ARTIST PROFILE Expanded Digital Edition Content KAMI MENDLIK Intuition Informed by Training As a single mother, it was challenging for Minnesota artist Kami Mendlik to pursue a disciplined, professional art education. As she found time to develop her skills and gain experience, she became motivated more by her subconscious responses to subjects and less by the specific details of what she observed. Throughout the recent election cycle, candidates have struggled to convince voters they have warm, supportive, empathetic personalities. Kami Mendlik will never have a problem projecting that kind of personality, as a painter or a teacher. Her oil paintings reveal a deep love of the landscape, an excitement about the colors and forms of a still life arrangement, and a passion for sharing her observations of nature. As a teacher, she presents herself as a lifelong student of art and a resource to be used by others who want to share her enthusiasm for painting. Like many artists profiled in PleinAir, Mendlik was encouraged by her parents and teachers to pursue her interest in art. That support increased when she won a poster contest in the second grade, and grew even more three years later, when her mother persuaded a local instructor to admit her into an adult oil painting class. In time, Mendlik connected with artist Mary Pettis, who introduced her to Field of Golden Rod 2012, oil, 24 x 30 in. October-November 2012 / www.pleinairmagazine.com
Beach Club Madeline Island 2012, oil on canvas board, 8 x 10 in. Collection of Bill and Barb Young Morning Lilies on the Pond Private collection Photo courtesy Red Wing Gallery, Red Wing, MN www.pleinairmagazine.com / October-November 2012
Expanded Digital Edition Content ARTIST PROFILE Nason Road Collection of John Pazlar ARTIST DATA NAME: Kami Mendlik BIRTHDATE: 1973 LOCATION: Stillwater, MN INFLUENCES: Levitan, Frits Thaulow, George Inness, Monet, Sorolla, Cecilia Beaux, and Nicolai Fechin. WEBSITE: www.kamipolzin.com alla prima painting, the sight-size method, and other aspects of a disciplined, classical art education. Later Mendlik studied with another serious professional artist in her state, Joseph Paquet, who worked with her three days a week for three years while her skills and understanding increased. From that point on, Mendlik s story is unlike that of other dedicated artists, in that she became a single parent and had to earn a living to support herself and two children. She did that by selling paintings and renderings of local historic buildings through galleries near her home in Stillwater, Minnesota. My kids were in day care for three hours a day, she says, and that was my only time to continue my art education, by reading instructional books, working through painting exercises, and researching the techniques of great painters of the past. I started going out to do plein air paintings to learn more about color and form directly from nature, and I was particularly interested in painting the lakes and streams near my home. I have always been fascinated by both the structure and mystery of the moving water and the surrounding plant material. That s one of the reasons I named my school the St. Croix River School of Painting. Training & Influence Mendlik s approach to oil painting is a blend of the training she received and the influences of other artists. For example, her handling of color is based in part on Paquet s teachings about the prismatic palette, instruction in two workshops with Camille Into the Reflection 2012, oil, 20 x 16 in. October-November 2012 / www.pleinairmagazine.com
June Light on the Pond 2012, oil, 20 x 30 in. Przewodek, and the color charts she made while following Richard Schmid s recommendations in his seminal book Alla Prima (Stove Prairie Press, FL), and in part on her own explorations of the way her chosen palette of colors works for her. When painting outdoors, I use a warm and cool of each primary color, titanium white, and a few extra colors, Mendlik explains. Those include cadmium yellow light or cadmium lemon [Winsor & Newton], cadmium red light [Rembrandt], alizarin crimson, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, and titanium white. The extra colors I add are viridian, magenta, permanent rose, and transparent red oxide. About half the time I make thumbnail sketches with graphite to consider how I might divide the space of a composition, but other times I apply a wash of transparent red oxide on the canvas, wipe off the surface to get a thin, transparent warm tone, indicate a structured drawing with a thin mixture of a dark color, and then mass in the large average shapes. Mendlik continues, There isn t a strong division of lights and darks at this early stage because marking the extremes of the value range would yield a rather disjointed composition. I prefer to indicate the lighter shapes by wiping paint off the canvas and building up the middle and dark values. In the studio, I will keep working until there is a harmony to the image, stop and put the canvas aside for a few days, and then reevaluate the image. Outdoors, I take paintings as far as I can and then Sunlit Top Planes Private collection www.pleinairmagazine.com / October-November 2012
Expanded Digital Edition Content ARTIST PROFILE August Evening on the Pond Morning Fire 2012, oil, 12 x 12 in. Courtesy Tamarack Gallery, Stillwater, MN October-November 2012 / www.pleinairmagazine.com
leave them alone. I seldom do any touchup work after I leave a location because I want to maintain the fresh, immediate response to the scene. Mendlik is more inclined to make thumbnail sketches when she is working in the studio and has the luxury of time to carefully evaluate a potential composition. I make as many as a dozen small graphite sketches in which I consider the abstract divisions of space, and then I make both a 6 x 8-inch blackand-white value study and a 6 x 8-inch color study, she says. It helps me to separately consider the overall composition, then the relative values, and then the color shapes. I then begin massing in the average shapes based on the plan established in the studies, and I continue painting in an alla prima, wetinto-wet manner until the painting is about 90 percent complete. I do refer to photographs along the way for information, but almost all the painting is based on my sketches and memory of the subject. Intuitive Approach One might think that with all her classical training, Mendlik would paint in a tight, controlled, and detailed manner, but she speaks about responding to her intuition and allowing parts of her canvases to remain open to interpretation. A painting doesn t have to be a literal interpretation of what we observe, she says. It exists because of the artist s effort, but also because of an intersection of time, place, and mood. The more skilled and well trained painters are, the more they can be free to trust their abilities and open themselves up to the emotional aspects of color, form, and light. I sometimes find myself going into a trance-like state in which I don t have to consciously think about the color mixtures on my palette or the edges of shapes and I can just respond to what I am feeling at that moment. Mendlik regularly teaches in her studio, and she offers short-term workshops on various aspects of the painting process. For example, one day a week she offers a class on the fundamentals of painting, and two days a week she meets with advanced students, all through her Peonies and a Mason Jar 2012, oil, 20 x 16 in. Collection Doug and Christie Hlavacek St. Croix River School of Painting. The shortterm workshops might be a one-day session on color temperature or a two-day course on still life painting, and her five-day programs might be scheduled in a picturesque location where Kami Polzin Mendlik painting on location she can teach various aspects of plein air painting. Students in these classes find it helpful that Mendlik sets challenges for them, and often accepts the same challenges herself. For example, when she asked students to make value charts with combinations of ivory black and titanium white, the instructor also made a chart. And when she asked others to paint the same subject a number of times, Mendlik set a goal of painting a pond on her family s farm five days a week for the entire summer, no matter what the conditions. My son drove out with me and helped me clear a place beside the beaver pond where I could stand, she says. I stood in the same place each day and painted small studies of the light, color, atmosphere, and mood of each day. The passion Mendlik has for painting and teaching certainly comes through in these class sessions and workshops, and they help her paintings connect with people who have a similar appreciation for nature. M. Stephen Doherty is Editor of PleinAir magazine. www.pleinairmagazine.com / October-November 2012