. Stevens (in "The River of Rivers in Connecticut") wrote: "The mere flowing of the water is a gayety, Flashing and flashing in the sun." And while those lines were in my mind, Hokusai wave is in this image as well, and the waters of the Caribbean, sunlight shinning through the wave. Because encaustic (highly-pigmented pharmaceutical-grade beeswax strengthened by damar resin) is apply hot and fused, and because I've used pearlized powdered pigment (the white), I was able to blow the paint up with my heat gun and thus re-create the action of the wave. Working in multiple layers, and making use of a number of mark-making tools, as well as fusing with a heat lamp, butane torch , plus the heat gun, I was able to get an extraordinary degree of detail in the wave's structure. Signed and dated on the back, this work ships with a digitally-registered Certificate of Authenticity. It is unframed, but deeply cradled (the sides of the cradle painted medium blue) and thus ready-to-hang. It can be framed, but I prefer it unframed so that the image seems to float against the wall.

Materials used:

encaustic paint, powdered pigment, oil stick, cradled birch panel

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