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'Fused with Fire' Exhibit
Features Sue Fazio's Paintings, Opens at Silver
Fox Gallery Friday October 2, 6 to 8 p.m.;
All Proceeds to Benefit Boys & Girls Club of
Henderson County
A show of new encaustic works by Sue Fazio, titled “Fused with Fire,”
opens with a reception for the artist on Friday, October 2 from 6 to 8 p.
m. at the Silver Fox Gallery & Interiors.
All proceeds from the show, which continues through October 31,
benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Henderson County.
The artist
Sue Fazio’s journey as a painter has carried her through “the dramas
of raising six children, earning a doctorate in education (from Florida
Atlantic University), a dozen moves, and marriage to THE golf course
architect Tom (34 years and counting).” Painting is how her passion
meets the world, Fazio says.
Fazio has been painting in oils, acrylics, watercolors and pastels since
she obtained her BFA in 1979. In January 2009, she began using
encaustic(*) after she attended a class in Jupiter, Florida.
Of that first experience with encaustic, she says, “My first smell of the
medium turned on all of my senses. I have ‘waxed’ every day since.
The medium fascinates me because it mirrors my personality. I love
bright colors and soft edges. I love the spontaneity of the medium.”
Compelled to respond to her environment by creating, Fazio paints the
feelings that the environment evokes in her rather than a literal picture
of the place. “I proceed,” she says, “and then watch what happens
when heat hits the melted wax.
“Sometimes it is like a third creator – first the Divine Presence, then
me, then the heat bringing it all together. Always, I can feel the energy
of the piece begin to create itself. I feel such joy to participate in the
process.”
Giving back
Fazio donates all of the proceeds from sale of her artworks to the Boys
and Girls Club of Henderson County, where she and husband Tom
have devoted thousands of hours to build and support one of the
leading clubs in the United States.
“At the club, we help meet the basic needs of children who are growing
up in an environment that focuses on survival. Once their basic needs
are met, then we can be with them at the level of creative expression,
and we can show them the way to reach their potential,” she says.
“They must rise above mere survival if they are to contribute to the
wonder of the world or to themselves.”
Fazio expresses gratitude for her own childhood, growing up on a
farm. “We did not have financial concerns that affected us children,
although we most certainly did not come from a wealthy environment.
“We all worked as soon as we were able. We all bought our own
clothes. We had no camps or extracurricular opportunities available to
us, but we did have freedom and nature. We climbed trees, picked
apples, baled hay, swam in creeks, rode horses, grew gardens.
“We were responsible and hard working, and we never felt this
entitlement disease that is so pervasive in many children's lives today,
primarily because their parent is stuck in survival mode.”
So why does Fazio work so diligently for the Boys and Girls Club?
“Because I want all the children in the world to have what I had,” she
says, “and what my own children had -- the health and family love to
reach their full potentials.
“And because my responsibility as a human being is to give back.”
*Encaustic
Encaustic is a centuries-old medium used by artists as early as the
first century A.D. A portrait of a woman, Isidora, painted in 100 A.D.,
hangs in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Several encaustic portraits from 80
AD are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
More recently, Jasper Johns began the contemporary encaustic
practice using beeswax, damar crystal, linseed oil and dried pigments.
In the nineties, use of encaustic among artists increased
exponentially, as documented by two important exhibitions:
“Contemporary Uses of Wax and Encaustic” at the Palo Alto Cultural
Center in 1992, and “Waxing Poetic: Encaustic Art in America” at the
Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey in 1999.
Encaustic does not melt until the temperature reaches 200 degrees
Fahrenheit. Like most art, encaustic can be damaged by sharp
instruments. Surface scratches, however, can easily be repaired by
applying heat.
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