Arts IN Focus on PBS Fort Wayne is funded in part by the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne.

Coming up, we'll talk with acrylic painter Erica Peebus and cyanotype artist Erin Pattton McFarren.

It's all next on Arts IN Focus.

Welcome to Arts IN Focus.

I'm Emilie Henry.

Erica Peebus recently moved to Fort Wayne from Portland, Oregon, where she received her BFA with an emphasis in painting from the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Erica's acrylic paintings can be described as both dark and whimsical.

Her works often represent plants, animals, bones and the human figure.

Exposing her fascination with life and death as well as her love for the natural and supernatural world.

We recently sat down with Erica at her home studio to learn all about her life as a full time artist and what brought her all the way across the country from Portland, Oregon, to Fort Wayne.

Erica, thank you so much for inviting me to your studio.

I want to know what made you move to Fort Wayne from Portland, Oregon?

Well, we were really looking for affordable housing.

And Portland, Oregon, is obscene housing prices wise.

And then after the pandemic, things were just getting a little bit crazy there.

So we're looking for something a little slower pace, a little more chill.

And Fort Wayne.

We did a lot of research and Fort Wayne really fit the bill.

Yeah.

And how has the art community embraced you or have you even dived in?

Yeah, well, before we even moved here, we had come and visit and we made a few friends.

Someone who works over at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

And so we already had friends before we moved here and then moving here.

It's a really great art scene with a lot of people and it's been very welcoming.

What about little Erica?

Was she an artist?

Oh, yeah.

I've been an artist my whole life.

I always say I think at one point someone gave me attention for making art, and then I just kept doing it from there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Were you always a painter?

You know, when I was a kid, I worked with markers a lot and did a lot of that.

And then, yeah, eventually, I think in high school I found acrylic painting and I went to art school.

I dabbled a little in oil, and I just found, you know, the materials are so much more expensive, so much more caustic and sort of hard to work with.

They dry so much slower.

I was going to say, if nothing else, they're not efficient.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what about the decision to go to art school?

Did you always sort of know that you were going to study it further or was that a game day decision?

I always wanted to do it seriously, but I didn't go to art school until I was about 27.

So pretty late in life.

And yeah, I just finally decided, You know what?

Let's do it.

Let's go to art school, see what that's like.

It was a good experience.

I learned a lot that I don't think I would have learned just studying on my own.

And had you been creating that whole time and then said, okay, now I'm going to really dive in?

Or were you kind of exploring other avenues?

Yeah, I was dabbling more before, Yeah.

And then after art school, I got a lot more serious.

Tell me about how you start a painting.

Do you have an idea of what it's going to be, or do you just start and let it inform you?

How does that work?

Yeah, I have a process where I just sketch in my sketchbook, come up with ideas very loosely, and then eventually I'll work to a tighter drawing on paper, and then I transfer it to canvas from the paper.

So I never really just start a painting right on the canvas.

I usually have like a very regimented process of getting there.

And when you go through your sketchbook, what what is the most predominant theme?

What do you see more than anything?

I work a lot with plants.

I really love plants.

I study herbalism.

And so a lot of times my work tends to be sort of like remembering things that I'm learning or being inspired by things that I'm learning, and then somehow that inspires a drawing or a painting.

Does it ever get frustrating when you have the inspiration in your head and it doesn't come out like you see it in your head on the paper?

Or does it always?

You know, it doesn't always.

And you know, there is some frustration, but really it's like that's kind of part of the fun.

It's like a puzzle, you know, you're you're playing a puzzle and eventually the pieces come together and that's really exciting.

Yeah.

Okay.

I read that a theme that comes up in your work or that you are inspired often by dreams, and that a theme that comes up is death.

So tell me about that.

Yeah, I'm just really intrigued by death.

I, I don't know.

I always have been.

My father died pretty young, and I it just really it's very interesting to me.

It's a huge mystery.

And so, yeah, I think it's just like a looming, you know?

Yeah.

So tell me how you hope to or try to represent death in your work.

Is it as is it are you fearful?

Is it scary or.

I like to have sort of a hopeful Yeah.

Theme around death.

So a lot of times I'll have like skeletons or skulls and Ill have plants growing out of them.

There will be sort of a upbeat, whimsical ness while there's also sort of a dark nature as well.

Yeah, I see.

I saw a lot of life with the the death theme.

Yeah.

