Jill Hoy Is a Contemporary Impressionist Painter in Maine

Today I have with me in the studio artist Jill Hoy. Thank you for coming in today. My pleasure, Lisa. Jill, you and I have actually known each other quite some time now, maybe, maybe about 10 ish years, perhaps. Yeah. Sort of different iterations of each of our lives, I think. Yeah. So I'm wondering, as we're kind of in this new phase of your life, what are some of the things that have been, you've been thinking about with regard to your art? My, this new phase of my, well, my late husband died in 2014, and so, and then with Covid, I've really been able to totally concentrate on being a painter without immediate responsibilities of being a parent and a spouse. And, um, that's been a deep pleasure at this point in my life, um, to just work, which is one of my favorite things to do, and, um, delve deeply into all the knowledge I've accumulated over a lifetime of painting. Um, and just see where, which I've integrated at this point into my painting. And so it's all there, but coming out in a very fluid integrated manner and, um, without a lot of intellectualizing of knowledge I have as bedrock. Um, yeah. So it's, and see where it takes me. Part of that integration, I started doing watercolors. Somebody called, uh, a friend called up and said, oh, I'm in, I'm, I'm curating a show in New York of watercolors. Do you and John do watercolors? And we were on separate phones and we both went, we don't do watercolor, you know, like, really dismissively. And I hung up the phone and I thought, wow, that is a really old knee jerk reaction to the frustration of working with watercolor. And at this point in my life, that's, so I started in doing it and found that I had the con both the control and the willingness to let go to whatever that water d does, which it does all sorts of wild things. Um, and perhaps that had the most influence on my oil painting of anything in recent time. It became more gestural, more distilled, more about being in the moment and responding. And, um, became pretty key in integrating a lot of earlier artists who were on dear aisle who were seminal influences in my life. Um, Carl Schrag, Leon Golden, Sally Amster, David Lund, um, Steven Pace, Joe Ozeki. I mean, there were a lot of really good painters up there on deer aisle. And, um, I grew up in their studios watching their work evolve, listening to conversations that I partially understood and later became, came to understand as my own work evolved. Um, yeah, light, people talking about light. Very abstract. What are they talking about? But going back and forth between California and New York, Connecticut and, um, Maine. Yeah. My dad bought a place on Deer Island in 1965, and, um, it's been a key part of my evolution. I always say Maine has trained me to, to its tempo, which is pretty fast actually. So when you were growing up and you were spending time in the artist studios, did you have a sense that this was someday what you wanted to do? Oh, yeah. Yeah. My mom knew at eighth grade, I, they cut art from the schools in eighth grade, and it was like, we moved a great deal. And, um, I think drawing was a bedrock, um, stabilization for me, a place to go that was mine. And, um, she saw it. So she started looking for private art lessons, and we had very little money at that point. And, but she, um, a woman, she had just opened an antique shop and a woman came in and went, wow, this is amazing. Very visual. I lived in a very visual household. And, um, turns out that was Joanne Falbo. She had gone to Yale grad school, Virginia Commonwealth before that, and she just started mainlining it into me, um, became a major mentor in my life, never spared me criticism, you know, I can pretty much take whatever's handed to me. And, um, yeah. So from then on, it really gelled. She was a great painter. And, uh, to be given a great painter at that age as a template and a woman, um, was, was great. And she became a lifetime friend. It seems to me, in talking to people who are artists, that there is an ongoing back and forth and an, and a sharing of experiences and a learning from one another about, about the craft, about about the art. Is that true for everybody or is that just a group of people that I've been talking to? I think you choose, you know, it's interesting when you go to a museum, for example, and I look at art all the time, um, and what you respond to changes, what you may have zoned in on last year won't be what it is this year. And so different art will speak to you. And artists are notorious for plundering, for plucking. You know, you just want to absorb what stimulates you, take note of it. And the whole act of synthesizing information is such a mysterious and wonderful one, um, in whatever realm you're in. But visually, um, you know, I spent a year traveling in Europe looking at the Great Art of Europe when I was in my early twenties