Speaking with Toronto based Expressionist Artist Gwen Tooth we take a deep dive into her practice on how she assimilates her travels into techniques in her toolbox; how staying with teachers too long can change your creativity in ways you didn't expect, and how she never thought art school was for her - when ultimately she went later on to three different institutions.
Join Carolyn Botelho as she discusses with Gwen where her influences in Art really came from, how textiles, printmaking, and even playing a variety of instruments played a part. When does she decide the painting is complete? How do memory and visualization work together? And what gave her the initial inspiration to take her down this artistic path?
Working backwards Tooth describes her early years with her mother and all that she learned from her, how sewing, and even copying calendar pictures, were part of the fabric that made her creativity what it has become today. Reflecting on all the tools she has gathered over the years from her Mother's hands, workshops, galleries, and classes, to fellow students, and friends.
Gwen's wealth of knowledge she unfolds for us methodically in this discussion on her practice, her process, and what few rules she sticks to as she breaks the rest; while she holds thousands of landscape snapshots in her psyche nearly ready to be revealed to the world in her next exhibition.
You can enjoy more of Gwen Tooth art here: https://propellerartgallery.com/members/gwen-tooth/
Gwen Tooth Podcast Interview Credits
Audio Links from https://freemusicarchive.org/
Podcast by Carolyn Botelho
Speaking with Toronto based Expressionist Artist Gwen Tooth we take a deep dive into her practice on how she assimilates her travels into techniques in her toolbox; how staying with teachers too long can change your creativity in ways you didn't expect, and how she never thought art school was for her - when ultimately she went later on to three different institutions.
Join Carolyn Botelho as she discusses with Gwen where her influences in Art really came from, how textiles, printmaking, and even playing a variety of instruments played a part. When does she decide the painting is complete? How do memory and visualization work together? And what gave her the initial inspiration to take her down this artistic path?
Working backwards Tooth describes her early years with her mother and all that she learned from her, how sewing, and even copying calendar pictures, were part of the fabric that made her creativity what it has become today. Reflecting on all the tools she has gathered over the years from her Mother's hands, workshops, galleries, and classes, to fellow students, and friends.
Gwen's wealth of knowledge she unfolds for us methodically in this discussion on her practice, her process, and what few rules she sticks to as she breaks the rest; while she holds thousands of landscape snapshots in her psyche nearly ready to be revealed to the world in her next exhibition.
You can enjoy more of Gwen Tooth art here: https://propellerartgallery.com/members/gwen-tooth/
Gwen Tooth Podcast Interview Credits
Audio Links from https://freemusicarchive.org/
Podcast by Carolyn Botelho
Carolyn Botelho 0:05
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Creatively Thinking Podcast. Join Carolyn Botelho as she uncovers the inspirations behind some incredibly creative minds that are orbiting our local communities. And today we have a guest with us and her name is Gwen Tooth. She is an Expressionist Painter. And we will just get started right now. So I'm so happy we were able to get our schedules lined up so we could have this chat. Your abstractions, or should I say more accurately, your Expressionist paintings have intrigued me over the years as we have known each other since the early 2000s from Gallery 1313. Or was it earlier than that? I'm not sure.
Gwen Tooth 1:00
Okay. I've been in quite a few different galleries and cooperatives.
Carolyn Botelho 1:07
Yeah, yeah, they just kind of all blur together for a little bit. So can we start from your beginning, I know it may seem a weird place to start. But I always want to know, what was an Artist's initial inspiration to take them down this path? Was it working with your hands, being a visual thinker, or expressing yourself emotionally?
Gwen Tooth 1:36
Thank you for that great question. From the very start, I was a gift, an only child, a gift to my parents when they were in their late 30s. And both parents were school teachers. And my Mother wasn't able to teach. Once I was born, or those were the different days then. She made a lot of things and we we made dinner mints and cinnamon buns, and we did embroidery, which was a lot of fun. In those days, we did the seven days of the week on tea towels that she would order the linen and actually make the towels...
Carolyn Botelho 2:30
Oh cute.
Gwen Tooth 2:17
...then get the designs that you order from somewhere and put them on with an iron and I would embroider them. So that was my first taste with sewing. And we use(to make clothes, and she always had a lot of paintings and quilts around, which she'd done before I came along. Because she and her husband lived in a country house and he went across the fields to teach in the morning and light the stove and everything, as I said different times. So my Mother and I had a lot of time together. In fact when she passed away, and I was with her,I wrote a poem called Her Hands. And it was all about all of the things she taught me with her hands. Which included playing piano, and I was given a change to try her other instraments. She had a Hawaiian guitar.
Carolyn Botelho 2:57
Wow.
Gwen Tooth 2:17
And she used to paint from calendars of the time that's what they did, they had lovely pictures. I have a painting of hers still of Anne Hathawy's house that she did from a calendar. That's my early impressions. Many artists inspired me later on. Would you like to know some of those?
Carolyn Botelho 2:58
Sure yeah.
