Approaching the studio and plein air work with nature

Interview by Dennis Ray

Accomplished artists throughout history, including Renoir, Leonardo da Vinci, Degas, and Cassatt, worked in more than one medium. 

Many had a passion for the luminance and versatility of pastel. Deborah Squier also has a penchant for pastel and has worked in this medium since 1999, becoming almost synonymous with this paste. in the Asheville area. In addition, she creates stunning work in oil.

Squier’s work is subtle and yet dynamic, capturing the color and light she sees in nature. Her paintings like memory, capture a moment too brief to recognize until it’s gone; a glint of sunlight off the lake or clouds rolling in from a great distance. She engages her subject, observing while easing the unpredictability of where her muse may take her.

Her paintings, included in both private and corporate collections throughout the US and abroad, are currently shown at Blue Spiral in downtown Asheville. 

RRM: How would you describe your approach to painting the landscape? Do you paint in a particular style or genre? 

DS: My approach is to go to Nature to learn from direct experience. My connection to the landscape began as a very young child going on plein air outings with my father, who was also a painter. I think I paint from the “inside out” if that makes any sense. I had a lot of freedom to roam about on my own, which parents don’t allow these days. 

Nature viscerally imprinted on me, almost like music seeps into your consciousness. I was moved by all the elements and was also a dancer, so my experience is lyrical and sensory.

When I began painting, I was drawing on something that was very much a part of me. The problem with labels is just that — labels. Plein air painting has its formulas, as does the traditional classical style. I never wanted to be bound by any particular style or constraints because I wanted to develop my voice. I choose to focus on direct experience, tonalities, color notes, and atmosphere. I have studied the Impressionists, Classical Realism, and the Luminists. That is why I am somewhat eclectic in both my approach and diverse in my choice of medium, be it oil, pastel, or charcoal.

RRM: What is most important to you about your approach to painting the landscape?

DS: I think what is most important is honesty, by that, I mean having no preconception about the outcome but rather, focused awareness rather than an “end goal.” Close observation and focused knowledge are what is needed to witness that moment in time. It’s not a race to the finish line. It’s a contemplative mindset. At the same time, if the skill set is not there, it is impossible to assemble the elements in any way grounded in reality.

RRM: What guides your choice when painting the landscape? Tell us about your color choices.

DS: It’s always beauty that guides my choices. It is such a privilege to be on earth. Humanity has a dark and destructive side — that is what makes the beauty all the more important in revealing a higher harmony. Beauty is Grace. 

Choosing what to paint and how to paint it is where individual artistic vision guides the artist. For me, choices are about what has meaning for me. I hope to distill a moment in time in the most beautiful and harmonious way possible. I rely on my skills as a painter to render that vision through composition, color, values, perspective, etc. 

My color choices are mainly guided by local color; I basically use a warm and cool of the primaries and add and subtract colors randomly. I rely on Nature to guide and inform me. Color choices and color mixing come out of experience and bias. I am more of a tonalist than a colorist and work with a more compressed value scale. It’s essential to read color and values correctly but also the atmosphere and how atmosphere alters color, value, and chroma. Each artist establishes their color harmonies with values being inherent in those choices and color keys.

RRM: Do you prefer to work from life? What is the downside to plein air painting? 

DS: For the most part, I do prefer to work out on location. Nature’s diversity and the panorama of light and color effects are exhilarating and bring vitality and energy to the painting process. The sheer quest of the process is extremely demanding, and you have to act without becoming overwhelmed. The downside is the constant change, which messes with your initial idea or concept, and then there’s a danger of chasing a new painting every five minutes. Added to that are the potential downpours, gusts of wind upending your equipment, turps dashed to the ground. The plein air artist has to embrace uncertainty and change and stay grounded. The upside is you learn to work with uncertainty, but that is what makes it exciting! Nature is unruly, juicy, and unpredictable.

RRM: Do you ever work from photographs? Have you experimented with different styles?

DS: I began my work as a studio artist working initially in watercolor and graphite. Later I focused more on pastel and charcoal. When I started painting out on location, everything changed. That is when I realized the complexities of color, value, chroma, atmosphere, and energy. I was blown away. I felt so alive and at home. As a result, I struggled with returning to the studio because I could no longer see and feel the connection. 

I could not see the living reference I needed to guide my landscape paintings. I still struggle with the juxtaposition of the two approaches. Some people transition easily. I am not one of them. My studio work is best compartmentalized for different media like charcoal and pastel. That said, every hour spent on location gives my studio paintings much more life and energy.

As to experimentation, yes, I have and experiment frequently. I love working in charcoal and pastel, which gives me ample opportunities to explore a whole new work genre. I am very experimental with my surfaces, substrates, pastels I grind and mold myself, and use of washes and layering techniques. I love the tactile qualities of charcoal and pastel. Also, the studio work removes time constraints allowing the unconscious and intuitive process to drive the action. The studio provides time to work out much larger paintings over days or weeks. The largest paintings I have done on location were 24×36, requiring three round trips driving two hours each day. That’s a big-time commitment.

