Kasia Baker
Conversations with Art
by lucretia voigt indpendent arts writer
Kasia Baker did not start painting until she was 39. She had lived on Nantucket, moved away, had a child, come back. During that time, however, the paintings were waiting for her. "I finally cleared enough space in my life to do something like that," she explained when asked how she found her voice in a paintbrush. "I used to make boxes with found objects, that kind of thing. I really enjoyed doing that. I always found painting intimidating, then all of a sudden I thought 'Who cares?'"

It is that conversation with herself that has allowed the art inside her to be heard. "When you're painting, when you're in the painting mode, one of the things that happens is you're being confrontational with yourself. How far am I willing to go? Am I willing to try this? In order to keep painting, you have to have your soul on the canvas. That's the whole thing. It's your voice. You take what you see and you make your own thing with it."

Baker's interpretations of life gravitate to women. In her Icon series, she used various techniques to bring energy to her subjects, giving nods to the masters she respects. "I like so many people. Matisse is the master for me. I like Modigliano, and of course Picasso. You don't want to look at him and go paint, though. Some artists are so strong that it's hard not to paint like them, you have to work hard to overcome that," she explained. While her Icon series explored many techniques, it was evident that Baker had made them hers.

Baker is a self taught artist. Never one to be called timid, once she began to paint she immersed herself in the art form. "I look at a lot of art books because it's a way to learn. I like a wide range of things," she said. "I love those little icons, that kind of medieval painting, Roman and Pompeian. I'm really interested in those early influences because I'm interested in mythology. Alot of the women that I paint have to do with those mythologies."

Baker's women are aspects of herself, bits of her life that have found their way to a canvas. "I like portraiture, but I don't use models," she explained when asked about the many women she has brought to life. "I'm not really interested in depicting a person, or how people are made either. I'm trying to find my own way to make a woman. I'm not interested in painting men. I've tried. It's probably because that's what I'm painting - my experience. I do paint from life, but the life is my experience. It's not a model in front of me."

Baker's painting "Blue Sari" began as part of her life memories. It depicts an iconic woman wrapped in a blue sari, her eyes gazing out. When asked about the painting, Baker described a family experience. "My father [Russell Baker] used to travel with President Eisenhower as a reporter. He would bring back all these trinkets from various countries. He brought back this blue sari with silver thread that my mother, who used to wear her hair like this, wore. She used to wear really dark lipstick. This is not my mother, but it is from my life."

It is that ability to draw from her own life and experiences, to allow the art to speak through her that is evoked on her canvasses. Baker listens to the art, conversing with the muse that is in her. When asked how she decided what style to paint each picture in, she laughed. "I don't decide. The act of painting, for me, is the painting. The painting and I are speaking, we're having a conversation so it is what it wants to be. I have a certain guidance to it, but it guides me too. I don't really know how to describe that, it's just my painting process."

Just like Baker, her women are individuals, each with a story all their own. If we believe that the eyes are the window to the soul, it becomes evident why Baker's paintings are so mesmerizing. No matter the style that Baker is using, the eyes are always intense. "I think you should automatically go to the eyes," she agreed. "Everything builds the face but the eyes are how you really look into it." It is through those eyes that you become acquainted with the soul of the painting, the soul conversing with the artist. "I do think you can feel that and I like to do that in all different kinds of paintings. You achieve that when the painting is being true to itself, and you are being true to the painting," she said.

Baker is true to the painting, to the subject and the technique. "It's important to me how a piece is painted," she explains. "A painting is not just a description of something, it's how you describe it, so the physical paint is important. The use of paint where the paint is its own entity and stands alone from what the image is, I like it when that works. [John Singer] Sargent does that. If you walk up to a Sargent painting it falls apart before your very eyes. Then you step back."

Her dedication to the proper medium led her to use oils instead of acrylics. "I painted with acrylics the first couple of years I painted, but they dry too fast, literally in five minutes," she laughed. "Painting is problem solving, that's one of the things you're really doing. So if you don't have the time to solve the problem you're going to come up with the same solution every time. That's why I like oil. You can take them off, even the next day. If it's not working, you just get rid of it. You have time to look at things and to make decisions."

It is that ability to let her art talk, to be silent in order to hear the soul of her canvas, that drives her paintings. "If I'm interested in something, I do it, and I do it as far as I'm able. I don't believe in half measures." She lets her paintings decide when they are finished, whether ending in a quick process, or an incubation time of several years. "It's always for me the doing, not the product. The product is nice, and you can see where you've been with the product, but it's not the point. I'm glad I make a product that people are interested in, because it makes it a lot easier," she laughed, explaining her need to let the art speak through her. "Whatever I am, I am going as far as I can. I think that in anybody's life that's the art form

of life. You're making that effort." I

Kasia Baker's art can be seen at Old Spouter Gallery during their Art of the Season show, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. or by appointment by calling 508-228-4474.