Whether on campus or off, we are connected as members of the Arrowmont family. Over the next few weeks, we are going to share stories from our community of instructors, residents, and students in a new series, Arrowmont Connections.
Erin Keane is an encaustic artist and bookbinder in Asheville, North Carolina with an MA in art education from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She is an exhibiting member of Southern Highland Craft Guild and is represented by 310 ART Gallery in Asheville’s River Arts District. Keane teaches at Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch’s EncaustiCamp and OpenStudio, Penland School of Craft and John C. Campbell Folk School. She is published in the Encaustic Arts magazine.
New series: En Fleur: I, II, III
Erin is an Arrowmont instructor, most recently teaching an encaustic book-making workshop in 2018. She completed a new series of book sculptures, “En Fleur: Chapters I, II, III” and wrote an article for Asheville publication Rapid River Magazine.
She writes,
During the past few weeks, as the days grew longer and the landscape came into spring bloom, a new series of sculptures unfurled with a distinctly floral theme.
The sculptures began with encaustic monotypes, which are printed papers made with colorful encaustic paints. I use nature-based stencils to create unified prints that resemble decorative papers from around the world. The encaustic monotype process is very soothing and I can immerse myself in printmaking for hours on end.
To my utmost thrill, the finished sculptures fit perfectly together into book replicas of floral geometric tiles. Their beautiful life is in full bloom.
The title of these book sculptures is “En Fleur” which translates to mean “In Bloom.” In honor of their book form, their subtitles are “Chapter I,” “Chapter II,” and “Chapter III.” Will these chapters be “The End” or “To Be Continued…”? If I may say so, many more seeds have begun to germinate in my mind.
Download her full article here: Erin Keane – En Fleur series
Erin Keane’s Artist Support Pledge
