There’s a glow at the center of Eileen Bochsler’s Forest Awakening, featured on the cover of the fall Arts Walk map. “I wanted to create something that gave the feeling of walking in the forest — kind of magical, kind of foggy, with light trickling through the leaves,” Bochsler said. “The sun is coming up, and things are starting to wake up.”
Awakening is an encaustic painting, made with layers upon layers of wax mixed with tree resin that give the painting its luminosity and texture. The less-often-seen medium, along with Bochsler’s skill and craftsmanship, led the jury to choose her for the cover art commission.
“Encaustic is … an art material not seen on the Arts Walk map since the very first cover art by Debra Van Tuinen in spring 2000,” said Arts Walk organizer Jessica Strauss Tomy. “The jury was impressed by the strength of Eileen’s portfolio, which demonstrated good use of color and strong composition with close-up details.”
Bochsler at work in her studio on the second floor of her Olympia home.
Awakening will be on view at Splash Gallery — a cooperative where Bochsler’s encaustics are always hanging — for the twice-yearly celebration of arts of all kinds, happening Oct. 4 and 5 throughout downtown Olympia. It’s a time when businesses become galleries, and pop-up performances and people-watching opportunities abound.
“I’ve always loved Arts Walk,” said Bochsler, who’s lived in Olympia for nearly two decades. “It’s an amazing community event. The whole community comes together, and businesses support artists. People who’ve never displayed their art in public before have the encouragement and support to do that.”
She has always loved art, too, but she put it aside when she left school. “Life took me in different directions,” she said. “I was taught, ‘Art is not that important. You need to get a real job.’ … I always found ways to be creative, but I felt like there was a piece of me that was missing.”
As retirement loomed and her children grew up, she rediscovered that missing piece. “Art woke up my soul,” she said. “I realized that was where I needed to go. We only have one life.”
She had another awakening six or seven years ago when she began working in encaustics. After admiring what other artists were doing in the medium, she took a class in basic techniques. “I fell in love with it,” she said. “It gives a beautiful luminosity to paintings because it has that beeswax base. And so many of the things I love using, watercolor or ink or even collage, I can incorporate those into the paintings. … And I do three-dimensional sculpture with it.
“The work I do is primarily abstracted landscapes or abstracts that are inspired by nature,” she said. “The movement that I can get with the wax and the texture that I can create with it really lend themselves well to the subject matter that I like to paint.”
She finds inspiration all around her. “I am really inspired by this beautiful area we live in whether it’s the forest or the ocean or the mountains,” she said. “I love the Northwest.”
Even when she’s in her studio — which is part traditional art studio, part laboratory, part kitchen with crockpots and a pancake griddle used for heating wax — she has a view into her backyard garden.
Many of Bochsler’s recent works include impressions of tree rings taken from trees she’s lost to drought or disease. She makes the prints with ink on rice paper and then incorporates them into encaustic paintings. Pieces from the series are on view as part of Elements, a solo show at Endless Sound Cellars, where she’ll answer questions and demonstrate her process Oct. 5.
“I’m very concerned about the environment,” she said in a video interview with the city (https://youtu.be/3gcGVE-G7QM?si=WXArKBEsBxKqgr7y). “What we find beautiful and important we want to take care of.”
WHAT
Olympia Arts Walk
WHEN
Oct. 4 and 5
WHERE
Downtown Olympia, with street closure at Fifth Avenue from Washington to Jefferson streets
LEARN MORE
http://artswalkoly.com
WHAT
Art by Eileen Bochsler
WHERE
Cover art and more at Splash Gallery, 501 Columbia St. NW, Suite C, Olympia
Elements, a solo show, at Endless Sound Cellars, 222 Capitol Way N,, Suite 107, Olympia
RECEPTION
6-8 p.m. Oct. 4 at Splash
Q&A AND DEMO
4-6 p.m. Oct. 5 at Endless Sound
LEARN MORE
https://www.eileenbochslerart.com