My full name is Caroline England. I was born and grew up in Lancaster, PA.

I am currently in my second year at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA
.
Since a young age, family vacations were annual summer happenings: destinations including France, Italy, Greece, Australia, Alaska, Ireland, and England.

I went to the same school for twelve years. I was always the kid who could draw a dog or an interesting jungle scene before anyone else could. Art was something I would do to fill time or impress my other young peers. I didnt take art really seriously (as a life plan or goal) until the end of my junior year when I applied to the highly competitive PA Governor's School of Art for the summer program. To make a long story very short- rejection has generally lead me to enjoyable and meaningful experiences.

One of the most influencial contemporary artist exhibits I have been to was John Currin's solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art in 2003. Regardless of whether I think his art is good or bad. This exhibition and the artist's background made me feel like the rejection was actually a blessing in disguise.

During my first year at Carnegie Mellon University the only art that I got to for myself (non-school related art) was in my tiny 3.5 inch by 5 inch sketchbooks and with my small digital camera. I concentrated on drawing / taking photos of people without them knowing it.

This year I have been doing basically the same thing in my sketch books but I invested in a larger sketchbook, which surprisingly has in turn made me even more particualr about detail.

Now I am working on a series of drawings (not in sketchbook) that involve scenery or happenings in or around my house.

Everything I have ever drawn has been from real life. I do not draw from photographs. I consider myself a mixed media artist who generally works in 2-D.

An interview with comments by the artist.

 

 

 

 

 
Lancaster, PA, where you grew up is not more than a stones throw from
the bustling east coast with all of it's cultural centers and museums.
As a young artist this must have been exciting to have easy access to
all of that. But your family traveled the world on your family
vacations. How to you feel those experiences shaped you as an artist?

The family vacations happened over a period of time- from when my
brother and I (we are twins) were about 7 years old to when we were 18.
It is very hard for a seven year old to appreciate anything. The only
things I remember are the things that had intrigued me as a young child.
In London it was amusement rides, in Australia it was the animals and
the amusement park that I did not get to go to, in Ireland it was all of
the sheep/goats in our way as we drove, in Greece it was the thrill of
living on a boat, in France interest in museums/art began but what I
remember is getting tired and complaining with my brother after we saw
the Mona Lisa. (Recent trips have been the most meaningful.) If I
thought that I would never go back to all of these places than being a
brat on these trips would be the largest regret of my life, but I plan
on returning. As an artist / person these trips let me have a taste of
what traveling is and the benefits to it. (I just wish I had realized it
wh! en I was seven.) oh well.

Don't you think that all of that exposure even as a little brat had
some overriding influence on the way you look at life now as an artist?

yeah, of course. I mean it did I guess I just wish I remembered more about the
places that we all went when I was younger.
(from my sketchbook)
This is a good example of my compulsive behavior that usually comes out in my drawings. Small mark making is something that I enjoy doing, it is a way of concetrating on something that is meaning less. Not to mention that I like how it ends up looking

 

Annelies
This is of a good friend who I went to upper school with in Lancaster, PA. It is a drawing of a drawing of a drawing. I made it during my first semester at Carnegie Mellon University. It was for a conceptual class and (of coarse) had to have a thought out meaning behind it. In the spirit of thinking of myself as a mixed media drawer I decided to play with the meaning of "MIXED MEDIA." And I literally mixed a lot of different mediums together in a bucket and painted with the new medium that I had created. I used water as a thinner to the medium and added charcoal for specific darks. Annelies doesn't like this rendition of herself at all.

The most important trips I have been on were the ones that I traveled
alone. Which is what I have done using the Amtrak train between
Lancaster-Philadelphia-New York City. And going to Italy alone is one of
the best things for any artist to experience.

Italy, hands down. Tell me how making these solo trips is somehow better or more important as you put it?

Family or people you love/deeply care about can make you into a completely different person. When you are on your own and you do not know anyone it is just you and yourself. There is no safety net. Some people enjoy that and some people don't.

The highly competitive PA Governor's School of Art rejected your
application for it's summer program. You said that that has lead you to more enjoyable and meaningful experiences. Explain. How do you feel rejection can be a blessing in disguise?

Before I applied to the PAGSA I wasn’t sure if art was the right thing
for me and if I was the right thing for art. In high school the only
person I knew who was excited about art was my art teacher, Susan
Gottlieb. But by applying to the summer program I got to see the
incredible atmosphere of PAGSA people that supported art. I hadn’t
realized that there is a community that surrounds the process of
creating art. It comforted me. But when I got wait listed for the
program (not completely rejected at least!) I decided to do an alternate
program but in Italy. Rejection is part of being an artist- you just
can’t let rejection end anything.

