Dramatic Break-up by instructor Wayne Montecalvo, 2011, Pigment Stick on paper-backed glass, 3 x 4 inches. See more of Wayne's work at www.waynemontecalvo.com

Our new Pigment Stick Mixed Media Lab allows artists to explore the many possible applications of R&F Pigment Sticks, encompassing traditional and alternative approaches and materials. In addition to pigment sticks, we will also demonstrate encaustic for those students who are interested in combining these two highly compatible media. We call this a lab rather than a workshop because we want to encourage artists to come back again and again to use our wonderful space (completely stocked with paint!) as their studio. Benefit from our instructors’ guidance and feedback on your projects, and enjoy the camaraderie of other participants. This lab is a great opportunity to work with a luscious, loose and free painting medium.

Like our encaustic mini workshops, the class will consist of a one-hour demonstration followed by independent work time, with the option of one-on-one consultation with the instructor. Demonstrated techniques and topics of discussion will vary each month according to the interests of the attending artists. Not interested in the demo? Then just get right to work.

The Pigment Stick Mixed Media Lab is held at R&F in Kingston, NY the forth Saturday of every month from 11am to 4pm.  Come join us for our kick-off on Saturday, March 23rd!

You can register online here. Cost is $65.00 and includes all paints.

Last weeks Encaustic for Sculptors workshop taught by R&F’s Kelly McGrath was a huge hit.   Students were  introduced to many innovative 3D techniques and they produced an impressive body of work in just three days.

We are looking forward to an exciting year of mixed media and collaborative workshops as well as our tried and true comprehensive courses in in both encaustic and Pigment Stick.   Also keep an eye out for more in our series of visiting artists.    This year we are thrilled to have Lisa Pressman, Lorraine Glessner, Cat Crotchett, and Alexandre Masino here at R&F!!

Look here for more information or feel free to contact us to reserve a space!

Last Saturday, January 15th, was the 23rd anniversary of R&F’s founding in the now proverbial basement in Brooklyn. But what’s so special about a 23rd anniversary? It’s not a marker like a 20th or a 25th anniversary. I have to admit even we didn’t pay much attention to it here.

But then I got to thinking how much this year really does represent something very special in R&F’s history. This was the year that we collaborated with Ampersand Art Supply to create Encausticbord^TM, and that led to the introduction of the Encaustic Center, a fully integrated selection of encaustic paints, tools, and supports now available in art supply stores around the country.

Our 1st anniversary represented our continuation of commercial encaustic paint begun by Torch Art Supply in the late 1940s, which was for many years the only commercial encaustic paint in the world. But it was, particularly back then, a specialty paint relegated to the back corners of most art stores.

Original Torch Art Supply encaustics

R&F’s original hand cut encaustic cakes

Our 23rd anniversary represents the establishment of encaustic paint as a mainstream art material. While the symbol of a 20th anniversary is china and the symbol of a 25th is silver for R&F the Encaustic Center signifies this milestone in our history.

R&F's encaustic paint is available in three sizes (40 ml., 101 ml. and 333 ml.)

The Encaustic Paint Center

R&F was greatly honored to be the recipient of the first Krider Prize for Creativity given by the University and College Designers Association. The presentation took place during UCDA’s 40th anniversary and annual conference in Minneapolis on October 2. The prize was presented to Richard Frumess by UCDA Foundation board member and frequent R&F workshop participant, Barbara Esmark.

The Krider Prize was created in memory of UCDA member John Alden Krider to honor “creativity wherever it may be found.” As stated in the announcement, UCDA recognizes “that designers draw their inspiration and influences from a broad range of fields and experiences. Therefore, the criteria for the Krider Prize is deliberately broad to reflect that creativity takes countless forms and is demonstrated in many ways.”

