by Joe Barr
Kathleen Laybourn, a lovely and gracious Lady, is a Kenosha native and resident and a painter of note. Kathleen recently won awards at KAA’s first Advent Art Show.
Joe: What did it feel like, winning both the first place, and people’s choice awards at the Advent art show?
Kathleen: Unbelievable! It was unbelievably wonderful. I didn’t expect it. That’s for sure. I knew the piece was good, but there are a lot of good artists around. To be singled out like that is always a wonderful thing.
A graceful Lady, Kathleen punctuated her delight with comfortable laughs and an easy smile.
I first met Kathleen at the KAA’s Advent Art Show, hosted by Brigitta Richter. Gitta had suggested Kathleen as an interview, commending her as an artist, a teacher, and a good person. With Gitta as a reference, I knew I would be talking with a talented Lady.
Joe: This is not your first award.
Kathleen: No. It’s not my first, but it’s the first in awhile. I’ve painted on and off for the last 8 years. I had not been painting as much as I had previously. In those 8 years I’ve won some awards here and there, but I think with artists, we strive so much for truth and beauty or whatever concerns us, that when it’s recognized, it’s always a wonderful thing.
I don’t think an artist ever really gets use to being singled out. Although we love it!
I don’t think an artist ever really gets use to being singled out. Although we love it!
Joe: And it’s never enough.
Kathleen: On a level, Right. Yes! Yes! Of course, it’s part of who we are. We always want more. Right?
We shared her easy laugh, and Guinness joined us with another attempt to keep my elbow in constant motion.
“Guinness” you say? I have failed to introduce Guinness. He is the unofficial greeter at the Laybourn household. He is large, black, and four legged, and performs his greeting duties with energy and enthusiasm.
You might think of him as a black Labrador Retriever, but I’ll always remember him as The Greeter.
He also helped me notice one of Kathleen’s strengths. She can really, really focus. I was pointing a big camera at her from across the table and snapping away while Guinness was doing his best to move me off my chair. Kathleen ignored us and continued to deliver a lecture quality discourse on painting techniques. And she kept it simple enough that even I almost understand!
Joe: When did you start painting?
Kathleen: I started painting seriously when I was 24. I was living in North Hollywood, with my first husband. I had gotten a job in an art supply store, and one of my co-workers studied with an Asian man, a man from Thailand named Ra Arymatr. He taught all the classical techniques, and that’s what I wanted to learn. I wanted to go back in history and learn the techniques of Rembrandt and move forward from there. That’s what I did. I studied with him for three and a half years. He is the one I credit with teaching me that foundation, that good foundation for painting.
After that, I went back to school. My marriage broke up, and I went back to college to get my degrees, and pursued my art from that time forward.
After that, I went back to school. My marriage broke up, and I went back to college to get my degrees, and pursued my art from that time forward.
Joe: Were all your degrees art related?
Kathleen: Yes. I have BA, an MA, and an MFA in drawing and painting.
Joe: Why painting?
Kathleen: I love working with my hands. I was one of those children that liked to sit and watch light move. I was one of the weird kids that could just sit for a long time and observe. I was a real shy child, and I spent a lot of time alone drawing on my own.
I think it was because I was the last child of older parents. There was five years between my brother and I. I had a lot of time on my own. Drawing was natural for me, working with my hands and my eyes. Drawing everything. I used to get yelled at because I would draw on the furniture in my bedroom.
Until I got sneaky enough that I would pull out the dresser drawers and draw on the back of those. My Mom couldn’t see it, but eventually she found those too.
I think it has to do with the eye and the hand, and capturing that sense of light that only painting can do, to create a three dimensional illusion on a two dimensional space. When I first started studying, that really captivated me, that whole idea of the illusion of space.
I was never drawn to three dimensions, although I love sculpture. I see a good piece of sculpture, and it’s like WOW. It amazes me that they can work in the three dimensions. For me, I just love that two dimensional surface.
