Marge Luttrell Encaustic

I am sorry I didn't get to speak to the artist at the Central Pennsylvania Art Festival because Ms. Luttrell's works looked great. I noticed that she incorporated old photographs in her work. He art made me think of another artist from Tennessee, Beverly Hayden, who we met here.

I overheard Ms. Luttrell talking with another admirer about her process - encaustic - and the fact that she teaches the process - this August in Peter's Valley School of Crafts in New Jersey. I found this definition of encaustic at the Encaustic Art Institute.

Encaustic is a Greek word meaning “to heat or burn in” (enkaustikos). Heat is used throughout the process, from melting the beeswax and varnish to fusing the layers of wax. Encaustic consists of natural bees wax and dammar resin (crystallized tree sap). The medium can be used alone for its transparency or adhesive qualities or used pigmented. Pigments may be added to the medium, or purchased colored with traditional artist pigments. The medium is melted and applied with a brush or any tool the artist wishes to create from. Each layer is then reheated to fuse it to the previous layer.

Ms. Luttrell explains her process as such:

Featuring torn letters, maps, bits of script and old ephemera from bygones past, Margie Luttrell’s encaustic collages tease the viewer by awakening a desire for the rest of the story. Fascinated by language, symbols and the textures of all things aged, Luttrell builds levels of meaning and information into each piece.
The goal is to take images from one time period in order to construct another, then exploring how the mind jumps back and forth between the two and transcends interpretation.
Marge Luttrell hails from Tennessee by way of New Jersey. A collage artist for over forty years she discovered the inherent joys of wax painting (encaustic) seven years ago.
She is the recipient of a Fulbright, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and A National Endowment for the Humanities Grant. Last year she lived and worked as an artist/teacher in Switzerland.

I took this image from her web site:


It turns out Ms. Luttrell was at Jazz Fest in NOLA this year with another artist we talked about earlier. I am sorry I didn't get the chance to see her work when I was there. Also, interestingly, she was in Turkey earlier this year as well, according to her promotional card.