and drawing a lot and knowing that all that information was somehow going to come back out, and it did. So whether it's artists, I find looking at art that interests me, not any art. I'm very, I'm, I'm a hard critic also, and, um, and pretty discerning about what I wanna take in. So I can speed through lot of art until I find what I wanna talk to person or peace on that I find relevant to my process. So give me an example of some of art recently that you want to spend time with. No, I love Grace de Janeiro's work. And, um, Ooh, I saw a show of Gideon Box down in Boston that was pretty exciting. And Robin Reynolds, whose, um, glorious flower paintings I just adore. They're just wild and deep. And, um, I like, uh, Greta Van Campins work, who she works on the same bay, the Penobscot Bay as I do. Um, oh, there's a great show of, um, Matisse down in Philadelphia that I'm dying to see. And, um, there's a show of Leonard Baskin at the Farnsworth. And, um, oh, I, I just bought a Lisa Beku, uh, sculpture that I just adore Granite, um, yeah, that I've been thinking about her work for a long time. I finally sprung for it. Um, yeah, and of course, I live with John Ember's work, which is awesome, you know, and always gives me power and his presence in, um, great painter. Yeah, well, I'm sure I'll come up with many others. Um, I've, I collect a lot of art and I'm surrounded by a lot of trags and goldens and yeah. Anyway, it's my life. You and John were together for how long? Um, I think our marriage spend, um, I should know this, 25 years, something like that. Yeah. Or knowing each other maybe longer. And, and how did that impact your art to actually be with another artist? John was very secure in his ego and having a powerful wife. Didn't bother him, you know, he, he gravitated to it. He always went out with Scorpios and, um, uh, artistically it was fertile ground. Um, and he didn't mind. He really paid attention to criticism and was pretty daring about taking it. Um, I'm probably less so. I didn't always agree with what his, he was, uh, suggesting. I think he, um, yeah, interesting. But, um, we made a good team, a really good team. He was, he was, uh, good at things I'm not good at. And, uh, vice versa. I brought him to Maine. Well, he had come to Maine, that's where I met him up there. But, um, I sort of gave him the island. And, uh, that's wrong too. He, he had come to Deer Island for many years. I just opened a lot of doors, honestly, for him. So when you say that you've really enjoyed this phase of your life, that's, that's really solely focused on, on your own art and your own process mm-hmm. , can you, can you think of ways that it's different from when you and John were both kind of coexisting as artists and creating as artists? Well, I don't have that sophisticated eye responding to my work in a daily, you know, almost like breathing. Oh. Um, which we really, there was a lot of exchange going on, and we were always looking at each other's work and playing off it, um, and giving feedback on what we were seeing. So that's a treasure of an experience for sure. And there's very few people whose eye I trust. I don't have that now. I live in a, a wonderful artist co-op in, um, Somerville, which I spend about five months in a year. And, um, and John's class still comes up to Stonington. And, um, he always taught a class the third week in July, and they still come and kind of channel John, but in the, are perfectly fine in themselves now without, you know, that. But he, they definitely took in a lot of his teachings, and I've joined it as a, um, participant to look at work and to have them look at my work. And that's probably the most formal, um, feedback I get these days on my art. Um, I've run a gallery up in Maine for many years, 38 maybe, um, in Stonington. And so I do get a lot of direct feedback. Uh, I mean, I get a lot of more feedback than most artists get, but n yeah. And I, it's always interesting to get that, but that's different than, it's, it's information. It's different than really knowledgeable, um, crit sessions. Yeah. So if you don't have that ongoing direct feedback from someone that you trust as much as John, how has that impacted the last eight years? You know, I don't really need it. I've, um, I've spent a lifetime doing it, looking at it, talking about it with, you know, I have, I have good friends who are painters, um, at different intervals of my life. They've been in closer proximity. We all moved from Calif. I went to uc, Santa Cruz and moved to Manhattan and lived there for many years and knew a bunch of really good artists. And, um, so they're all still in my life. And, um, periodically we intersect. I think I really trust myself as an artist and I, um, I, I like my evolution. I'm a slow spinner. Um, and it's happening, it's evolving, and it's certainly evolving from the beginning of, um, my career as a painter. And, um, it's