Tell me about your process of actually painting.

So you you do the sketch, you transfer it to canvas, and then how do you go about choosing your colors and all of that?

Is that an organic process or do you have that all planned out as well?

Yeah, over time I've really learned to narrow my color palette down, so I just work from eight colors.

Wow.

Yeah, I'm very specific about the colors I use, and that helps me to have a body of work that's very cohesive.

So I like to just use these eight tubes of paint mix from there.

And then, yeah, I, I generally, if you look at my body of work, there's a lot of the same colors over and over again.

When you create your work.

How much of you is in it When you finish a piece, do you go, Oh wow, I didn't even know that was in me and there it is on the canvas.

Or do you try to separate the two?

I feel like my work has really started to have a me feel about it.

Like, I think that when you look at my work, if you know me and my work, you will recognize me in it.

Yeah.

And is that a good thing or are you are you reticent to put that much of yourself into your work?

I think it's a good thing.

I think it's been a challenge throughout my artistic career to try and hone in on my own artistic style.

You know, when you first start, you're kind of everywhere.

You're trying a little bit of everything, and then eventually something starts to click and then you have a formula.

And so I'm at that point in my career where I feel like I have a formula.

My work really speaks of who I am, and it has a nice cohesion to it Now that you feel like you're at that point.

How would you describe your style?

I always say it's a little dark and a little whimsical.

There's something playful about it.

It's not too serious, but it also has a very serious edge as well.

What is the hardest part of creating for you?

Is it finding inspiration?

Is it the actual execution?

Yeah, you know, I think art is challenging and difficult, but I wouldn't necessarily call it hard because it's so rewarding when you get past that feeling.

But yeah, I think the most difficult part would be like having an idea in your mind and, and making it that on canvas.

Yeah.

So how often do you do that?

Do you paint every day or are you sketching every day?

What is it?

What is a day in the life look like?

Yeah, I paint every day I wake up, I pour myself a cup of coffee and I come up here and I just get started.

And that's my favorite way to start my day.

Yeah.

What is the best part of.

Of being an artist, Of not just identifying as an artist, but waking up every day and doing the work?

Well, I think that I'm really happy to have a thing.

I have a lot of friends who who are like, I wish I had a thing.

I don't know what I like or what I want out of life, you know, to have something that you can really devote yourself to is really rewarding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's next?

Do you feel like there there's a high watermark that you are searching for, or do you feel very content in in your current state?

Yeah.

You know, I try to ride the wave, you know, because, you know, I think life is just a series of like setting a goal, reaching it, setting a goal, reaching it.

Once you reach the goal, you're never really has content as you thought you were going to be when you reach that goal.

So it's really just like setting the next goal, hitting it, setting the next goal, hitting it, but enjoying the time in between, not getting lost.

And the idea that once I hit this thing, this mile marker, that I'm going to be there.

So much of your work is indicative of of you and your person, but how much of your art have you learned from?

Do you do you learn from your own work?

I do.

I do, because a lot of my art is educational.

I do a lot of educating through my work.

And that comes from studying herbalism, studying astrology, and being inspired by the things I study.

And so when I paint, I always find that's the best way to remember a plant.

Is like to paint the plant.

I will never forget a plant after I paint it.

I can always recognize it.

I can always remember like it's constituents and its properties.

Wow.

Do you ever finish a piece and go, Oh, wow, that is.

That is not what I expected it to be.

But it's absolutely perfect and I love it.

Sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you know when you're finished?

So many artists tell me that they don't know when to stop.

I totally know when I'm finished.

And I also.

I think I overly work my work.

A lot of people are a lot more, you know, loose and free flow.

I'm very tight with my work.

I like it very super smooth.

So I really overwork my work.

But I know exactly when it's finished.

What is the point of painting for you?

Is it to sell it?

Is it to.

Is it just catharsis?

What is it?

Gosh, that's a good question.

I think it's really about the process.

It feels so good just to be in that state of flow and to be creating.

Do you get in that state of flow often?

If you paint every day, I can't imagine it happens every day.

I think there are times when it feels more like work and times where it feels more enjoyable for sure.

Well, I hope that you enjoy it as much as possible because your work is beautiful and it's so it's just interesting.

I look at all of your stuff and I go, I just want to know what's going on up there.

So thank you for coming to Fort Wayne and bringing your work and thanks for sitting down with me.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

For more information, visit Erica Peebus Art dot com.

