Interview with Maxine Martell
MAXINE MARTELL
Museo is proud to be presenting work by distinguished artist Maxine Martell this October.
A longtime Whidbey resident, Maxine started her artistic career in Seattle. Her impressive CV lists exhibits in prominent galleries and museums through the years. She is in many private collections as well as having been acquired by esteemed public collections, including the Seattle/Tacoma International Airport and Nordstrom stores across the United States.
Winter, Maxine Martell
On a personal level, we love visiting Maxine in her delightful studio. Full of her history in paintings and drawings, bursting with her intellectual curiosity, a gorgeous view of the prairie and water, and, when we come to visit, always a plate of delicious snacks (and a nice glass of wine) it is wonderful.
Maxine’s garment pieces are, to us, distinctive examples of her personal narratives, her technical skills, and her joy of painting.
Artist’s Statement / Raiment:
When I began the garments I was remembering an Italian wedding. The guests pinned money
on the bride’s dress. I thought they ought to pin phonographs on her. At the moment she
embodied the generations before and the ones to follow. The pattens on the gowns (vetch,
willow, rosehips, lace/ice) echo the season’s of a woman’s life, the titling of the planet And the
seasons bring us food, a banquet if we are lucky.
The Interview:
I am so fascinated by the, are they photographs or postcards? In your pieces, especially the 4 season coats – I can’t stop looking at them. Are they from real photographs or postcards, and are they all people and; places you know? The sense of connection with place and time, because of those elements in your pieces, is so interesting. Where were you when you painted those four coats – both physically, and in the world around you?
All our minds are filled with photographs and postcards and they are pretty universal—birthdays, holidays, travels, families, sweethearts, friends. All I had to do was think for a minute and from behind my eyes up would pop snapshots from the season. They were ephemeral but became real as I painted them.
The coats were painted here on the island. My studio is in a field where I am close to the natural world, to vetch and rosehip and puddles with skins of ice. To be in my studio is to be in a place but also to be in my mind and body.
What was the genesis of the coats? Did you plan on doing four or did they come one by one? Did you sketch and paints all four in sequence?
A photographer friend had access to a collection of vintage fashion. One of the garments he photographed captured me. It’s lace was too intricate to replicate in a drawing so I created a pattern of my own. That led to drawing a second garment with different lace. Then the idea of the seasons and their flora arrived along with the memory of an Italian wedding I once attended.
A series often begins with an individual painting which suggests variations. Once begun I work on several paintings at a time. They call back and forth to one another until I abandon them.
What are you interested in these days? Any book recommendations or music or interesting things you have been reading about?
I’m currently reading “The Living Mountain” by Nan Shepherd about walking in the Cairngorms mountains in Scotland. Beautiful prose. Also, the latest Thomas McGuane story, “Take Half, Leave Half” in the New Yorker (Oct. 10, 2022). So good.
I mostly listen to Jazz. I like the improvisational aspects of it.
On Instagram I love to see and hear the instruments and musicians that find release and joy in sound.
Today, I’m planting some Iris bulbs as a promise to spring.
Denim Jacket