 

Rejection is also the reason I am at Carnegie Mellon University.

Rejection is a big part of being an artist, and that is part of the
reality that is good to realize. In that light is your being at Carnegie
Mellon University a good thing?

So far I think it has been the best thing for me. (The best thing about that is
that it is impossible to know what it would have been like at other places.)

You list John Currin's exhibition in 2003 at the Whitney Museum of
Art as one of the most influential contemporary art shows regardless if
you think his work is good or bad. First off, do you think his work is
good or bad? Why?

It was one of the most influential contemporary art shows to me whether
his art work is good or bad. I don’t know enough about contemporary art
to make a statement relating to contemporary art as a whole like the
statement in the question. To me his exhibition at the Whitney was
important because it made me realize several things. I love figure
painting. And when researching contemporary artists it was rare for me
to find a figure painter. John Currin’s 2003 exhibition made me realize
figure painting was/is not dead. The good or bad issue: To be honest,
some of John Currin’s paintings absolutely make me cringe. While some of
them are to me flawless and I could look at them everyday for the rest
of my life. Also the day I went to the 2003 Exhibition I read the back
of the pamphlet from it and I found out that John Currin went to the
same school that I was planning on going to. To say the least, it made
me look forward to attending Carnegie Mellon University.

Ballons and a Glove (from my sketchbook)
Again compulsive behavior illustrated by small, small, small mark making. The glove on the left is the result of a drawing on the other side of the paper that had bled through (it was of a glove.) And I took artistic liberties in deciding what the glove should or could look like. The writing in the middle is simply an embaressing dream I had recorded. And the balloons were from life as well. The glove and the balloond were separate occasions

 

Train Man 1
while traveling to Philidelphia on an amtrak train I started sketching sleeping men. I liked this particular drawing so much that I decided to enlarge it and put it on gesso-d mesonite. I ended up determining the mesonite/gesso was not the apporpriate surface to work on. Only paper would do.

 Speaking of exhibitions and how influential or valid they might be;
what in your opinion makes one artist's show more important than an
other?

Viewing art is a very personal thing to each person. With that said… if
I was to guess, a lot of it has to do with luck and coincidence.

What other artists have been important to you?

Carvaggio, Francis Bacon, De Kooning, German Expressionists, Egon
Schiele, Lucian Freud, Andrew Wyeth, Neo Rauch

If you could pick one or two things that move you to create art, what
would they be?

A person sleeping in public

Why is that? That is, i don't disagree with you, I am just curious as
to part of a person sleeping in public does it for you.

It's just a great coincidence if I am in a public place with my sketch book
(my sketch book is always on me) and someone is posed perfectly sleeping.
They are not moving. When people sleep in public they are completely vunerable.

 

(in my sketchbook)
This is a drawing of an elderly man enjoying some jazz at a festival on the top of one of the mountains surrounding aspen, CO. Impulsive cross hatching is one of my favorite things to do. The first sketch that I did of this man was not all that interesting. But after I intially sketched him from life I worked on this drawing for probably 2 - 3 weeks. I kept making lines lines lines and more lines.

The Architect in Training (in my sketchbook)
I had tried to draw this same girl a number of times before this drawing. But every single portrait I had done of her had failed in really horrible ways. So one day I came across her and she was doing one of her architecture assignments on the interior wall of my dorm building and I decided I needed to try to draw her again. So I stared out with a simple line drawing but decided that I needed to make her hair and every thing about her intensified if I was ever going to like the portrait of her. So that is what I did- went all out. There is also a joke at CMU about how all of the architecture students are completely insane individuals and some how this portrait briefly illustrates that mind set.

 

So you are working on getting your Bachelor in Fine Arts at CMU?

Yes, but soon I have to choose between three concentrations- painting drawing and
printmaking OR sculpture installation and site-work OR electronic and time-based work.

And let me guess, you are going to be drawing and painting?

Oh. I'd say there is a fair chance I will do painting drawing and printmaking. I have a
hard time working in 3-D.

(from my sketchbook)
On the left side is are my feet simplified and connected. and on the right side is my complusive behavior! (I didnt realize the reoccuring compulsivness until I wrote this...) I am experimenting with the bleeding through quality of the dots through the paper.

 

(from my sketchbook)
I drew my mother while she was working, but only drew her profile. Came back later to the drawing and decided to add pink stylized hair. The small self portrait on the right was done with ball point pen. Self portraiture has always been a difficult thing for me. There is a lot wrong with this self portrait.

