Teaching Expands Perspective and Inspires this Established Maine Artist: Dietlind Vander Schaaf

And today it is my great pleasure to be speaking with DEET Lynn vendor scaff, one of our Portland art gallery artists, and also a, um, I just learned a person who grew up in Brunswick, which is of course, where I went to college Bowden college. So it's really, it's wonderful to know that you and I have so many connections Dateline, and thank you for being on the show with us. I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for having me so Well. One of the things that, um, I wanted to start with is, uh, a nod of appreciation to you for providing me with this wonderful art that is right behind me. And, um, this is something that my husband gave to me for mother's day last year, and it's the most beautiful, um, blue and caustic with a wonderful striking, um, metallic piece in the middle of we have it right in our front hall. I see it every single day when I come in and the name of it is what It's drama, which is an Icelandic word. That means a dream. Tell me It's about creating this piece of art, because I know one of the things that Kevin really liked was the name and there, I mean, he and I have this very kind of soulful slash business, like approach to life in general. And this idea that you're you're, you can do both at one time. So tell me about creating this piece. Yeah, well, um, from a sort of a metaphorical standpoint, I think of a lot of my work as sort of being both an internal and an external landscape. So I sort of take elements from the natural world and, um, I create these pieces that, that reference the natural world, but also reference the interland, what I call the inner landscape sort of thought and, um, and dream and, um, desires and ideas, um, that you might have and how I actually create them as I build up many layers of encaustic medium. So I'll often work 50 or 60 layers of, um, encaustic medium. And then I start, I start to pink towards the top of the piece, um, figuring out the composition as I go. And I use a lot of 23 carat gold leaf in my work to, and the 23 karat gold leaf is particularly important because it catches the light from different angles. And I think of that gold as, um, signifying the inner light inside of each one of us. You also, So, um, have an interesting practice around writing and art. So for you, you're exploring not just the visual, but also things that are reflected around words that we speak, words that we communicate with, um, paper or computer. Tell me about, Yeah, I do. Um, so thanks for asking. I actually fell in love with writing before I fell in love with painting and art making. Um, I have an undergraduate degree in history and that graduate degree in history, and I thought I would go on to pursue, um, a PhD in history. But when I moved to San Francisco, I fell more deeply in love with writing and poetry and short stories. And so I pursued an MFA in creative writing and it was actually while I was in graduate school for creative writing that I fell in love with painting. So I always joke that I sort of came to a painting through the back door. Um, it wasn't, it wasn't something I was looking for, but, um, but I stumbled upon it and fell in love with it and started doing it in a small way. Um, really just as a side practice, when I still lived in San Francisco, couldn't afford a studio and it was just a, uh, a side passion. Um, but gradually it sort of became bigger and bigger and it was what I wanted to do. And when I came back to Maine and, um, 2010, I was lucky enough to get a job at Maine college of art. And that really fed that passion and, and supported that practice. Well, as I mentioned at the beginning, you and I actually have so many connections and the more I learn about you, the more connections we actually have, um, my daughter also has an undergraduate and a graduate degree in history and an interest in art. Although right now she's working as a sous chef at North 43 in South Portland, but it is interesting that you didn't get hemmed in by one particular path and say, well, okay, now I'm done. I only want to do this. Um, how did you allow yourself the freedom to continue to move forward and explore different ways of being creative? Well, I wish I could say it was always a beautiful, smooth and straightforward process. Um, I think what ha, one thing that helped is I remember when I was a freshmen in college, my dad told me, you know, you're probably going to have like seven different careers in life. Like my generation, we had, you know, one or two. Um, but he's like for you guys, you're going to have lots of different things that you do. And, and I remember that that number seven, and it was funny because I ended up changing my major so many times in college and, and took time off, went to work for the Appalachian mountain club. I really didn't really know what I wanted to do. Um, I was very fortunate. I went to USM and had a great experience there, but, um, you know, I think it just, it was just over time, just sort of following one passion and then the other, I was, you know, there were disappointments along the way and doors closed, but I, I always say, you know, some people say when one door closes, another one opens and I say, Oh no, when one door closes you open the window, you crawl out, you keep going and figure it out. You know? So, um, when I fell in love with painting, I just allowed myself to do it and kept doing it. And when I could took classes and, um, and just, it just grew inside of me, I guess I enjoyed meeting your mother. I believe it was at your opening probably about a year and a half ago, something like that. Um, so when you talk to me about your father being, um, encouraging you with the different types of careers you might have, um, I also think about your mother being right there, kind of right by your side. So proud of you. So, um, supportive and, and I'm not sure everybody always has that. So the fact that you have both parents who said, yeah, you know, whatever's going to make you happy. Yes. We want we're, we're here for you. So what has that meant for you? Oh, it's huge. I mean, it's funny. Um, what my friend Willa Venema that you've interviewed recently, and I have talked about that. Like, where do you get your confidence from to move forward in life? And I, I was just incredibly blessed and fortunate to have two loving parents. They're, they're not together. They haven't been together for a long time, but we're all very close as a family. And, um, my father is very creative too. He's a woodworker and he's, you know, he's reinvented himself a bunch of times. And, um, and my mother, like you said, she is, she is, I always tell her, she's my number one fan. I mean, I, I can't post something on social media, but she's right on it. You know, how much she loves it and joking that she's going to have a retrospective. Um, she could just open the door to her house and have a retrospective. And I'm like, mom, I'm not having a retrospect, but I'm very lucky. I'm very close to, uh, to both of my parents, Eating a teacher has also wound its way through the work that you do. And, um, I know my, my mother is a, or was a middle school math teacher for many, many years, and then retired and then quickly came back and started teaching zoom, math to my, um, nieces and nephews who were out of school and, or out of official in-person school. And that has required a tremendous amount of flexibility on her part. But I think she's learned as much as they have in this past year. Um, have you found yourself also being a learner simultaneous to being a teacher? Oh yeah, absolutely. I, I feel very fortunate to teach it's I have always considered it to be a real gift to, um, to have that aspect of my life and to be able to share and connect with other people. It feels like it feels like a calling, like not something I want to do full-time, but something that is a really important part of, of, um, my life. It has a spiritual dimension to it as well. And, um, I've done it on the side while working full-time and painting for the past 11 years. Um, I've worked with all kinds of communities. So when I first started, I was teaching, I wasn't teaching in caustic painting. I was teaching narrative collage and I was taking it into work with like women bets and, um, refugees and immigrants and teaching through Maine college of arts, continuing studies program. So I got to have a lot of different experiences doing it. The last about eight years, it's been primarily teaching and caustic painting. Um, and then when everything changed last year, there was an opportunity I was requested by one of my students to start teaching online and I was really resistant. Um, I didn't, I think that, you know, sometimes you're, you struggle with having a personal and a private self and I wasn't, I wasn't sure I was comfortable having my, um, myself have a presence on, um, I don't know how to explain it, but I wasn't sure I was comfortable teaching online and I wasn't sure how to go about doing it. I didn't want to do it live. Um, so I thought about it and thought about it. And then finally, I was like, you know, I'm going to do this. And I did it all as prerecorded content. So I've, I'm running my second different kind of class right now. Um, I've run one class three times. I do all the, the video team myself and all the editing. And, um, but then the really amazing thing is that I actually found a really love it. And, uh, I've been able to work with students from all over the world. So I've had students in Switzerland and Germany and New Zealand and the UK taking my classes. And I've also reached people even in the United States that for one reason or another, they're not able to travel either financial or personal reasons. They can't easily travel to take a class. And so I have found through this and through private mentoring that I've been able to connect with people that I wouldn't have connected with otherwise. And I have found that very deeply meaningful. My understanding is that you had just set up a teaching space in the Dana warp mill in Westbrook, uh, right before COVID hit at, you had these big plans to do things in person. And so the pivot and shift was pretty dramatic. It was, it was, I moved from, uh, a small studio, um, just over 300 square feet in the state theater building into this big, over 1200 square foot studio in the Dana wart mill. And the idea was to have dedicated workstations that I could run classes and I could have my dream studio for teaching, with standing height, workstations, professional ventilation, the best equipment, the full range of paint, everything that people would want. And also a beautiful space with lots of sun beautiful view of the river. I was able to, I had all my classes scheduled and filled. I even had a woman flying in from Minnesota to take one of my classes, and then I had to reschedule and reschedule. And, um, yeah, it was, there was a lot of, a lot of shifts and riding those waves last year. But what I ended up doing was just a lot more painting and some private workshops as well. And then the city of Westbrook was incredibly supportive and the ward Memorial foundation, I was awarded two different grants that allowed me to, um, both get internet and some of the equipment that I needed to start doing online. So it's been an interesting year, but, um, but also, you know, it's, it's, the changes have opened me up to trying and approaching things differently. Tell me about the work that you do with RNF. This is, um, you use a very specific type of paint and this is a global organization, and this has given you a connections to really artists all over the world. Yeah. It's a wonderful company. They're located in Kingston, New York. And, um, I was one of nine core instructors for them. So I was connected to the company before I started working for them. And in 2018, I left my job at Maine college of art to work remotely for our neph. So work part-time remotely for them. Um, and what's really nice is that, um, before, when I was working at Maine college of arts, I was doing fundraising. Um, and I always thought, Oh, I want to, I kind of want to be on the other side where I'm giving things away too. And part of my job working with RNF is, um, I get to work with artists all over the world that are teaching and when they're requesting donations to support their classes, um, I get to help be part of the process of deciding who gets what and supporting those teachers by providing materials. So RNF is an awesome company. It's, um, I think it's about 25 employees and the, um, you, if you take a class there, they have a workshop program that's not running right now because of COVID. But if you take a class there, you can actually see all the paint being made. So they make two different kinds of pink. They make the in caustic paint, um, which is part beeswax, part DeMar, and part powdered pigment that I use. And they also make something called a pigment stick, which is basically a high quality to boil in a stick form. And I also use that on the surface of all of my encaustic paintings. What is it about encaustic that appealed to you initially? I mean, the, when I look at encaustic pieces, it's not just a visual, there's like a, there's a layering to it. There's a physicality to it that I think you don't get with, uh, maybe a watercolor for, you know, just let's just say so, but it's a very specific thing to, um, to work on. So why did you choose that? Yeah, I totally agree. Before that I worked with acrylic paint and mediums and, um, the thing about encaustic. So I'd say I'd seen an acoustic painting and was just completely mesmerized by it, both by the soft sort of sensuous sheen of the surface of the piece and the way that it could be used sculpturally to an, um, to encapsulate objects, uh, that you could, uh, carve into the surface, create textures and embed things. Um, so I found I was sort of mesmerized and dazzled by the surface of it. And when I started working with it, I fell deeply in love with the process. So I'm working on a heated palette. Um, the paint is molten when I'm working with it, it's heated to 200 degrees. I use Japanese brushes, hotkey brushes to brush each air on the layers, have to be fused together. So do that either with a heat gun or a torch. So there's an alchemy to it. There's a process. Um, the way I work with it, I use so much medium and paint. I build up many, many layers. And so there's a rhythm to that building that I find soothing and, um, it kind of meditative and it, um, it sort of, I often compare it to being an athlete. You know, you kind of come into the zone and in that zone is where I find the, the final, uh, creation, you know, I might start with an idea, but then I always am responding to what's in front of me. Um, but I love how you can carve into the surface as well. That's just something you can't do very easily with other kinds of mediums. Did you grow up with art? Not really. I mean, I was always creative, like with how I dyed my hair or, um, you know, I was always like making my own acid wash jeans or, um, you know, making things out of Fimo, but not really. It wasn't, it just wasn't part of it. Wasn't something I would love to cook, but I guess I was kind of creative, but I didn't grow up making art and nobody in my immediate family did, my aunt is very talented. Um, she's a quilter and, um, she's a painter as well, but not, she doesn't show her work or anything like that. Well, the reason I ask this is because in my family, we also have very creative people, but we don't have any artists per se. And we didn't necessarily grow up with art. So when I was younger, I was, I was actually a little intimidated by art. I wasn't one of the