I think it was because I was the last child of older parents. There was five years between my brother and I. I had a lot of time on my own. Drawing was natural for me, working with my hands and my eyes. Drawing everything. I used to get yelled at because I would draw on the furniture in my bedroom.
Until I got sneaky enough that I would pull out the dresser drawers and draw on the back of those. My Mom couldn’t see it, but eventually she found those too.
I think it has to do with the eye and the hand, and capturing that sense of light that only painting can do, to create a three dimensional illusion on a two dimensional space. When I first started studying, that really captivated me, that whole idea of the illusion of space.
I was never drawn to three dimensions, although I love sculpture. I see a good piece of sculpture, and it’s like WOW. It amazes me that they can work in the three dimensions. For me, I just love that two dimensional surface.
Joe: Now. Keep in mind I’m ignorant of your art. Pretend you’re talking to a 3rd grader. What’s your medium?
Kathleen: (With a kind laugh and a smile) Okay.
Primarily oil. I’ve always been an oil painter. From the very beginning, it was my first love. Although I know a lot of people find it problematic, because you’ve got the solvent and you have to learn to use it. You can get brown and mud real fast. You have to be to willing to take the time to create the layers and let things dry. It takes time to keep your colors vibrant and fresh.
When I first started painting, it was classical. I was in love with Rembrandt and the light the Dutch masters dealt with. It was this wonderful, atmospheric, striking sort of light. They didn’t have incandescent bulbs to work with. They worked by candlelight or natural light. I was drawn to the theatricality of the light they created in their work. I liked the drama of it. My early work was very much fashioned by that. I was traditional in that I did still life and landscapes and portraits.
As I developed myself as an artist, I was moving through time and was drawn to the impressionists and color, wanting to create a riot of color for the senses. That’s what color does you know. It activates us internally.
That’s why the impressionists were so incredible. You stand in front of their pieces, and not only are they conveying atmosphere and mood and subject, they are also doing it with color theory that they developed. It was very contrary to what was being done at the time.
I started producing work like that. I was living, at that time, in far Northern California. I had a studio right across the street from a marsh, and I would go walking through that marsh almost every day. I would just look at the wild life, the ducks, the birds, the bushes, all the foliage, and that really informed my painting at that time.
I think that’s what artists do. They draw on their natural surroundings. I was all caught up in light and nature. I was doing work similar to the impressionists, although it had a more abstract root to it because I was moving through wanting to create subjects by doing recognizable images. I wanted to loosen up, become more abstract.
Primarily oil. I’ve always been an oil painter. From the very beginning, it was my first love. Although I know a lot of people find it problematic, because you’ve got the solvent and you have to learn to use it. You can get brown and mud real fast. You have to be to willing to take the time to create the layers and let things dry. It takes time to keep your colors vibrant and fresh.
When I first started painting, it was classical. I was in love with Rembrandt and the light the Dutch masters dealt with. It was this wonderful, atmospheric, striking sort of light. They didn’t have incandescent bulbs to work with. They worked by candlelight or natural light. I was drawn to the theatricality of the light they created in their work. I liked the drama of it. My early work was very much fashioned by that. I was traditional in that I did still life and landscapes and portraits.
As I developed myself as an artist, I was moving through time and was drawn to the impressionists and color, wanting to create a riot of color for the senses. That’s what color does you know. It activates us internally.
That’s why the impressionists were so incredible. You stand in front of their pieces, and not only are they conveying atmosphere and mood and subject, they are also doing it with color theory that they developed. It was very contrary to what was being done at the time.
I started producing work like that. I was living, at that time, in far Northern California. I had a studio right across the street from a marsh, and I would go walking through that marsh almost every day. I would just look at the wild life, the ducks, the birds, the bushes, all the foliage, and that really informed my painting at that time.
I think that’s what artists do. They draw on their natural surroundings. I was all caught up in light and nature. I was doing work similar to the impressionists, although it had a more abstract root to it because I was moving through wanting to create subjects by doing recognizable images. I wanted to loosen up, become more abstract.