 I have to admit that what drew me to your work were the drawings in
your sketchbook. I am not surprised to find out that your sketchbook is
as important to you as it is. I also find it wonderful that you have
made your sketchbook into an end unto itself rather than simply at place to work out idea for larger pieces. How do you deal with an idea for a larger drawing or painting?

When I have to do a larger drawing or painting for a school assignment I
still plan it in my sketchbook. But usually notes I take for an
assignment or sloppy sketches I do for an assignment usually becomes
part of a finished drawing in the sketchbook. Or I simply put some paint
over the writing if I do not want to incorporate it in the drawing. All
of the planning I do is in my sketchbook, you just can’t see it most of
the time.

In the description to your painting titled Construction you say you
used the same process that you do in your sketchbook. Ummmm, I guess what i want to ask is this; What was more important about this scene or this subject that made you want to do some thing outside of your sketchbook?

A sketchbook is a very private thing. When people look at a sketchbook
it can feel like an invasion of that artist’s privacy. I want to
eliminate the invasion and make my mixed media drawings open for people
to view them.

 

I am betting that the first time that you saw your artwork bleeding
through to the other side of the page you were sort of disappoint.
But for me, this aspect of your sketchbook is one i find the most
endearing, especially that you have embraced it so much as to include it
in the artwork of the next page. It has become so frequent now I have to
wonder, do you ever purposefully draw something on one page with the
hope and vision that you will be able to give the drawing a second life
on the next page?

Yes I do purposefully draw with specific materials so that it appears on
a previous page. But pretty rarely. The first time I wasn’t disappointed
at all. I think being disappointed with “mistakes” is something that
artists do way too often. There is always a way to make a “mistake”
better. Another similar example to this is when you finish a drawing or
a painting and it takes you until it is finished to realize that the
composition is no good. A lot of artists will destroy their work (I
believe Francis Bacon did this a lot.) But it is very easy to fix a
composition but literally ripping the piece of paper in half. Or adding
another element.

Construction
This is one of my most recent/favorite drawings. I live in a large victorian house in a bad neighborhood of Pittsburgh. I have three housemates but I was the first to arrive in August and literally had NOTHING to do around the house for about two weeks. There is a construction site right next to our house that I began to watch often. I finally decided to draw it after living next to it for two weeks. The same tedious small mark making is all over this drawing. But something that I am very proud of is the fact that even though it has very different portions within the compostion it still all fits nicely together. (at least in my mind.) This was also the first drawing I decided to do outside of my sketch book but used the same process as if I was still drawing in my sketchbook.

 

The Reflection of a Reflection (in my sketchbook)
This mark really attracted me after it had bled through from a previous drawing. So I decided to accentuate it properly. I used a big bronze oil crayon.

The most powerful piece based on the bleeding drawing of the
previous page is "The Reflection of a Reflection", it is really
different than most of your work. I have to know, what was the drawing
of on the other page that made the initial image that started this piece
off?

It was the piece titled Erin. This is one of the rare examples of when I
drew on the back to make the front a certain way. Actually it might be
the only time I have ever done this.

 

Your work seems to flow pretty evenly between objective and abstract
or even what be thought of as color field stuff. Where do you see you
being?

Its funny that you asked me this. Because we just had our first critique
in painting class and we had to do a realistic painting. And during the
critique my teacher (who is an abstract painter) told me that he thinks
I am an abstract painter who was stuck doing something realistic (or
objective.) But I feel like I am somewhere in between the two. The other
thing about John Currin that I forgot to mention was the fact that when
he paints he tries to paint realistically (without deforming the bodies
of the women he paints) but it just happens. I feel like this happens
when I am sketching in my sketch book and painting – I think it will
look one way but stuff just happens that I like so I keep it.

What do you think about when do non-objective work?

I don’t really think of my work as “non-objective,” abstract yes.

Erin (in my sketchbook)
Centrally located is my close friend at CMU, Erin. This was from my first sketchbook I had started at CMU. the arm on the left side is from I point in which I had started drawing someone in public and that person had left and therefore I decided to just use what I had drawn to make an interesting composition.

 

Beach Man (from a drawing class)
male nude model who dress up like a surfer dude and played the beach boys as we drew him. probably a 30-45 minute pose with breaks in the middle.

Do you really think you have a compulsive disorder because you use
small marks in your sketchbook? As long as they are confined to your
sketchbook, i would not consider this either compulsive or a disorder...
Do you find yourself unable to stop yourself from making marks if your
sketchbook is not available?