I'm joined now by artist Erin Patton McFarren.

Erin, I'm so excited to dive into this because you are an expert in I don't know that you would say that, but I am saying you are an expert in cyanotype which I didn't even know how to say because I didn't know what it was.

Is this a thing that everybody knows about and I just somehow missed the boat?

You know, it's something that everybody's familiar with in one form or another because the same technology was used for blueprints.

This was the earliest form of photography.

So the first photographic book was made with cyanotype by Anna Atkins.

So it's been around since the 1840s and I still use the same recipe from that time period.

But it fell out of fashion and then became used in an industrial way with blue print.

And I think that's what I love so much about it because it's so unpretentious and so accessible.

Okay, When did Cyanotype come into your life?

I would say probably about 15 years ago.

So I am an art teacher and when I was teaching Steven Perfect, who is an amazing local photographer, came into my classroom and we did photograms.

We made a dark room in a back storage room and did photograms with kids, with photographic paper and chemistry.

And then as I wanted to explore more, I found nature print paper, which is cyanotype paper.

It has the chemistry already on it and all you need is sunlight and water.

And so it became a really easy, affordable tool to explore photography with my students.

Yeah, so I did that with middle school students.

And then when I started teaching kindergarten art, we would go outside and make cyanotypes.

And so I do workshops around the community with it.

It's just it's that's how it started.

And for me, then I, I took it from the classroom and I started mixing my own chemistry and I had more of a 3D background.

So I was a sculptor and I started building fabric installation art with it.

So I would paint the chemistry on fabric and make images from collages and print giant transparency films to stick over and like leave it out all day in the winter.

And so that's how it it started for me as my own studio practice.

Okay, so you have the paper you initially started with paper that had the the chemistry, the chemicals.

Yeah, there are two chemicals that are on it.

I'm going to butcher it, its citric ferric acid.

And so and that's actually used in table salt to keep it from clumping.

Oh, and, and another chemical.

A chemical.

So when they're mixed it's an iron salt.

So it actually kind of comes off as like a fertilizer.

And so it's these two pieces of chemistry that you mix together with water and equal parts and then make your solution.

And then I paint that on in my light proof basement studio.

So that's how the chemistry is made.

And then it's exposed to light to create an image.

UV light, not just any light has to be UV light.

So I do have a party lamp, like a UV lamp that I have used, but I prefer to use the natural sunlight.

Yeah, Yeah.

Okay.

You also I mean, you create so much of your work now in the lakes and rivers around the area.

So you, you paint the chemicals on the paper and that but you also put them in like in the lake or in the river.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, somewhat.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, you're totally right.

So when you do a traditional cyanotype.

Yeah, you put maybe a flower or a fern on it.

That's what Anna Atkins did.

And it creates that shadow image.

Okay.

So where the light doesn't expose because of that shadow is what creates the light part of the image.

And so in my work, the water is the object.

And so it's, hence the movement.

Yeah.

So as the water washes onto the paper, it stops the process of the sunlight and thats what creates an image.

And then there's fun things like if there's algae or seed pods or sand, then that brings different textures, different makeups of the water create different shades of blue.

So yeah, it's just.

This might turn me into an outdoorsy person.

Yeah.

See?

Yeah.

So I found that lakes because I learned from someone much smarter than me that lakes are more acidic.

And so when I create work in lakes, it produces more gray tones in the blues.

And when I've been out in freezing temperatures, I get purples.

I've noticed the Saint Joseph River creates different blues than the Saint Mary's, like the Saint Mary's.

I get more rust that pops up with the iron.

So whatever is in the water, if it's fresh water right after a storm, its different, it's always changing.

Yeah.

Now what about salt water?

Yeah, that's different too.

But it doesn't affect the chemicals or anything.

No, but I can get these beautiful rust spots on it because of the salt.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay, so when you go in to make a piece, you must not have any idea how it's going to turn out.

Or do you have some control?

That's part of that.

Yeah, a little bit of both.

And that's part of a, a huge part of my practice is meditation and also letting go of that control.

Because as artists we want to control everything that we're creating and nature definitely has its own ideas.

And so I do have a goal and how I want to design.

It's not a passive process where I just kind of stick it up to the water and see what happens.

But the wind, the currents, the sunlight does affect it.

But I also talk about it as being like performance art and maybe that's a bit of my dancer background where I am moving in the water with the paper and manipulating the shapes of the paper to design on the paper.