UCDA gave the award to R&F for our company’s “creativity and demonstrated impact on the industry and the community.” In specific, the Association acknowledged

• Our role in the revival of a previously under used and misunderstood medium that impacts many others (photography, design, painting, sculpture, ceramics, drawing, collage);

• Our influence on, and assistance to, artists across the country through our workshops and high-quality encaustics and oil sticks;

• Our creation of jobs for artists in teaching, training and production of waxes and paints;

• Our policy that allows students to use studio space and virtually all materials for free;

• Our promotion of art and artists through our public exhibition gallery; and

• Our creative, nurturing and productive environment.

Richard, in accepting the award, pointed out that UCDA was honoring many people in granting this prize – our teachers, our workshop and gallery director, our office staff,  hundreds of artists who have contributed so much to our workshops and exhibitions, and, not least, our paint makers, for at the core of all of our activities is our wonderful and beautiful paint.

The $1,500 prize will be set aside for R&F workshop scholarships for UCDA members.

'Areol' by Nancy Graves, 1978 Oil and encaustic on canvas, 64 x 88 inches

The Gallery at R&F, in cooperation with the Nancy Graves Foundation and Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, is proud to present an exhibition of little-known encaustic and mixed media works by the late painter and sculptor, Nancy Graves. The show will run from October 2^nd through November 20^th, 2010, with an opening reception on Saturday, October 9^th, from 5 – 7 pm. Linda Konheim Kramer, Executive Director of the Nancy Graves Foundation, will speak at the opening.

Nancy Graves’s personal aesthetic emerged in the later 1960s in the form of realistic life-size sculptures of camels. These works were rooted in her childhood memories of the animals preserved by taxidermists in the Natural History section of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and in the idioms of Abstract Expressionism taught at the Yale University School of Art where she was a student in the early 1960s. The interplay between the replication of nature and the formal values of abstract art was to inform her work throughout her life.

In 1972 Graves took a break from sculpture and turned to painting. Between 1977 and 1984, she created nineteen encaustic and mixed media paintings, seven of which are featured in this exhibition, the first to focus exclusively on Graves’s use of encaustic. In her unpublished ‘Notes on Paintings’ of 1978, the artist gives a technical description that mentions encaustic as but one of several methods used to help her achieve a “depth of field through layering”, where the process could be understood as the meaning of the work. This series of vibrant works is a testament to Graves’ abiding interests in natural phenomena, geology, archaeology and cartography. Their aerial perspective suggests mysterious, colorful maps of imagined territories, which strongly relates to a series of prints that the artist completed in the early 1980’s.

'Equivalent' by Nancy Graves. 1978, Oil and Encaustic on canvas, 64 x 100 inches

Nancy Graves was born in Pittsfield, MA in 1939. While studying English literature at Vassar College, she received a fellowship in painting to the Yale-Norfolk Summer School. From 1961 to 1964 she studied fine art at Yale University, New Haven, CT, and in 1964 received a Fulbright-Hayes grant in painting to study in Paris. In 1966 she moved to New York and established a studio. Her first solo exhibition was in 1968 at the Graham Gallery, and the following year she became the first woman artist to have a solo retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1985 she received the Yale Arts Award and in 1986 Vassar acknowledged her accomplishments with an exhibition and the Vassar College Distinguished Visitor Award. Solo exhibitions of her work appeared in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Buffalo, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Fort Worth, Texas; and Aachen, Germany. In 1991 Graves married Avery Leete Smith, a veterinarian in Kingston, NY. Graves died of cancer in New York on October 21, 1995. The Nancy Graves Foundation was established in 1996 through a provision of the artist’s Last Will and Testament to give grants to individual artists and to maintain an archive of her life and work and organize exhibitions of her art.

Please join us at The Gallery at R&F for the opening reception for this impressive exhibition on Saturday, October 9th, from 5-7 pm, when Linda Konheim Kramer, Executive Director of the Nancy Graves Foundation will present a brief talk about the artist and her work.

On Saturday, November 6th, artist Cynthia Winika will present a special one-day workshop in conjunction with the exhibition for artists who have an interest in Graves’ use of Encaustic with Mixed Media.

Interested in sampling colors or building your palette? Our new, smaller, 40ml  studio-size encaustic cakes offer a practical solution.  These heavily pigmented, ready-to-use paints are of the same quality that you know and love.  They are available in all of our 80 colors, along with our existing 104ml and 333ml sizes.

On Monday, June 7, 2010, at eleven a.m., R&F Handmade Paints in Kingston was host to New York State Congressman Maurice Hinchey, who held a press conference to talk about the HIRE ACT, which the congressman helped to pass and which was signed into law by President Obama on March 18, 2010. The Congressman spoke to members of the press and was filmed in the production area of this thriving local business that specializes in high-quality handmade paints for fine artists, with the staff of R&F, including newly hired employees, working in the background. The Congressman is trying very hard to ensure that small businesses are made aware of all these credits, and believes that highlighting a local business that may potentially benefit, such as R&F, will draw just the kind of attention to the credits that is needed.

Congressman Maurice Hinchey giving a press conference in R&F's production area

Congressman Hinchey used the opportunity to emphasize the HIRE ACTS’ credits for local businesses, such as R&F, that might be able to benefit from the variety of new federal tax credits that are available. This law provides a new payroll tax exemption to give employers an incentive to hire and retain new employees. The bill provides businesses with an exemption from Social Security payroll taxes for every worker hired in 2010 who has been unemployed for at least 60 days. The longer a business keeps a new qualified worker on its payroll, the greater the tax benefit. The law also provides an additional one thousand dollar income tax credit for every new employee retained for fifty-two weeks. Another credit soon to be available, and one of the reasons Congressman Hinchey supported and voted to pass the health care reform law, is the immediately available small business tax credit worth up to thirty-five percent of the cost of premiums for small businesses that provide health insurance to their employees. Over fifteen thousand small businesses in the congressional district he represents will be eligible to claim the tax credit beginning with their 2010 tax returns. The credit will expand to cover up to fifty percent of the cost of premiums starting in 2014.

Congressman Hinchey with Darin Seim of R&F Handmade Paints

R&F Handmade Paints, located in mid-town Kingston, has built its reputation by manufacturing high-quality professional artist paints, providing technical assistance and artist-focused support for over twenty-two years. In the age of ever-growing technology, R&F distinguishes itself by continuing to craft paint in small, carefully controlled batches where the eye and skill of the paintmaker are key. “The HIRE Act is a good step toward fighting the high levels of unemployment and also an encouraging sign that the government will begin reaching out and lending a hand to smaller business owners that often fly under the radar of big politics,” Darin Seim, Director of Operations at R&F said. “We are happy to see that the federal government is acknowledging the great impact small business has in our economy.”

R&F Update: Partnerships for a New Era

R&F Handmade Paints has introduced a new bagged Encaustic Medium in pellet form. This medium is 45% less expensive by weight due to an innovative manufacturing process. Made of the same 100% Pharmaceutical Grade beeswax and damar resin as our popular cakes, this product is used to create transparency and extend encaustic paints. R&F’s medium is still available in standard cakes as well as in pellet form.

Bagged medium is available in convenient (1) one, (5) five, and (10) ten pound bags. Click here for a list of Retail Outlets in your area.

This Sunday, April 11th a screening of Casting Faith, a one- hour documentary about sculptor and local Hudson Valley resident  Gillian Jagger, by Accord filmmakers Barbara Gordon and Richard Schlesinger will be shown at the Rosendale Theater.  The screening will be followed by a discussion with the artist, Gillian Jagger, art critic, Michael Brenson, and the filmmakers. This event is sponsored by the Women’s Studio Workshop.

More information about Gillian Jagger can be found on her website.  For the street address and additional information about the Rosendale Theater Collective please visit their facebook page.