I never said it was a disorder. I just consider the type of drawing that
I do to be compulsive at times. I think everyone does compulsive things.
I make small marks in my sketch book and pull mascara off of my
eyelashes.

So sorry, I inappropriately took the liberty of adding the word
disorder to your comments about your compulsive behaviors. I am not sure
if that makes the question i asked invalid since I was in a way
questioning as whether or not this actually was a disorder at all. Don' t
you that that most artists, at least the ones that are driven to making
the creation of art their life's work have to have sort of complusiveness
in their personality that keeps them making art day after day instead of
going to work in a factory?

Yeah. I do. but disorder is such a negative word.
I think it is funny that you chose a factory out of all of the professions in the world. Here at Carnegie Mellon we are constantly reminded that Andy Warhol graduated from our school. And he did the whole art as a factory thing, I believe.

Yeah he did. In his own special way he did.

 

Do obviously do some work that is much larger and expansive than
what is confined to the small pages of your sketchbook. "Drawn in
Together" was of course a collaboration with a fellow artist. What else
have you been working that is on a large scale?

Working large is a constant struggle for me. It is something that going
to art school has forced me to try. The largest drawing that I have ever
done is the “Drawn in Together which is 4 sheets of 18”x24” paper. The
largest art piece I have ever done was for a conceptual class where the
assignment was to “map a terrain.” And I decided to map my sleep
patterns by putting cinnamon mixed with oil all over my body and go to
sleep it made a pretty interesting print on the sheet.

Did you go back into this at all to pull out any edges or is this how
it came?

Nope. This is how it came out. I think gravity forced the cinnamon to
the sides of my body.

 

Drawn in Together (for a drawing class)
This is a four panel drawing that I collaborated with fellow artist/student Jon May on. This was a very fun piece to do. We decided to conceptually create a drawing that was all about our collaboration as a pair of artists. The collaboration on the left is the goofy/fun aspect of collaboration while the collaboration on the right is it's opposite, serious. Our drawing styles happened to mix pretty well- his being very smoothed over and mine having hatch marks. I am the girl in the drawings and Jon is the boy. We would each atart out drawing eachother and then switch every three hours. So literally each figure was done by both of us. It was a struggle at some points. And introducing my love for mixed media drawing to a primarly one media type of artist was a learning experience for both of us.

The concept of the collaboration, is not entirely new, but seems to be having at least in some circles a real resurgence. Is collaborating something that holds any interest to you?

Finding someone to collaborate with is somewhat difficult for most artists. “Drawn in Together” was a good collaboration. Jon May and I worked extremely well together. Since it is hard to find people that I can collaborate with successfully, I feel like I should take every opportunity possible that would make a good collaborative relationship. A lot of interesting/amazing things can happen with two people working together.

Do you think there is a way two artists working together on a piece of art could ever be a viable way of creating art that would sell? Is the art buying public ready to attach two names to a painting yet?

Who cares. A guy was interested in buying this piece this summer, but decided that he didn't want to spend money. I don't want to pretend that I know all of the answers to art marketability. Maybe if you are buying the artwork of two artists
at one time you should pay more? who knows. I just asked the guy next to me if he would buy a painting collaborated on by two artists and he said, something like, "yeah like Andy Warhol's and Basquiat's.. if I believed it was substantial
and good." I guess it all depends on who is looking at it.

 

Fire Hydrant (in my sketchbook)
This is me exploring Pittsburgh. I wanted to see what Point Park College looked like so I took the bus to down town Pittsburgh. And I ended up drawing the fire hydrant outside of the college. I remember someone asking me for directions to the strip district (which at that time I couldnt help them, but now I could.) I guess I looked local because I was drawing? the highlighter is one of my favorite drawing instruments.

Fenn (in my sketchbook)
In NYC, my aunt's dog was sleeping perfectly still so I decided to draw him. again the compulsive cross hatching is apparent.

 

Do you have any of the drawings from your latest series of things in
and around your house that are ready to be shown? Or will the series
need to be completed before they are shown?

I am halfway through the second drawing in the series. But I feel like
each drawing will be able to stand on its own (or at least I hope.) I
have no idea when they will all be done.

In interviews people often ask what advise would you give to up and
coming artists. But I would ask you, what advice would to have to some
one that is about to look at your art work for the first time?

Wear your reading glasses if you are far-sighted.

Self Portrait
Isolated in a cabin in the middle of Colorado woods with my family with nothing to do except get on eachother's nerves. One of the only drawings I have done with pencil in my sketchbook. I was really proud of some of the very very tiny detail I did in the face.

The End.

See more of the art of Caroline England at her website or email her.

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