So there is an element of design that goes along with it.

So I'll go to the water and think, okay, this is kind of what I want to go for.

These are the shapes I want to create.

And then when I get there, though, all bets are off, of course, all bets are off.

And what's great is the oxygen in the air is what produces the blue and the chemistry.

And it takes 24 hours to oxidize.

So I will go and produce the work and then I have to let it go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

What is the hardest part?

Is it letting go of the control?

Is it, what challenges do you come up against when you are creating your art?

Lots of them and I love I have a little bit of an engineering background, so I love the problem solving aspect of it.

So traveling with it, how am I going to get it there?

So I have a telescopic tube that's light safe that I can roll my giant pieces of paper in.

How do I travel with it?

So I figured out how to get it in a carry on bag or ship it ahead, and then I'll get there, make the work and ship it back.

So the logistics are really fun and to figure out how am I going to find water and how am I going to find an access point?

Yeah, because even though the water is there, doesn't mean you can get to it, right?

So there's a lot of aerial like Google Map research to see where I can get to the water, especially if I'm traveling to go someplace and then once you create a piece, do you have to let it dry?

I mean, I imagine you let it dry flat.

How do you get it back to wherever you were?

That is not at this rivers edge.

Right.

Right.

Well, the summer is my friend, I'm sure, because I'm a teacher, I produce heavily in the summer.

Yeah.

And so the heat helps it dry quickly, because if it is wet and stacks on another image, it will make a mark.

Sure.

Okay.

What has your art taught you about yourself?

You mentioned that it's meditative, so I imagine that there have been some revelations in there.

Sure.

A large part of my work is healing and through grief, healing and having some traumatic loss in my background.

And and then it was really in the pandemic.

I have teenage children.

And to see them lose everything that meant so much to them was it was really a difficult time.

And that's when my work really shifted and I started going to the water and I would go as much as I could.

I would plan my day around it so that after school I'd have everything packed in the car and I would go and, you know, at that point I was it was pandemic teaching on a cart.

Like it was scary and hard and so it's it's really been a healing process.

And then so it helped me deal with the grieving that my children were going through, that we were all going through during the pandemic, and then healing parts of myself, too.

Now that we are hopefully on the other side of of that trauma at least, are you finding that that you're that it's cathartic in a different way?

Is it are you processing different things?

Is there any joy in that in that you can process through your work?

Yes, absolutely.

And I went to therapy so that, oh, it helps.

It does so and so it's really turned into a celebration.

And I talk a lot about it marking time and place.

And so I'm going to this place.

It is this day and this time and really being present in the now.

So it has turned from this healing and water is a very healing tool that's been used in a lot of traditions across the world.

Yeah.

Throughout time.

And and then it's turned into a celebration for me.

And when you look at your work, you mentioned the differences.

You can see the literal differences, but can you tell the differences in maybe your frame of mind or that that day?

It's almost like a photograph off in some ways.

Is that how it feels to you?

Oh, it's a journal.

It completely is.

And then I like to record what I'm doing.

So I document it.

So I document in the field the process.

I enjoy documenting all of that and I share a lot of that on Instagram.

And then that's also kind of a visual journal of the time and place.

Oh my gosh.

Okay.

When I when they booked this interview, I'm looking at I'm like, cyanotype, I'm looking it up.

I'm thinking, Well, it looks really cool, but I don't know, maybe not my jam.

I am in, I'm fully in.

I want to be outdoorsy.

I want to create these beautiful pieces.

Yes, girl.

Yes.

I mean, they're so they're just gorgeous.

And not that I think I could rise to the level that that you are, but a what a what a beautiful way to create.

Thank you.

So, thank you for for teaching young people.

Oh, my gosh.

Hats off to you for that.

But also for bringing beauty in the world and taking not so easy things and turning them into art.

Thank you.

And thank you mostly for sitting down with me today.

Oh this was great.

Thank you so much.

For more information, visit Erin Patton McFarren dot com.

Our thanks to Erica Peebus and Erin Patton McFarren.

Be sure to join us next week for Arts IN Focus.

You can catch this and other episodes at PBS Fort Wayne dot org or through our app and be sure to check out our YouTube channel.

Thank you for watching.

And in the meantime, enjoy something beautiful Arts IN Focus on PBS Fort Wayne is funded in part by the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne.