www.timesherald.com/news/local/one-artists-pandemic-journey/article_a566b9a4-80e1-11eb-b6f7-3b773d89a050.html

One artist's pandemic journey

• By M. English For MediaNews Group
•  
  • Mar 11, 2021

When COVID-19 restrictions began changing “normal” in March 2020, Gillian Pokalo, an art teacher at Plymouth Meeting Friends School, was on a plane with several students, returning home from PMFS’s 50th Mexican exchange program.
But as Pokalo looks back, she realizes her real journey played out at home as she spent much of the past year “asking myself what I’m doing here, what significance it has and how I can best help and serve this planet with my skills.”
“We took off from Mexico with the grumblings of what was going on here in the U.S., but there, it seemed completely abstract until we were navigating empty airports,” she remembers. “We arrived home the day everything shut down. I process everything in my life through the lens of my work, so the photos I took in Mexico became the subject of a series. As the pandemic wore on, I wound up uncharacteristically destroying all of that work because there was suddenly nowhere to show my art, and I felt, at the time, no reason to make it. It was truly heartbreaking.”
During the summer months, Pokalo grew a dyer’s garden and cultivated medicinal herbs. She also took photos of rural Pennsylvania and – during a visit to her sister — Vermont. Those photos inspired her “to create a series where I attempted to find ways to make peace with the then-current state of our country by making work about rural America.”
“I used the plants from my garden in cyanotypes, which formed the skies in my pieces on wood panel, and then painted them using encaustic paints,” she says. “The processes I used took more time. Cyanotypes take several minutes to hours, depending on the quality of light, and working with encaustics involves meticulous layering of colors and scraping away layers. In working with the wax, I felt like I had some control over something.”
As the weeks progressed, Pokalo made a pair of espadrilles, crocheted 100 snowflakes into a tapestry, sewed masks, created a paper theater piece for a Vermont festival, did a lot of reading, sewed a new wardrobe, “got better” at painting portraits, learned how to carve wooden spoons and – come fall – happily reconnected with her students.
Months later, her participation in a mid-January exhibit called “Re-create” at Paragon Gallery and Framing in Phoenixville brought unexpected rewards. The show “consisted of five women artists, who all created an installation piece that was a reflection on current times and…set the tone for the new year.”


“My piece was inspired by my time in Iceland, which, throughout all of this, has been the place where I’ve longed to be and I’ve drawn strength from,” Pokalo continues. “It was an interpretation of the map of Iceland, landmarked by its abandoned farmhouses. Those abandoned places are what remains, in spite of everything they’ve endured, and they took on a deeper meaning in the creation of my piece — titled ‘Re: main.’
“In it, the viewer would walk through a silk tent that extended from floor to ceiling. Paper models of the farmhouses illuminated the way while shadows of the abandoned farmhouses were cast from my photographic imagery. Unassembled paper models were there for the taking so that people could cut them out and assemble them, write an intention for the year ahead and place an LED light inside to illuminate their paths ahead. Standing in the tent, the viewer was surrounded by prints of Icelandic wildflowers as though he or she was in a field of them. The piece required me to learn how to paint on silk and was almost too big for my studio. It was so therapeutic to work that large because I had to paint with my whole body, and I loved it.”
Pokalo believes the piece “instilled a rhythm for working that is currently carrying me through the winter months.”
“My newest painting has taken on a color palette from the view from my studio window,” she says. “I’m back to working on multiple pieces at the same time. In other pieces, I’ve started to work with layers of resin and acrylic poured paint. The resin takes days to cure, while the acrylic pour takes a long time to move across the panel. In both cases, they take time…or they mark time.”
Reflecting on the past 12 months, Pokalo finds her work “feels more significant in its scarcity.”
“It’s been a year of learning and trying new things because I have the time to do so,” she says. “I’ve learned more digital media platforms than I know the passwords for, how to teach online…and experienced a myriad of online art festivals, virtual tours, online music festivals, workshops and more. I’m amazed at how the creative community transitions into virtual reality. It’s gritty, low-fi and beautifully human despite being distanced.

The next stage of the process happens in my studio. Of the hundreds of photographs I take, I whittle them down until I find the photographs that are emblamatic of and best allude to an experiential and emotive sense of the places I experience when I'm there. I search for elements that tell the story of their place of origin. I then develop the images in black and white for screen printing and I burn the images as silkscreens. 

While out and about I noticed weeds and wildflowers, and I collected them as I made my way along the roads. It never ceases to amaze me how much biodiversity exists in fields and meadows. I wanted to capture a sense of time and the best way was to cyanotype the collection of wildflowers I collected. Cyanotype, one of the earliest forms of photography, relies on the light of the sun to create a chemical reaction, leaving behind a brilliant and distinctive blue dye. Because the cyanotype emulsion is liquid, I painted with light around the screen printed photographic imagery. 

