Caroline Gates Interviewed by Sanctuary

The Sanctuary Magazine interviewed VillageOneArt collaborative artist Caroline Gates discusses her technique, the people and places she draws inspiration from, and the artists she admires.

SM：What do you appreciate about working with pastels？Have you combined other mediums with pastel？

CG：I like to say that I never made it past finger painting. I feel my way through a work, pushing pigments around with my fingers, the side of my hand, or sometimes my entire arm. The pastels allow me to work this way with an immediacy and a pureness of pigment that I have not achieved with other mediums…

…I have completed a few works with an acrylic or oil underpainting that I then layered with pastel on top. I appreciate how this creates varied marks and increases a sense of life and light. I often create pastel studies before creating an oil painting – this allows me to work out the composition and the colors quickly so that I have a game plan for the painting.

SM: What are some of the inspirations that have driven your work up to this point？

CG: I know most of us had a lot of time in a single space over the past year or so…I love to create stories and metaphors with my work, to ascribe feelings to the surrounding environment (“pathetic fallacy”). I wondered what my space might say about me and how the lighting or the mood affected the meaning. These thoughts influenced the subject of my work.

 …While painting, I like to listen to memoirs of those who have experienced success – everyone from John Singer Sargent to Billy Crystal. And I often re-read Art and Fear by Annie Dillard, which investigates the life of an artist and artmaking. Thankfully, I am also surrounded by amazing, hardworking professionals who inspire me every day, specifically my family and my community of fellow artists.