Joe: Back up a second, please. What does oil give you that the other mediums do not?
Kathleen: Time to think. Oil dries so slowly, if you don’t like it, you can just scrape it of with a palette knife. I like that. I’ve tried acrylic painting. In fact I’ve under painted in acrylic. That helps build color and layers quickly, so you can get to the good part, which is the oil part. I like that sitting, and thinking, and looking. In fact I think the looking and the thinking is just as important as putting the brush in your hand.
I teach painting to students at Lemon Street Gallery, and I tell them, ‘Look.
Take some time to observe’. All paint allows for that, but acrylic happens so fast, for me, I don’t have the time to process what I’m doing. The oil lets me do that.
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with encaustic painting. I have two encaustics at Pollard right now. I’ve been enjoying that. I can think about laying down the wax and the oil. Then when you heat it, it’s a whole other ballgame because you can’t control it. I’m learning to direct the heat gun. Once it melts, it starts flowing.
I teach painting to students at Lemon Street Gallery, and I tell them, ‘Look.
Take some time to observe’. All paint allows for that, but acrylic happens so fast, for me, I don’t have the time to process what I’m doing. The oil lets me do that.
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with encaustic painting. I have two encaustics at Pollard right now. I’ve been enjoying that. I can think about laying down the wax and the oil. Then when you heat it, it’s a whole other ballgame because you can’t control it. I’m learning to direct the heat gun. Once it melts, it starts flowing.
Joe: What are you heating, and when?
Kathleen: In encaustic painting you have a wax body. I took a class from Virginia Morrisseau. She is a master. You mix your oil paint in with wax, and it makes it full bodied. Take a pallet knife and apply it and then you melt it with a heating gun. I heat it and let it flow and then decide what I want to put over it. And I experiment. I’ve gone into it with a pallet knife after I’ve applied the heat. I’ll heat the pallet knife too.
Joe: Why a pallet knife?
Kathleen: I’m wanting a desired thickness to the surface. It’s almost like frosting a cake. You can really glom that stuff on. There’s a beauty to a thick painted surface. That’s what the modernists gave us, modernist painters like Jackson Pollack. American sensibilities started loving thick paint. There’s a beauty in contrasting thinner areas with thicker areas.
Thick can be quite wonderful. It’s texture.
It’s a different way of working. There was a time, for three years, when I painted with nothing but palette knives. I didn’t throw my brushes away, but intellectually I did. I just put them aside. This is kind of coming back to that, but with the addition of a new medium added to the paint.
Thick can be quite wonderful. It’s texture.
It’s a different way of working. There was a time, for three years, when I painted with nothing but palette knives. I didn’t throw my brushes away, but intellectually I did. I just put them aside. This is kind of coming back to that, but with the addition of a new medium added to the paint.
Joe: Define what you do now.
Kathleen: What I’m doing now, I think, is a wonderful combination of readapting that Dutch under layer and glazing technique that you see in “Resurrection” in the Spotlight Gallery. There are sections of that painting that are very Dutch, the darker portions especially.
Also present in that painting is a thicker, brighter movement of broad colors to illustrated or capture the reaction of two forces coming together. I treated that in a more modern way. I’m also using some symbols. As you can see in that piece, in the branch, one part of it is deadened and devoid of any life and one part of it is showing new life, a new beginning.
That’s pretty much where I’m at right now. I feel like my art is moving in a new direction. After some period of not knowing, and problem solving, and, at some point, indecision, I feel like it’s finally all gelling together. I’m taking the old, combining it with the new, and making it relevant for contemporary painting today.
Also present in that painting is a thicker, brighter movement of broad colors to illustrated or capture the reaction of two forces coming together. I treated that in a more modern way. I’m also using some symbols. As you can see in that piece, in the branch, one part of it is deadened and devoid of any life and one part of it is showing new life, a new beginning.