getting looser and more open and gestural and lyrical and kind of letting things float, letting drawing, integrate with painting on top and below. And so it has a pulse that I find very stimulating, has a lot of kinetic energy, um, and vitality. So I'm pretty excited about what I'm doing now, and I kind of spin back and forth between more detailed and more grounded work and then letting it go, letting it just be its thing. Yeah. Trying. You have to draw your audience along with you. And, um, they're not necessarily where my head's at, so I, I try to kind of bounce it back and forth. Come on, . Um, check this out. Yeah. So I know if that, for people who are watching, um, or listening to our conversation, there may be a question among the non-artists as to why watercolors are something that you and John originally weren't doing. And I don't know enough about art myself to understand this. I always did g gush, which is opaque watercolor. It has chalk in it, so you can, it's much more like oil paint. You can change your mind, lay stroke on top of stroke, it'll hold that color. You're building it. Watercolor is a wild card, and either you have to be super controlled, which doesn't interest me at all. And, um, but I, I draw a lot and I'm a really, I can draw very d I can really draw. And, um, so the, so it's interesting. I could either draw, my approach could be drawing first or just launching into it, and you get very different results depending if you've given yourself a structure to follow or just are trusting yourself to just go with it. And, um, for years I did these, uh, Iran, a figure drawing of mo nude model class. And it was always very interesting to see the difference between the paintings in that, in those terms. Um, so it just wasn't comfortable, I think, for either one of us to be that out of control basically. But at this point, as I said, there's both control and openness to the wild card. And, um, you know, I never really asked John, cuz he was certainly open to the wild card. Uh, I, I think, uh, he, he really doubted because we did do watercolor together and he'd douse it with water and everything would go together and it became just like moraes of color. Um, if he'd done it more, he would've known what he wanted. He was great at pastel. Um, one of the great pastels of all time. I'd say, um, watered color just wasn't his thing. But now from what you're saying, you, you're, you're seeing it as actually informing non-water color works that you're doing? Yeah, my son, um, just sent me a spalder and a, uh, oh, Gabe. Um, he's an artis. He's doing artisanal plastering for the top 1% of the country. And, um, uh, he, uh, he's learned many techniques. He didn't wanna be a painter. Um, so anyway, he was l Gabe's a good critic. I listened to my son. Yeah, I'd say he was really brought up listening to us and is fearless about his critiques, ruthless. And, uh, I listened to him and trust what he sees. But, uh, he just sent me two brushes and I am so into about using them, but he's gonna give me lessons. And, um, you know, de Kooning was a sign painter first. And, uh, so a lot of those fabulous strokes that he does were with sign painting brushes. And, um, my son, uh, just sent me this big, I think that's the spalder, it's a big brush, and John used big wide brushes and he, um, just flow it on. So this is all back to watercolor, which if you have a beautiful watercolor brush, it'll hold your, you can get a big stroke and then taper it out to the finest tendril. And, um, it's very exciting. Yeah, those are usually sable brushes. I'm really enjoying this conversation because I think as someone who doesn't, is not engaged in creating visual art at this point, understanding the, some of the process, you know, some of the considerations, some of the materials, what you can do with them. And that's not something that I have any background in. So as you're describing it to me, it makes, it just puts a lot of things in perspective. Yeah. Well, I, as perhaps, you know, I'm a plen oil painter, plen oil painter, and, um, , I don't love the most concise setup. And I'm in the wind a lot and I'm moving back and forth between colors and mixing them. So one hand is full of paintbrushes and the other hand, you know, is flying around doing. So it'll be interesting to integrate those two, um, brushes into it. John would mix bowls of color and I have not done that. I used a glass pallet and, um, on a stool and my canvas and, um, make several trips getting my gear out to the spot, you know, would You mind looking at these with me and telling me a little bit more about them? Sometimes when I come back from, um, from Stonington and I'm not really sure what I'm doing, um, I'll work from oil paintings because there is so much structure and possibility in them that I can, um, I can explore and I, I like working on the full sheets, but I'm going to Portugal in a few days. And, um, I