Welcome To My Blog

My New Website: waynebien.com

How It All Began

The sign over the doorway said Painting and Drawing. Another one on the office door said Nancy Klapp. It’s Wednesday morning about 7:45 and my first formal art class started at eight. The studio was full. The bright young faces were calm as they laughed and talked to each other. Much different than how I felt at thirty-nine being the oldest student in the class.

The drawing desks were arranged in a big circle taking up about half of the studio. I chose one just inside the door, which made for an easy departure if I chose to do so. I sat facing a large garage door and a regular size door that were part of a ten foot wall made of concrete just like the other ones in the room except they were covered with cork and had art work hanging from them, which already had me doubting if I belonged in this class. 

The talking stopped as I heard a voice behind me. “Good morning. I’m Nancy Klapp but please call me Nancy.” She walked behind me and to my right and I noticed a woman with straight blond hair that reached her shoulders and went a few inches down her back. The smile on her face was welcoming and her blue eyes spoke of the excitement she felt about teaching. “This is two dimensional design. How many of you are art majors?” Most of the class including me raised their hands. “I want to go around the room and have you introduce yourself and let us know why you are taking this class and what type of art background you have if any.” My hands started to sweat and I considered taking advantage of my close proximity to the door.  

As we went around the room I felt more and more like I didn’t belong as I heard stories of parents who were famous artist and multiple years of high school painting and drawing classes. There were two young women who had no art background and were only taking this class to fulfill the humanities requirement for graduation. They made me feel a little better about my course selection. When it was my turn I told the story of my grandfather and his fame, even though none of these kids were even born before he died, and that I was finally getting around to finishing those art lessons from so long ago. Nancy seemed interested in what I said. But I received blank stares from my classmates.

Nancy gave out the syllabus for the class. The topics covered were all things I knew I could do and my confidence grew. I no longer thought about sneaking out the door behind me.

The class was four hours long and when 12 o’clock came the rest of the class hurried out the door leaving me alone. I sat and stared at the artwork on the walls before getting up and taking a tour around the room observing each piece carefully. My study of the artistic ability was disrupted when Nancy came back into the studio. “I will see you next week.” I shook my head as I explained that I had signed up for the other two classes she was teaching on Wednesday and would be there until 10PM when her drawing class was over.

At 1PM the painting class started and we did the same introduction routine only this time Nancy asked questions about my grandfather before we went on to the next student. I explained about Koester’s Bakery and how he had painted the picture of the little girl that was on their bread wrappers. The four hours went by very quickly.

The drawing class was the same. And though I had just spent fourteen hours in that studio I felt invigorated and had trouble going to sleep that night as I lay on my bed with thoughts of projects I could make and ideas of how they should look.

In the paintings I did during the next few months I started to experience a way of self-expression that gave me great pleasure, but also a sense of peace within myself. A feeling of joy that was not boastful but born by an inner Light where what ever I expressed on the canvas, which sometimes brought controversy or was vandalized, was still accepted as mine, my thoughts, my ideas. The concept my grandfather taught me many years before that continues in my art today.

I now have a website: 
waynebien.com

My latest paintings are on display and for sale on my website: http://waynebien.bigcartel.com/

All of my paintings are for sale in my 
eBay store http://stores.ebay.com/longfordsaddlerystringsandart 

There are prints available for sale at http://www.artpal.com/twospirit51

Another In The Series

This is my latest painting in the 80th Street series. In this one I stuck with the abstract architectural forms done with a limited palette of blues and grays.

 

Number Two

This is the second painting in the 80th Street series. I again used abstract architectural forms painted in translucent colors that revel the artistic process used in rendering each of the forms.

My Latest Work

80^th Street #1 is the first of a series of paintings I am working on, which are based on urban architectural and landscape forms rendered in abstract geometric shapes.  The overlapping translucent colors used revel a visual record of the creative process for each painting.  

Old and New Paintings

This painting is an example of a series I did of areas of Assateague National Seashore. I divided the landscape features into geometric shapes painted in earth tones with heavy impasto from using a palette knife to apply the paint.

The paintings I have been working on recently have been influenced by the work of Richard Diebenkorn and the Bay Area Figurative Movement that was founded by Diebenkorn and David Park. This genre combined the influence of abstract expressionism with figurative painting.