Student Spotlight: Michele Garfield
“I have always said that I just want to make art, but now I know that I want to make art that is fully authentic to myself. Art that is an expression of my heart and soul.”
In 2019, I met Michele in my figure drawing class at the Nassau County Museum of Art. After a career in graphic design, she had rekindled her love of making fine art and began surrounding herself with like-minded creatives. I could quickly see how her personality shone through in her preference for working large scale with charcoal. One day she brought her studio paintings into the classroom. Immediately drawing a crowd was the depiction of a lone cyclist in creamy color against lithely applied purples.
Her paintings typically use thick paint over washes, canvas, and underpainting peaking through. Michele’s compositions are dynamic and striking, capturing movement and memory with a raw energy that unmistakably belongs to her. Relying greatly on intuition, her technique has that prized quality that makes everything she touches look kinetic and fresh. So what brought her into the classroom? First of all, Michele loves being around other artists, seeing their work and creative spirit, and finds the experience of drawing a live model magical. But there is also always more to learn. She knew her work was good and frequently received compliments. But even the most ardent external validation can only do so much if we don’t feel like we are in total control of our process and results. Michele was looking for some sturdy discipline to offset her unrestrained instinct. Without that equilibrium, even for an artist with such a powerful voice, the persistent drum of self doubt can make it difficult to hear oneself.
With weekly lessons, we worked together to create a course plan to fill in the gaps. This period during the pandemic gave us a chance to study old and modern masters, to refine our conceptual understanding of form and structure, while pushing the drawing and middle stages of a painting. We devoted much time to designing compositions with greater depth by expanding value and manipulating texture and edge. Two of the most important things we worked on were limited hue studies and technical drawing exercises. These often-ignored building blocks are vital to the development of even semi-representational painters. Restricting hue and shape with "notan" and value studies helps strengthen design, while drawing fundamentals help bring nuance to shape.
Most recently, we explored color effects using potent modern pigments. Michele has diversified her palette to include more staples that create vibrancy in various opacities. Added to her spunky aesthetic, Michele's hard work, talent, and positive attitude help her focus on building a substantial portfolio.
This spontaneous creation, titled, "Chaos and Beauty", occurred out of play and experimentation with paint.
We have learned that it is beneficial for Michele to work on multiple projects simultaneously. They inform each other and help keep her eyes fresh. Michele plans drawings but also takes risks, allowing her paintings to suggest what she might do next. She has developed strategies to fight back against her inner-critic. She takes breaks and steps away from the work, marinating with ideas, honing a balance between the drudgery of technical refinement and active forward momentum. She says that "perfectionism is stifling and will prevent you from achieving joy and fulfillment in your work."
Despite calling herself impatient, Michele has proven that she can spend great lengths of time observing her subjects more closely. After so many months of disciplined practice, working at a smaller scale, focused on technique, Michele has persevered and finds greater balance when letting passionate feeling guide her brush again.
Michele is not only talented but has an eager spirit full of camaraderie and respect for fellow artists. She states her convictions with candid frankness and confronts tradition with an edgy femininity. She has a natural eye for design and can spot dynamic compositions in the most mundane contexts. She doesn’t treat her canvas like a podium, but uses it as a mirror and window at once — giving us a glimpse into what she sees and how she feels.
Michele’s excitement for painting loads her brush with the velocity it needs to swoosh and dart from palette to canvas in a slick frenzy of tasteful smears. Her extroverted paint leaps from the surface while her sense of design helps capture the essence of a gesture noiselessly. She prefers oil paint and likes the bounce of stretched canvas. She often begins with a loose drawing in charcoal, occasionally allowing parts to remain visible in the final layers. The emphatic presence of calligraphic line and palette-knife texture add a zesty layer to the velvety paint. It is always a joy to see so much feeling in her passages and unique painterly phrasing.
Michele absorbs everything around her and converses with artists and photographers, exchanging views about materials and techniques. She reveres strong female artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning for the fearlessness expressed in their work.
"I want people to look at my work and feel something stir inside them. I want them to feel like there is no separation between them and the painting; that they are part of the scene and can see beyond what is there."
Learn more about Michele and see her art at MicheleGarfield.com