Interview
Elaine Soltis
Elaine Soltis is a mixed-media artist and uses a contemporary technique and design. She is expanding her canvas painting process to connect with the community. Creative layering gives her story, dimension, mark, color, and view. A deeply appreciative respect for the concerns, of a diminishing natural landscape, is a source of inspiration, question and answering possibility. Her studio, 211, at the Goggle Works, has given an ongoing representation of synergy through the arts. She constructs, presents, and applies new identifying expressions of the journey of beauty. Both during and after, hope for our world’s regenerative forces, propels all that is found as art in life and life in art. Interviewing other artists, writing authentically while participating in both stage and film, she hopes to continue a personal study and action of reduce, reuse, recycle, renew, and regenerate.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I am a mixed media artist at the Goggle Works Center for the Arts, Reading, PA, Studio 211, for the past 15 years. I continue to work toward exciting possibilities, surrendering to new techniques and mediums. I have complete appreciation of this opportunity. When I first decided to undertake exploration of a creative path, it was making a long-awaited dream actually happen. A little before the rise of mixed media, as it is known today, I often felt alone in my pursuit. I started by implementing three ideas that would occur before I fell asleep at night. I read about the power of the subconscious, and my list grew! I likened it to being a chef, using the recipes of my subconscious detail. The layering involved study of how mediums could be partnered or were processed independently for a textured relief and interest. I was inventing, and there was no stopping me!”
What inspires you?
“What inspires me is the natural world as I experience it. Living near a woodland region, I often marvel at how the forest could change from second to minute, with light and shadow playing hide-and-seek!”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“During the pandemic of COVID, I submitted my images of art to the United Nations call for art. It was an online educational search for original art depicting climate awareness. I was shortlisted within that week of entry. Although, I didn’t make the final publication, it became a personal quest in my new work.”
How would you describe your work?
“Describing my work is a joy! It brings animation instantly, I have been told. My art is a visual wonderland that words sometimes fail to express. The monologue continues, embracing its very own story of vibrant color, unusual found treasures, and a dimension that invites touch.”
Which artists influence you most?
“I continually fall in love with the work of artists everywhere, any place, and any time! When I first started to formally name myself as an artist on name cards, I recalled the work by Gustav Klimt. His bold, glittering detail and compositions inspired me. I felt that if I could go back in time, I would want to interview him. The elegance in that window of his view and how much of the vision depended on fantasy versus reality were a new insight. Maybe that unique combination is responsible for the impact of layering with embellishments, as I have been known to do!”
“Describing my work is a joy! It brings animation instantly, I have been told. My art is a visual wonderland that words sometimes fail to express.”
What is your creative process like?
“I first close my eyes and think of an intentional phrase, by placing my hand on the substrate. I choose three colors that I love simply representing emotion, season, or design theme and space. I will randomly choose placement with quick washes of color. After drying, I might sketch a design with a gold ink pen. I aim to bring in quick spatial shaping. More or less imperfect detail might happen in that action. I guess it is like forming a connection that will stay in my mind as I develop the painting. Somehow, the marking always seems to reappear, even if it is forgotten during technique processing. Layers are added in the passage of hours, days, or weeks. It depends on deadlines, projects, and a new debut of materials! A soft dry, as I call it, allows for notes of intentions for the next session. A specific area that should be revisited is listed and scribbled on anything available. I never seem to know where a notepad disappears. During intense sessions of industry, I have often used the wall. ”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I often think artists create reflections. It is of everything and also of a void. The act of art making may provide questions and hopeful answers. Universal aspects, both real and unreal, find artists defining, exploring, maintaining, and celebrating a very unique signature and significance.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“I started a little later than most in dedicating myself to painting. I wanted to immerse myself fully into its intoxicating lure. I am so fortunate and excited that each new day brings people, ideas, and the wonder of expression my way, both subliminal and sublime! I have had so many solo, collaborative, and group exhibitions through community, state, and national shows, in person and online, that I find myself very interested in a chance to retreat with an entirely new focus on the world above us. Goggle Works gave me the incentive to participate in so many different projects and activities. I have made what was just a breath away a reality. Exhibiting has identified me as a working professional artist. My work has been shown in museums, schools, community functions, films, regions, educational galleries, private homes, and fundraising events, and even a train station. Art continues to amaze me and keeps me balancing simply being human.”