That’s pretty much where I’m at right now. I feel like my art is moving in a new direction. After some period of not knowing, and problem solving, and, at some point, indecision, I feel like it’s finally all gelling together. I’m taking the old, combining it with the new, and making it relevant for contemporary painting today.
Joe: When you look at a blank canvas, what’s in your mind?
Kathleen: Oh my God! What am I going to do?
Some artists might not want to admit to it, but I think a blank canvas, at that moment, before you act on it, can be a very intimidating thing. It almost beckons to you, challenges you to do something to it.
I’ll just stand there, and begin to think. It’s as if by relaxing and thinking, I can somehow start projecting what to do in that first moment.
Some artists might not want to admit to it, but I think a blank canvas, at that moment, before you act on it, can be a very intimidating thing. It almost beckons to you, challenges you to do something to it.
I’ll just stand there, and begin to think. It’s as if by relaxing and thinking, I can somehow start projecting what to do in that first moment.
Joe: Are you projecting a visual image or an emotion?
Kathleen: I think it’s both. With the way I work, I don’t think it’s separate. The first brush strokes I put on it are emotionally charged, at least in my case. When I move toward putting my imprint on it, to change it from being blank to being mine, there’s energy and emotion. And what I begin with is not necessarily what the piece will end up being. I’ll sit and look at for a time. It can change.
Joe: What do you hope the viewer will take away?
Kathleen: (After a thoughtful look and a pause…)
I think any artist, including myself, desires to effect the viewer in some way. I think that’s our purpose. We want them to have an experience when they are standing in front of our piece. We want them to connect with it. Personally, I hope when they walk away they are not the same. I hope there is some degree of change, then or later.
I think any artist, including myself, desires to effect the viewer in some way. I think that’s our purpose. We want them to have an experience when they are standing in front of our piece. We want them to connect with it. Personally, I hope when they walk away they are not the same. I hope there is some degree of change, then or later.
Joe: What’s your reaction when a piece is done?
Kathleen: It’s a mixed kind of reaction. It’s a satisfying feeling, especially if I feel the piece resolved in a really wonderful way. I look at and it’s like, ‘That’s great’. ‘Yea, I like that’. I think I’m my toughest critic. I think any artist is.
If we can satisfy ourselves, then it’s okay. There’s that feeling of joy. Then, there’s that stepping away from it. The experience you’ve had with it is over. It’s, ‘Oh, we’re done now’. It’s a relationship that’s been created over time. You kind of say ‘Good Bye’ to it. It’s bitter sweet almost.
And then you move on.
If we can satisfy ourselves, then it’s okay. There’s that feeling of joy. Then, there’s that stepping away from it. The experience you’ve had with it is over. It’s, ‘Oh, we’re done now’. It’s a relationship that’s been created over time. You kind of say ‘Good Bye’ to it. It’s bitter sweet almost.
And then you move on.
Joe: And we should move on Kathy. Thank you for your time and courtesy, and in particular, thank you for having the patience to
teach me a little of your art. It is appreciated.
Kathleen Laybourn you have been “exposed”
Joe Barr is not only a photographer, he is also a member of the Kenosha Writers’ Group.
3 comments ↓
Kathy is one of my favorite artists, teachers, and people. She is as wonderful as her art, and I’m really proud that she is a part of Lemon Street Gallery.
Kathleen is a shining jewel in the Kenosha art scene. Her consistant style is recognizable, always allowing the viewers to interpret her paintings in their own way. Sometimes I think she’s secretive about those inner emotions that produce the images she paints, but I think she is wise to keep those precious feelings private. I can look at one of Kathleen’s paintings and feel a personal connection, likely very different than what she intended. Thank you, Kathy, for letting me do that.
This interview had me in awe…Kathleen is a true artist and I amazed. I especially like when she says the oils give her time to think…I imagine any piece of art requires the luxury of time ~ After reading this interview, I have the desire to view more of Kathleen’s Art…I especially would like to see again-her uses of symbols in “Resurrection.”
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