Gwen Tooth 2:58
For many many years I was enticed by (Henri) Matisse.
Carolyn Botelho 3:07
I could see that, ha ha.
Gwen Tooth 3:15
I went to OCAD before it was OCAD U (Ontario College of Art and Design University) and when it was, and my favorite, one of my favorite teachers was Graham Coughtry. And he got sick periodically and had to have surgery. So his friends came in and so I was fortunate to have as teachers, Gordon Rayner and a brief session with Paul Sloggett. One day when Gordon came in, he said, he looked at my work and he said, you know, Matisse's cut outs are not the way they look in books. It's not just one cut out. If you go up close, there are layers and layers of painted paper put on until he gets the right effect. And he said you know there's a show on in New York right now and it would be lovely if you could go to see it. So I was working at the time; and I couldn't really afford to stay over, and I got the day off. I pre-booked my ticket I flew down, got a cab to the show, saw the show, went back to the airport. And it really made a difference in my life to see them, and they were huge paintings. And you could see the many layers. So that was a real adventure. That other points in my Art life. I studied with Brian Smith, who was a portrait and figure painter. And he said to me, you know, your drawings are very strong, they remind me of Kathe Kollwitz, and there are many ways to say her name, but a German Artist who worked during both wars. So I tend to research everything. So I went out and got all the catalogs I could because I couldn't read them all, and (I) saw everything I could about her. And then I did a show in 2011 of black, white and gray drawings of just figures inspired by her work. The other reason. Yes, I have always been interested in Expressionism because I love the German Expressionists from way back. And I used to study (Edvard) Munch. And also, there's a, there's a museum I went to some years later in New York City called Galerie Neue, the gallery new or new, it's new gallery in English, but it's about half a block from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And it's a beautiful building with paintings of all the famous paintings, including the one the movie was made about for (the) Klimt painting. All of these little things build up layers in my sort of knowledge, and intuitive, intuitive toolbox within me, I think.
Carolyn Botelho 3:15
Yeah, it's your consciousness.
Gwen Tooth 6:32
Yeah. And I also followed greatly and went to exhibits where possible of the Abstract Expressionists. I, I did a series a few years back called Niagara Falls In Winter, when I had some really large paintings. And I started with some small sketches in different media. And then one night after dinner, I took one of my pen and inks, which I had enlarged to about four feet in width, at Staples, and I put a grid on it, which I don't often use, and transferred it to a large canvas, with black paint on a brush. My intention was to do a black painting, and then let it dry, and then do glazes of color to replicate the illumination of the Falls at night. Once I had done this painting, I said it's finished.
I remembered that I'd been to the Ab Ex show at the Art Gallery of Ontario. And I took my granddaughters when they were quite young to that as well. And one of them said to me, Grandma, I listened to the video, and Jackson Pollock did not do sketches first he just started painting. And the other thing that influenced me with (Niagara) Falls and Winter black and white painting was the fact that I had seen a large painting of his in the show. And there was a note at the side saying, Jackson saying, I have taken to drawing with paint. So I thought well, connections like that to history I find usually long after I've done the work. I don't think of these things at the time, they just come intuitively straight out of me. Which is (the) reason I don't really use music in my work either. I want to hear what's going on inside me. And music distracts me and I know it affects what I paint. Because I'm very sensitive to everything. One other group I also followed very regularly was Les Automatistes a group from Quebec, who painted very automatically and one of the works in my most recent show is quite reminiscent of a Borduas painting that I've seen at the Art gallery many times, it's a black and white one. But this one was in gold and red and different colors. And I generally paint using my shoulder. I put gloves on, I put my hands into the paint, and then I do the gesture across the canvas.
Carolyn Botelho 9:10
It's to protect your hands with those gloves? Yeah,
Gwen Tooth 9:14
Yeah, well what protection you can use. I would suggest that if you're doing drawings in charcoal, definitely protect yourself. And there's a barrier cream you can use. I use to do this when I was drawing. My hands became my brushes.
Carolyn Botelho 9:28
Yeah, that's great.
Gwen Tooth 9:30
I think that's a good start for inspiration. Yeah, there are many stories which would take many Podcasts.
Carolyn Botelho 9:36
Yeah, that's incredible. All the influences you've had.
Gwen Tooth 9:38
Yeah this one will be fun.
Carolyn Botelho 9:41
I do recall Kathe Kollwitz and how she really touched me too when I, when I started when I was at OCAD. Sorry, OCADU now.
Yeah, yeah, I don't remember if it was OCA when I started but it took me 17 years part time to get my Primary diploma. And then 10 years later, I went back and graduated with a BFA. Because I was given the opportunity to do that. At that point I had my Mother, was ill and was in my house with me; and I had caregivers in the house. I just sat at the kitchen table and let them take care of her.
Wow.
Gwen Tooth 10:20
And I did essays for a year and a half to get my BFA. That made a huge difference, because I started teaching and showing my work after that, and it just seemed to open the door that I needed.
Carolyn Botelho 10:33
For however long it takes, right?