just thought I better warm up on, uh, on some watercolors. And, um, and I came to the Evergreen Show and we had these exquisite corsages, and at the end there was a whole pile of them left. And so I took two more in addition to mine. They were occular enemies and, um, roses and I, when I got home, I have these spun glass, small spun glass, um, vase, and I put them in and they are still going strong. So I just started doing these, um, this series of, hmm, let's see if you can see them. Um, watercolors playing around with those just, uh, beautiful forms in the morning light. Um, and then just work on 'em all day long. They'll be sitting on the dining room table and, um, I'll just go, ah, yeah, I just need some little more twist and curve there. So it's just been a pleasure to play around and sort of enter the realm of both studio painting and rethinking. I often will switch to figurative narrative painting, which is based on things I saw in Maine or in the city that have just anchored themselves in my mind. And I've done drawings of them. So I have a, a lot of those ideas flying around in there, but I haven't yet put out the oil paint. Um, it's like juicing, the getting, you know, the bones, uh, the fibroids going, not fibroids, but you know, water into the muscle structure. And when you're in Portugal, is this an trip or, Most trips are art based, um, but also family? It'll be both. Yeah. And how much art are you able to incorporate into your trips? Oh, lot. I'll bring, you know, I'll bring watercolor gush, um, and I'll, I'll be doing it. Yeah. And then I'll have a lot of good models and, uh, people there to work from. S and it's supposed, it's been raining, so we'll probably do a lot of, um, portraiture. When you and I met first, it was before John was ill mm-hmm. , and then I knew you while John was ill and we worked on a story together, you and I, about your experience with John's illness. And then of course I've known you since that time. And I think most of us are changed by significant life events. And I, I would say that John's was more significant a life event than many people experience just given that he had to, both of you, your whole family had to kind of see things progress so that he went from being this very strong and wonderful kind of physical person to someone who created art in a very different way. Mm-hmm. valiantly courageous. He was always such a courageous painter. Um, and how he faced this whole situation of having als and diminishing ability, which increasingly dramatic down to the point of painting with headgear that crisscrossed his head in a, um, brush coming out and just nodding and it was all the neck. And that didn't last long that, um, and then he died, um, two days after he could no longer paint, which is pretty much what I suspect. You know, you wonder after he can't paint, that's so much who he was, um, your question. And so certainly mortality became, um, you better go for it while you can. You're strong, I'm strong, I'm in good health and just hitting it hard, like really wanting to be the painter I am in the power I have. Yeah. I'd say that was the takeaway. And we had, you know, going in another direction. We had an amazing community of people helping us on both, in both communities, amazing backup, um, and love coming to both all of us, which really helped enormously. I mean, I can't tell you how many, yeah, okay. It's a powerful, um, it was under the circumstances it was the best of, we had so much support from our building people that worked at m i t, people that were in, you know, trying to figure out the technology of it, people who came back, you just need, I don't know how people do als by themselves and it can certainly destroy families and um, pe it's a complicated, um, illness period, how we cope with it. And you were both young when this took place? John was 64. I was 60, yeah. Gabe was 19. So also the fact that he had this diagnosis and he really had his life kind of compressed down in an unexpected way. Yeah. And he switched to his left hand and became a left-handed painter. So if you get the opportunity to see Ember's left hand, please see it. Um, it's a main masters movie. It is a great art movie documenting both of our lives. But, you know, heavy on John and how he, uh, wow. He just poured a lot of knowledge into that film by Dick Cain. Um, so, and, um, compassionate Care Als is an awesome organization that backed us up every step of the way. Ron Hoffman, I can't say enough good things about Ccca aals. Yeah. Which is a grassroots, um, support foundation as opposed to a research foundation helping you navigate the demise of your body, um, functions. Not your mind, but your body. Um, but psychologically also for sure. Cuz that's all major component of that. So it's an interesting contrast then where his life became compressed at the end. And he did sound, I mean, he, he was very courageous