kids that was chosen to be in the special art class. Um, they were like, Oh no, you're smart. You're a good writer, all these other things, but you're not an artist. And that kind of, you know, like that got in my brain, you know, and, and it caused me to maybe not be as open to art when I was a little bit younger, you know, and, and it wasn't until I think I went to an art museum and maybe even saw a Rothko. And there was something about the Rothko that just really appealed to me. And it was so abstract. It wasn't one of your standard landscapes. Um, but somehow it just spoke to me in a way that I hadn't experienced before, but it was hard to get past that initial intimidation. So if you're already a creative person, maybe it's not so hard. I don't know. I guess this is sort of a question statement. Yeah. I, I, um, so two, two responses I have. One is, um, so I didn't have that experience with it. I always felt like I could try whatever and do whatever. And, um, but I hear that from a lot of my students and I hear a lot of them struggle even with the word artist, um, they, or, you know, they, they maybe went to art school or they took classes where they were really interested when they were younger and then they felt they were sort of needed to choose a different kind of career, or they were, um, a mom or they had other roles that took them away. And then when they come back to it, they come back that's I think this is why I love working with adults. And primarily I work with women, mostly people who take my classes, I would say are 50 plus and they're women. And they're just so to, to have, to be able to make, um, and to have that time and to, and to watch something be created by their own hands. I think that's, um, very deeply fulfilling because of a lot of that early, um, you know, language or ideas are being pushed in different directions to try other things. Um, for me, I also saw a painting, like you were explaining with your Roscoe experience. Um, mine was, um, called night train to Amsterdam and it was by an artist named Andrea Maynard when I lived in San Francisco and I fell completely in love with this painting. And I think it was the storytelling aspect of it. It was representational, but very loosely, very abstracted. And it was just like these little twinkling nightlights, far over a body of water at a distance. And because I love storytelling, it just spoke to me. And that's what actually made me want to start making art. Um, I just took classes with her, but with no idea of where it was going to go, just, just curiosity, I guess, Do each of your pieces have a story associated with the paper? We've talked about the piece that I'm fortunate enough to own, and you have pieces behind you that I want you to tell us about, but do you always have an idea about the story that you're trying to unfold before? The people who have no purchasing and living with your art? Not always. I mean, you know, sometimes when I first started, I would have a lot of intentionality about what I was trying to create. And, um, about six years ago, when I went through my yoga teacher training, when I turned 40, that was what I wanted to do. And I did a 200 hour training. It was a month long program at Kripalu and very much shifted instead of needing to sort of control what I was doing. I mean, you do need a certain amount of control when you're just asked the techniques of working with encaustic, because at the time you need a lot of heat and all that. Um, but I, I really saw shifts happen there because I found the quiet space and the stillness that I was looking for inside myself. And, um, around that same time I was studying, I was looking at what some of my students were doing and seeing some of the looseness in their work. And I, I realized I wanted to bring some of that and explore more color into my work as well. So sometimes I start with an idea, um, or a set of colors, but more often than not, um, I kind of have to lose myself while I'm working and allow what's happening to happen. There's a very specific process and there's a set of marks that I work with. And of course I have my color palette, but, but I don't really know what's going to happen with the work as it's evolving. Um, and in fact, some places really stumped me and I have to put them aside for a while and then come back to them. So it's, um, it's not always clear to begin with where I'm going with that. And I think that can be, that can be a little scary, you know, um, there's a of self doubt. I think that creeps up. I also read a book, I read a blog. That's how I can stay connected to my writing. My goal is just to have one post a month and usually it can hit that. Um, but I use that as a way to reach to my students as well and share some of these things. And I've been thinking more and more about how to share that, that, um, the challenges of being an artist and how to overcome self doubt and even that kind of imposter syndrome that I think a lot of, a lot of artists feel, um, because it's a very real thing for a lot of us and it, and you just find ways to overcome it by continuing to show up and do the work Well. It's interesting, you're bringing up this idea of imposter syndrome because I had just had a conversation with this about an