King Tutankhamun's death mask is one of the most recognizable images from Egyptian history. Other funerary art forms have also survived thousands of years due to the region's arid climate. In Roman Egypt, during the 1st and 3rd centuries A.D, the departed were honored by painting the person's likeness on a wood panel. The faces were painted with encaustic(wax), tempera, or both and the panel was attached to the mummified body. These relics are referred to as The Fayum Portraits. The greek artist Euphrosyne Doxiadis wrote about this art form in her book The Mysterious Fayum Portraits. She states, 'The illusion, when standing in front of them, is that of coming face to face with someone one has to answer to, someone real.'
I became more interested in these works because of recent experiments towards making a less toxic beeswax encaustic process. Instead of the holiday madness that consumes most lives, I spent Christmas day 2014 successfully cooking up a form of ancient cold wax medium not widely used. It is not solvent based. The wax is saponified with ammonia, thus rendering it water soluble. The medium can be combined easily with raw pigments & oil pastels. It can be made in heavy or thin consistencies, it travels nicely in a homemade jam jar, and is not toxic or flammable like it's turpenoid based cold wax cousin. I imagine how Pliny the elder would have prepared wax as it was used in Roman times, such as to seal ships or coat alabaster statues. He didn't go to a Home Depot or craft supply, he would have made it himself. He most likely bleached his material in the powerful mediterranean sun to make it white. I choose to use naturally rendered beeswax instead of a processed form. It does not matter that it is not white. It provides the most intense olfactory experience, like being right inside the hive it came from.
The human sense of smell is a time machine. Handling raw beeswax teleports me to the 5 acre 'farm' I grew up on. A small group of hives were kept for honey production and to house bees for pollinating the giant organic vegetable garden that would feed our family all winter. I was probably 4 or 5 years old when I invented 'petting bees', gently stroking their soft furry backs. I still do this. It makes me happy. I am a naturalist just like Pliny. The bees just never seemed to mind. I've never been stung by them, so why not continue? While creating art with wax I too must answer to someone, just like Doxiadis describes in the Fayum portraits. Wax is a tool that enables me to be present with my most creative self, the child who never grew up, the entitiy who makes art 'just because', a being who forever belongs playing in the animal kingdom as one of them.
the lady in the woods (detail)
11 x 48
cold wax medium, oil pastel, pencil, unryu paper