In a way I saw this series as documentation and meditation. I was here, now. Before the backdrop of a challenging collective experience, there was beauty to be found. This was a collaboration with nature, extended further by the use of encaustic, which is painting with pigmented, molten wax. With roots that can be traced to ancient Egypt, encaustic paintings have existed for centuries. As i reflect on these times I draw strength from the history of artists who came before, using this medium, and all the human story that connects our current experience to the past. 

Check out the series in person at Chester County Studio Tour and purchase pieces from this series from my shop

There is still time to sign up to take one of my workshops this winter session! 

Printmaking Without A Press
Community Arts Phoenixville 
Tuesdays, 6:30-8:30pm
Jan 14-Feb 25 (5 sessions plus an open studio)
In this class we'll cover a lot of printmaking techniques: screen printing, intaglio, block printing, monoprinting, and more! No class Feb 4. 
https://www.communityartsphoenixville.org/adult-classes

Discovering Screen Printing
Main Line Art Center
Thursdays, 6:30-8:30pm
Jan 9-Jan 30 (4 sessions)
If you've ever wanted to screen print, this is your class! I'll show you how to go from your photographs to burning a silkscreen, to working with your images on virtually any (flat) surface!
https://public.mainlineart.org/public/ClassDisplay.faces

Screen Printing on Clay (co-taught with Sharon Bartmann)
Black Hound Clay Studio
Sat Jan 11-Sun Jan 12
Pretty much what it sounds like: a blast.
https://www.blackhoundclay.com/classes-workshops/screenprinting-on-clay

Block Printing Demo at Artists and Craftsmen, Chestnut Hill
Sat Jan 25, 11am - 1pm
Learn how to use Speedball products to create your own block prints!
https://www.facebook.com/events/486314172001013/

Here's the spring show lineup thus far, and now with an exciting twist! I'M A HOST STUDIO FOR CHESTER COUNTY STUDIO TOURS! 
Check out the website for all the details below:
www.chestercountystudiotour.com/Studios/4

In August, Nat and I returned to Iceland and drove up to the Westfjords, with the goal of reaching Isafjordur. The weather was so kind to us, and we were able to photograph some incredible vistas, with long, colorful sunsets that stretched across an endless sky. He returned home and I was able to stay on at 1x6 and work on the start to this series. I burned screens using the sun's light, taught a workshop at Bokasafn Reykjanesbaer, and painted a refrigerator and a headboard in the Guesthouse. Those paintings formed the foundation for these works. In them, I am reflecting on the places I photographed and the stories behind each of these abandoned farmhouses. I think of the conversations that inform these works and the emotive effect each place had on me. I think of the music that accompanied each piece and the kindness of the people surrounding and supporting the making of these pieces. And I'm humbled and grateful.

When my college roommate and very close friend suggested that the two of us should go to Europe during my spring break, neither of us really believed it could happen, until the right airfare, the right connections, and the right dates all lined up beautifully. And, blink, blink, there we were, landing in Paris. Our trip took us to Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, Genoa, then to France to experience Nice and St. Remy and Provence. In a glorious whirlwind, we experienced some of the most gorgeous cities Europe has to offer, and needless to say I came home with more photographs and inspiration than I can fit in a brief paragraph. It wasn't until summer that I was finally able to start to work through some of the ideas I had, as school in spring is a whirlwind itself. Here are some of the pieces I created, and as time goes on I'm sure I'll revisit this imagery again. 

Photographic inspiration is everywhere. My morning commute to school, a trip to the grocery store, a quick errand downtown...every day I encounter the perfect compositions that lead to new work. Sometimes I'll drive past a building for weeks, plotting the moment when I could come back, when the light is right, and there's not too much traffic, to get the right shot. Sometimes, the moment is just right. Sometimes I'm a tourist in my own town, or I'll get word about a particular place that has a history that needs to be documented. In any way, there are moments that need to be part of my artwork and so they are. Southeastern PA, in all its seasonal forms, is a beautiful area in which to live and work. 

My work starts with my photographs. I take photos of places that are abandoned and forgotten, because I'm fascinated by the stories those structures tell. Behind each of those photos are levels of stories. The ones I choose to I develop as silkscreens are those images that at once are distinctive of their place of origin, but can also be anonymous and at once be a symbolic shorthand for any place. I print those images over my paintings and then paint back into them, using acrylics or encaustic paints. Each piece I create is made as an original. It's not part of an edition, nor is it reproduced by mechanical means. I think of these pieces as the meeting place between printmaking, photography, and fine art. 

All images (c) Gillian Pokalo, 2018