actual medical staff person. And this is a medical staff person who has been practicing for in her current position for probably a little bit more than 10 years. And she was even describing this ongoing kind of imposter syndrome, and I've seen this repeatedly, and it seems to be something that, um, more frequently, although not, not specific to, uh, occurs with women, is, is this something you found or have you noticed any kind of patterns based on the teaching that you do? Yeah, I mean, I saw it even when I was in GRA in, um, undergraduate for history. I remember talking to one of my history professors, um, and, and she said that she struggled with it. The more successful she got, the more accolades she got, the better job offers. She got there's a, there was this sort of nagging, um, secret feeling that she wasn't good enough or she didn't deserve them or whatever. And, um, I mean, I see it with students, for sure. I think that's where the hangup around the word artist comes from for a lot of people. Um, and, but even for me, and I'm pretty comfortable with that word, I would say that, you know, I think that it's a real thing, you know, coming in and saying, do I have anything? I mean, I asked myself that when I write too, like, do I have anything to share? Do I have anything that's really worth saying with, with paintings? Sometimes it's like, they kind of go off the rails and you're like, what is happening here? I've just got to put it aside for a little while and come back to it. Um, but I have found that if I just continue to, to show up, um, actually there's a funny story. I do you ever read the book by Anne Lamott? Um, it's a book about writing and I she's the first, one of the first chapters is called first drafts. I think this is this bird bird by bird maybe or something. Yeah, exactly. Yes. It's a story about like her brother and how he's he's, I'm so stressed about this, this paper yesterday, right. And spelt birds and his father's just like, just take it bird by bird, buddy. I think about that a lot when I'm in the studio, you know, it's like, I'm, you make a lot of paintings that not every single one is, um, you know, a huge success. You just keep going and you keep exploring it and, you know, and you keep pushing the ideas and developing it and being committed to the practice. And sometimes, I mean, the great thing about Anacostia, cause you can always paint over it too. So that that's happened. You know, I have a funny piece on my blog. It's called the story of a painting and it's about, um, when I first started to work larger. So I was working up to 18 by 18, but I hadn't gotten much larger than that. I think the piece you have is 30 by 30. So I was trying to make up 36 by 36 inch painting. And, um, it took me four years to figure it out and it just kept turning the painting around to face the wall because I really didn't know what to do. And I've, and I wrote about this too, and I felt it's important for other people to hear that it started to feel like it was a signifier of my, of my failure as an artist, but because I didn't quit on it and I kept going, I did actually finish it. And I love that painting. I hung it in my office at, um, my favorite piece. It's one of my favorite pieces I've ever made. And I think I liked the piece, but I also like the idea of the piece, which is that, um, to have faith in myself as an artist and to, and to, um, you know, know that I'm still evolving. And as I continue to create When I was a medical student and I was just starting to learn to, um, actually no, as a first year resident and family medicine and I had been delivering babies for some time. But when you go from being a medical student to a resident, all of a sudden, you know, you now have initials behind your name and, um, you feel this immense sense of responsibility. And I think I said to the resident who was a few years ahead of me, how am I ever going to figure out how to deliver these babies? How am I going to be able to do all of this? And I, this sense of overwhelm and, Oh my gosh, how did I even get to this place? And I remember her just saying to me, very gently, you know, you're just going to keep showing up. You're going to learn it bit by bit. You're going to deliver one baby and then the next baby, and then the next baby. And I, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's this willingness to keep showing up, which is actually much more challenging than I think many people realize because when something gets hard, sometimes the inclination is to turn the painting to the wall and just be like, that's it, I'm never coming back to you. Totally. I, I run a retreat, um, each year in Kennebunkport and costing painting retreat. And, um, and this year I was able to run a very small version of it. But, um, I was doing a demo and after the demo, one of my students, she kind of lingered by the table and she said, you know, I was watching you do the demo and she's like, it didn't look very good. And, um, and I, and then all of a sudden I saw you kind of pull the piece back and she's like, can I realized that she's like, I think I've been judging my work too quickly because I said, you know what, a lot of times a piece doesn't look very good along the way. So you just have