in his approach and he, he, he went down eventually still painting till almost the very end mm-hmm. . But he really, he was a very powerful, very strong individual all the way to the end. Yeah. And certainly the public persona was one of real optimism and, um, yeah, valency, um, and the work that came out of that is very exciting body of work and he felt some of the strongest in his life and he had really, um, again, how integrating, switching from your right to left hand is a big deal. I have, Martha Diamond is a painter in New York, and she always said she'd switch to her left hand when she had any important really key gestures to make that it had a whole different power to it. And so to Actu and Nell Blaine also got, um, polio fairly young in her life. And she, um, she'd been an abstract painter initially and then switched to her left hand and her work changed entirely. Um, so it's very interesting to see what happened. And John was very excited by the left hand. Um, you know, he really liked crudeness authenticity and so when it, you had to, it threw in the crudeness for sure. And this is all documented in the movie, so it's interesting to see. And then in contrast, you and I were talking about sort of this being the next third of your life mm-hmm. , that you actually, you have this ex presumably an expansive time. Yes. Yeah. An expansive time ahead of you, and you are in the midst of fully experiencing that. So what does that feel like to you? Well, I met somebody and I'm really enjoying that tremendously. So that's adding like a whole other, um, dimension. He's a musician, so he understands process of experimentation and innovation and um, yeah. And has great concentration and does watercolor with me also. Um, so he'll come out and play music on site, which is outrageously great on these amazing places. And then, um, he'll sit down and just paint also. And he, it's it to share with someone, unbroken concentration is a very special thing. And not to have to talk. Sometimes you get that as a portrait. Uh, I do a lot of portraits and, um, to have permission to sit with people in silence or have a rhythmic flow of what goes through is, um, well it's, it's got powerful. Um, to enter that river together is a great thing. Um, because you're really descending into the underworld almost when you paint and just merging as a plen painter, I feel like I just enter as part of the environment, letting the play of tides and wind and things flying by and clouds moving. And, um, there's a lot of information just kind of hitting you in your cherry picking. Um, and of course his work is totally different than mine. Yeah. So it sounds like you're enjoying this experience. I am. Yeah. It's a, I'm very much enjoying it. Yeah. So it's hard to say where that'll go in the work, but, um, it's certainly an enlivening experience. Yeah. Well, I know you and I have known each other during, I think very stressful times for you in your own life. And I dunno if I've ever fully thanked you for the opportunity to spend time with you and John, um, as you were going through all of this, I think you really, you opened up your life in a way that not everyone is willing to do. You know, I wanted it to be as vital an experience for John to make it worth his while sticking around and, um, and to have love pouring into him, attention, validation, you know, all those things. And, uh, I did not, and, and I needed to replenish myself also. And so part of allowing permeability of whoever was comfortable being part of that process, um, also allowed me to have time to recoup, um, and be there in the way I needed to be there the rest of the time. Um, and to know what my limitations are. Other people are better at minutia than I am of comfort, which, um, that was not my forte. Yeah. Well, I I can't speak for anybody else but myself, but I do appreciate your willingness to be part of that in the minor way that I was. Oh, I think that any, um, shedding light on that process is a powerful one and, um, appreciated your intuition, your knowledge and intuition. Yeah. Well, I hope that I get to, uh, continue to benefit from the wonderful life that you're living as a bystander and a friend, um, in this next third. Thank You. And I really appreciate you taking the time to come in and talk with me today about Oh, thank you very Much for having me. Yeah. I've been speaking with artist Jill Hoy, and I encourage you to learn more about her through the Portland Art Gallery in Portland or online. Um, I think that every time I see Jill's work, I, I just feel the vibrancy of life. And I suspect that that is not an uncommon response for people. So I, I've really enjoyed having the vibrancy of your, your personal self today in the studio with me today. Thank you. And I've loved working with the Portland Art Gallery, which is a beautiful space and vital full of art. Yeah. Beautifully done. So thank you both.