RRM: What determines a great painting from a good one?

DS: For me, a great painting like a Turner or a Sorolla stops me in my tracks. It takes my breath away. I am transfixed and in awe. These are the paintings with in-depth spiritual content, not just extraordinary draftsmanship or painting skills. There’s a life force emanating from these great works. You feel it in your flesh and bones.

RRM: What is your end goal as an artist hopes to achieve?

DS: My goal is to develop my sensitivity to the landscape and my abilities to render it in the most beautiful, harmonious, and balanced way I can with each painting. I hope my paintings bring closer examination and appreciation of Nature and the landscape as part of ourselves, not separate from ourselves. I hope the result will be that my work serves to remind others of our collective responsibility to act and preserve and protect our planet. Again, for me, it’s about meaning and connection. Nature is in trouble. It is time to come together and partner in meaningful ways to save our planet from total collapse.

RRM: Name and describe the painters who most influenced you over your lifetime.

DS: A dedicated artist raised me. I was fortunate to be introduced to the John Singer Sargent murals in the Boston Public Library. I made regular visits to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. There are so many painters I admire. I was introduced to the Boston School of Painting and the American Realists early on. I have great admiration for William Merritt Chase, John Henry Twachtman, Daniel Garber, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Emile Carlson, George Innis, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot among others I also favor Joaquin Sorolla and Anders Zorn. I have drawn inspiration from the Hudson River School painters, the Luminists, and the Impressionists. They loom large and have influenced my aesthetic in essential ways. I encourage you to seek out these artists’ works if you have a chance to travel to great museums. They are masterful. 

RRM: You’ve focused on the Appalachians and the regional landscape. What keeps you interested in the local landscape? 

DS: When I arrived in Asheville after graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill, I saw Western North Carolina for the first time. I was blown away by this ancient chain of mountains, the diversity of flora and fauna, and the sheer jaw-dropping beauty of the terrain. I felt its mystery and power in the most palpable and soul-stirring way. I hiked all over the region resulting in my internalizing it. It lives within me, and my goal as a painter is to offer it to you in a way that allows you to bring it into your home.

RRM: Describe the plein air experience, and do you finish up in the studio or work with photos?

DS: I think I’ve addressed some of this previously. I work en plein air regularly to keep me grounded in Nature. Winters can be challenging because of lower temperatures, so I gravitate toward studio work during the coldest season. As a landscape painter, I want to paint authentically, which comes from direct experiences through observation. The connection comes from contact and immersion in the energy of the place. On location, I can feel the energy and channel that into my brushstrokes and rendering of atmosphere or overall mood of the painting. It’s like a meditation in mindfulness. I have difficulty finishing up a plein air painting in the studio. I’m no longer connected to the energy. The source is a fading memory. It’s better for me to separate studio work from works initiated on location.

RRM: What does painting outdoors offer your artwork that working in the comfort of the studio doesn’t? 

DS: Painting outdoors is immersive and experiential, not virtual. All of the senses fire up. Plein air work is often more spontaneous and fresh due to time constraints and the rapidly changing light effects. Plein air studies show more vitality because there’s no time to overthink the process. You have to be very focused on capturing that fleeting moment. 

The studio experience allows more time to problem solve and process, but the artist is not in a direct conversation with Nature as the Muse. In the studio, the artist resorts to memory or two-dimensional references, and so it is necessary to imagine the experience. 

That’s not a bad thing. It’s just a different conversation. Painting and observation of Nature directly feed every artistic endeavor. Both reside in the artist’s memory, which can be called upon at any moment.

RRM: What are some of your favorite painting places, and why?

DS: Some of my favorite places to paint, include the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Balsams, and our readily accessible local parks and forests. Western North Carolina offers a great variety of habitats. It’s also a temperate rain forest which gives us lush, verdant terrain and atmospheric conditions for more evocative landscapes and skies. I also enjoy my backyard, which I am grateful for every day. It provides abundant subject matter in a very intimate setting. When we are open to beauty, we find it everywhere.

From the artist’s statement:

My focus is on the Appalachian landscape. It is not only the terrain we’ve come to know and love with its varied and distinct mountain vistas and the green veil of atmosphere but the ongoing daily relationship we have with the land. Our contact with the natural world is constant and profound. The experience is both organic and mystical. I am ever grateful for the transcendent quality of life afforded by these ancient mountains. They teach me, and they touch me deeply. It is my great hope that as we deepen our awareness of this complex and essential connection with Nature, we can begin to heal the earth and ourselves.

Deborah Squier 

www.DeborahSquier.com

squierd@bellsouth.net

Studio visits by appointment 

~ Commisions welcomed ~

(828) 216-8806  

Represented by Blue Spiral 1 

m.manes@bluespiral1.com