BY PAT FARNELLI
Correspondent
Artist Kathryn LeSoine hangs some of her encaustic art inside a historic granary north of Montrose on Sprout Road.
When photographer Kathryn LeSoine and husband Will Chamberlin found a second home north of Montrose six years ago, her relationship with her camera was turned upside down.
She first saw the charming farmhouse on one side of Sprout Road, the red barn on the other, as rural countryside to be conserved, not as a separate home from the one she already shared with her husband in Dalton.
At that time, Will was serving as president on the Countrywide Conservancy board of directors.
“We actually bought the house and acreage for conservation purposes, but I wanted to live there eventually,” LeSoine said.
After a 12 year career as a wedding photographer, LeSoine decided to get back to her artistic roots.
“We bought this house. I wanted to get back to my art; and I fell in love with chickens. Eventually, I closed down my wedding photography studio,” she said.
An encaustic work by Kathryn LeSoine, “April,” can be viewed on the Artists’ Open House tour on Oct. 10-12.
LeSoine lived as a young adult in Los Angeles; but returned to the east coast and attended East Stroudsburg University where she earned a degree in psychology.
“One of the worst messages that I’d gotten from my parents was that I never finished anything I started. This was when I broke that pattern,” LeSoine said.
“It was easy to start a program as an adult student, and surprisingly inexpensive. They practically paid me to go to school,” she said.
She took a position as the director of New Horizons, a program for single parents and displaced homemakers.
Photography was always part of her life. “As a social worker, sometimes we would put on our sneaks and walk around neighborhoods. I found an enlarger at a garage sale and set up a bathroom as a darkroom, and started doing art photography.”
But her art photography career was temporarily derailed during an eight-year legal battle over some of her photos. She was eventually cleared and, at the advice of her husband, turned to professional studio photography. “Will said, ‘You have to get back on your horse,;” LeSoine said.
In 1998, she launched a wedding photography business. “I discovered how exciting and lucrative wedding photography could be. I did some very impressive weddings, including one for an heiress of the Pillsbury company,” LeSoine said.
But then she fell in love with chickens, and the poetry of poultry, and she turned to her country setting near Montrose for images for a fresh start in life.
The once rickety buildings on the property have been restored and redesigned. Stone walls, steps and a patio accent garden areas lining the drive and walkways. Mellow wind chimes play a tune in the October breeze.
The house and matching granary are painted yellow, and a geodesic dome is located nearby. Across the road a red barn with a fenced pasture and pond provide spacious quarters for her poultry, and several bee hives are also kept there.
The granary has been re-purposed into a two story gallery and studio area, where LeSoine is now preparing and hanging encaustic works for the annual Artists Open House Tour.
LeSoine said, “I stumbled across some encaustic artists in a gallery back in the early 1990s and knew instantly encaustic was for me. I took some workshops, consumed all the books written about technique, and knew, when the time came to come home to my personal expression, that I would be using wax.”
She begins with a photo, which she enlarges to fit a wooden substrate in various sizes and shapes.
Lately, squares are her favorite: “Something about a square is really fun.” She applies the image to the wooden backing, and then it is flattened and cured.
Sometimes, she adds to the image – drawing with pencil, coloring in the image, adding collage elements, oil/wax pigments, or paints.
Next, she applies a mixture of beeswax and damar resin. The resin hardens the wax, and the wax gives the image an added dimension of depth and texture.
“The pieces you see are mostly a blend of image and beeswax,” she explains. “The hangings are dipped in wax which gives them a perfect weight while the framed sturdy pieces on board are all worked in various ways: hot wax makes a smooth surface, cooler wax creates texture,” she said.
For example, one image, “April,” began with a photo of a leafless maple tree. It was modified by removing all but a few branches, then adding a group of flying geese, followed by an extreme close-up of oxidizing copper.
“The image takes you down a road, and either it doesn’t work at all, or it is effortless,” LeSoine said.
Those interested in visiting LeSoine’s studio and gallery can follow the directions in the artists open house brochure or artiststour.com on Saturday – Monday, Oct. 10-12, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
For more information about the 19th annual Artists Open House Tour, see pages 10-11.
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