Lorrie Fredette lying under a section of her installation, The Great Silence (suspended just 30 inches above the floor).

TSGNY: Tell us about your process and what drew you to it.

Lorrie Fredette: I paint with molten beeswax mixed with tree resin (encaustic medium) on unbleached cotton muslin that has been fitted and hand-sewn to a wire armature. While I have worked in textiles over the years, I had not previously combined them with the encaustic medium.  I began working with encaustic in 1999 but didn’t “commit” to it as a formal material in my work until 2005. The two primary materials (beeswax and unbleached cotton muslin) offer me several components that are vital to my work: translucency, controlled pigmentation, a lightweight finished object, and the ability to create a series with many minute variations. I also respond to the historical and contemporary associations of the materials.

TSGNY: Can you elaborate on some of those associations?

LF: I often draw on medical and environmental stories as inspirations for my work. Wax — in particular, paraffin — was historically used to encapsulate biological specimens.  For example, in the U.S. during the outbreak of the Spanish Flu of 1918, samples were taken from each person who passed away from influenza.  Those samples have been (and still are) stored in several U.S. federal labs. Muslin is used to make sewing patterns for garments and upholstery.  In theater, it is the ground to paint backgrounds for sets.  It is used in the culinary field as a filter for wine, cheese and to separate out solids from liquids like in processing apples. In the medical field muslin gauze is used in neurosurgery to wrap vessels at risk for bleeding.

A half-sewn element. Unbleached cotton muslin whipstitched over a handmade and soldered armature.

TSGNY: Encaustic is usually a 2D medium. Are there any challenges to using it in 3D work?

LF: I work just outside the limitations of my materials.  It is recommended that wax be applied to a rigid surface for 2D work, since bounce can cause cracking and/or detachment from the substructure.  I create 3D elements and work on hollow forms. I think the very taut substructure and the multiple layers of paint decrease the risk of cracking.  Fusing between painted layers (heating each layer so it molecularly attaches to the layer below it) dramatically reduces the possibility of fracture.  Other materials would be less expensive (I used more than 275 pounds of wax for The Great Silence) and take less time to make.  But for now, these materials support my intent.

The foreground shows several painted elements that have been strung for installing. The middle ground shows several sewn and one half-sewn element.

TSGNY: How did you develop the process of creating the multiple elements that go into your pieces?

LF: I realized that in order to create the serial elements, I needed to be able to construct my own armatures and quickly determined that I needed to learn to solder.   This was before iChat, SKYPE and Facetime came into existence; I was taught how to solder by TSGNY member Biba Schutz via  telephone.  After making the armatures, I pin and sew the muslin to them in a manner similar to traditional handmade lampshades. Then I melt my wax in a 16-quart roasting pan, allowing me to paint the seven coats per pod as well as paint 110 elements in a day.

The work table covered with 55 painted elements.

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LF: Before I began working with encaustic medium and returned to working with textiles, I was creating abstract figurative drawings and sculpture.  My preferred sculptural materials were combinations of wood, metal, fiberglass and plastics.  These pieces were humble in size, less than 2 feet, and pedestal bound.

TSGNY: So engaging with the new medium allowed you to change scale, and fill much larger spaces?

LF: I wouldn’t say my work changed as a result of these materials.  I think it’s more accurate to say my work changed because I wanted to be a different kind of artist, and the choice of materials grew out of that. My concept is about distortion and that concept is supported through seriality and size.  Each individual element is slightly different because of its “handmadeness.”  I believe this variation is similar to how a story is told.  Each version is slightly different from the last told by the teller.  Group those individual portrayals together and you begin to see the differences, once you get past the cacophony of the whole experience.  I make multiples not only to create site-responsive installations to fill a space but again, to alter a rendition.

Lorrie Fredette, The Great Silence. Bank of America/Hunter Gallery at the Cape Cod Museum of Art. 6 feet 6 inches H x 36 feet 10 inches W x 5 feet 8 inches D suspended 8 feet 6 inches from the floor. Beeswax, tree resin, muslin, brass, steel, nylon line. © 2011

TSGNY: Finally, is there any artist working today who inspires you whose work you’d like us to know about?

LF: One of many contemporary artists I admire is Laura Splan. TSGNY members might recall her work at the Museum of Art and Design’s Pricked: Extreme Embroidery.

TSGNY: Thank you, Lorrie.

You can see more of Lorrie Fredette’s work here and in the wonderful book Encaustic with a Textile Sensibility.