to kind of hang in there with it, you know, until you figure out how to resolve it. But if you can step outside of that self judgment. And that's where I see like my interest in yoga and my teaching kind of dovetail is that the yoga that I studied and teach the essence of it is nonjudgmental self-awareness. And I try to keep that as a practice for myself, but also hold that space for my students too, because so many of them are so incredibly hard on themselves. And, um, if, if you can hold that space for them, they start to hold that for themselves too. Tell me about these pieces behind you. I'm fascinated by them because again, I know one of them is just happens to be named after clouds, which I think are wonderful. So tell me about that. Yeah. The piece to my left here is called Wolcott. It's a German word means cloud. Um, as I was, I think of my pieces. I didn't realize this until my partner got me a book recently called the overview project, or have you heard of the overview project? Um, so this has been going on for a few years, then it's a guy. Um, I'm sure he has a team working with him now, but they do, um, satellite imagery looking down on the earth and looking at different parts of it. And I realized when I got this book that, um, that's how I paint and that's kind of what my work looks like. So when I look at this piece, now I understand that it looks sort of like, feel like if you're in an airplane, it looks like fields and maybe, um, you know, like a cloud from above, but when I was finishing it, there was this great sort of soft, pale, white, almost pinkish, um, section of it that just looked like a big cloud to me. So that's why I called it bulky. And then, um, the piece that's directly behind me right here is called Lac. And it means, um, it's a French word, meaning Lake. Um, when I finished this piece, it just had that. It looks like, um, a landscape, right at the edge of water where you see the water in the clouds start to meet in the distance and dissolve. I love work that you can look at that takes you somewhere. You know, you, you can look at it and it feels like a meditation and you can look at it and it, it transports you. And it, my goal always with my work is that, um, you would in viewing it and being with it, living with it, but it would give you that sense of, um, calm centeredness that you might feel after you do a yoga class or over whatever your practices, if you go running or bicycling or meditating, you know, that you would just feel kind of calm and, um, sous, but the beauty, There's something that, as you're telling me about all the names of your pieces, that again, you and I have in common, and that is the love of DOD only the, the English language word, but also the love of words from other languages. I'm noticing that you've, you've borrowed from Icelandic, French, German. Um, and I mean, I've always had a similar fascination where I've had to, I guess, on the side, teach myself Spanish, you know, and I should be probably studying, I don't know, medical stuff, but there's something about the way that words come across in a really lyrical, um, meaningful way. If, if you borrow them from other languages that you wouldn't typically use, how did you start first naming your pieces with non-English words, Part of cutting the titles down to just one word was also partly to, um, have a little, a little more privacy, sort of maintain a little privacy for myself about what the work was about, but also secondly, to create more mystery for the viewer, you know, um, like the piece behind me, that's called , which means cloud in German. I feel like if you just look at that piece and you see that it's called cloud, you, you can understand that there's a cloud and that's what it means. And you know, what a cloud is, so you can kind of, you can dismiss it, but if you hear the word, okay, you look at it and kind of stumble over it. Like, I don't know what that word means. I don't know how to pronounce it. Maybe you have to look it up. There's a little pause there where you engage with it. And, um, I love the mystery that, that, that, that, um, offers the viewer. Um, I'm also a lover of languages. I think that if I could spend, um, if I could devote hours each day, if I wasn't working to studying other languages, I would, um, I think there's a poetry to the sounds of these, um, other words in our mouths as well. There's a mystery to them. And I've also found that, um, these sort of shorter one word titles, um, the less words that I use, the more expansive, the experiences, maybe even more universal for the viewer, I would, I would agree with that. And I think many of us, as we were growing up, we thought about poetry as being, uh, sonnets or something that had a lot of, uh, verbiage associated with it. But then we also learned haikus, which obviously don't have a lot of verbiage associated with them. And then I think about III Cummings and his use of, um, very specific spring oriented words, like, um, puddle, luscious, and mud wonderful, and his use of punctuation to create both, um, kind of in being sparse, being evocative. So you're talking about art and poetry and kind of not needing to have a lot to still have it be poetic is, um, a great point. Yeah, absolutely. I love