Gwen Tooth 10:35
Exactly. It's a lifelong process and journey. And I'm just on the journey now. I can at any point, see a path and go left, right or straight ahead. And one of the things I found with being an Artist is, don't be afraid to take a risk. It doesn't work out, you can always do another painting or another work of Art or, you know, just; I keep mulling things around. I'm always mulling things around in my head. I think that takes longer than creating a series actually!
Carolyn Botelho 11:11
Yeah, yeah, the toughest part, or the worst part is when you're just standing still. Right? And you're not moving creatively at all right?
Gwen Tooth 11:20
Yeah, I never have a block. I never have Artists' block. Because I have tended to work in series. Although I know that that's not the contemporary way anymore. When you go to the Art schools people are, the consensus is more that you do each piece with whatever medium it requires to tell what you want to say. And I totally agree with that concept. Everything's becoming more multimedia, and blurred. But in my case, the series helped keep me on track. Out of one series about halfway through, I would do what's called a transition piece. And that would give me the clue for what the next series was going to be. It just happened. I didn't plan it,
Carolyn Botelho 11:39
You went with it.
Gwen Tooth 11:51
My very first, very first solo show I ever had, I was playing with seascapes with horizons at different levels. And eventually about maybe five or six paintings into it, the horizon disappeared. And it's never come back in my work since (then), I just started focusing on the light, and the play of sunsets and sunrises on the surface of the water. So at that point, the focal point of each painting became the whole painting, not little spots around the painting, but the whole painting became the focal point. And that is the direction in some abstract painting. It's a difficult concept for some people to grasp. But when you see the work, everybody always loves the work.
Carolyn Botelho 11:51
Yeah, exactly.
Gwen Tooth 11:56
So that's what counts. And I love it. I only do what I do. My main goal is to stay authentic.
Carolyn Botelho 13:08
So from from here, you realize school was your best way to accomplish becoming a Visual Artist. What gave you this impetus? Were you already aware of certain teachers and the knowledge you could gain from them?
Gwen Tooth 13:23
I was aware of a couple of teachers I started out going when my kids were babies actually (to)Humber College to night school classes. And so I got a basic Fine Arts Certificate to include a lot of things I did later at OCADU as well. 3D design, 2D design. I studied watercolor and Encaustics. And prior to that I had studied Fiber Arts. I, my very first course I took was in Batik. And then I took a series of weaving classes, and had various looms that I'm not using anymore, but still have around. And once I hit watercolors that; oh my gosh, this is much faster than the textile. Now I love all media. I love textiles. And I'm thinking of going back to incorporating some embroidery into prints. But, the main thing is, I learned a lot from watercolor, which does have its rules. But also there are 100 different ways at least to approach watercolor and I liked it when we got big and bold. And I saw teachers pouring the watercolor on (to) huge pieces of papers.
Carolyn Botelho 14:41
Oh wow!
Gwen Tooth 14:42
I've always liked to work large and as large as I can reach in both directions and larger. And also they have in watercolour a thing called the happy accident. So if you make a blob or spill the water in the wrong place, turn it into something else. So that's a principal I've used in all of my paintings ever since I did do some oil paintings for a couple years in Art school. But I found it really wasn't that good for my health, I tend to have had chronic bronchitis and sinusitis all my life. And when we used to paint the models on Saturday, and Graham Coughtry was there and play Miles Davis on the radio, it was a fun time. But when I'd go out across the street for coffee, I'd realized how full of fumes that room was even with the windows wide open. So after a couple of years, I decided to experiment myself into how to get same, and similar effects with acrylics. And I think the trick with comparing acrylics and oils is don't, because each medium has its own little tricks and tools. And one big thing I've learned in painting is that the materials will sometimes tell you what they want to do. So you end up having a conversation with them. And with your canvas or your cradle board or whatever you're using at the time. And you may have an idea of what you want to paint. But if the paint wants to do something else, then you have to be able to take that happy accident and move with it. So one of the big advantages I've found about going to Art school, was meeting friends and teachers with common interests. And I really wanted to get inside their psyche. And back to your question, was there any teachers I wanted to study with? I wasn't really sure if I wanted to go to Art school. I was taking courses with some fabulous teachers at a place called the Etobicoke Art Group. And Denis Cliff and John Leonard and lots of people came there and Anne Meredith Barry came to do some collagraph printmaking and her son Jay came. And Robert Achtemichuck, who's now in Waterloo, I believe. So I met many famous Artists before I ever went to Art school. But I decided to make a start. So the first course I took was printmaking. And I met a woman named Elizabeth Forrest. And Olga Phillip was working in class at the same time, and she later became one of my teachers as well. But the teachers whose work I knew of before I went, were Graham Coughtry, Gordon Rayner. And there were a group of them, but I saw their work at the, I think it was the Isaac's Gallery that used to be on Yonge Street until it moved into Yorkville. And I saw Graham's work and how he was dripping and doing the figures, and I want to paint like that guy, I want to meet this guy, I want to get inside his head and see how he feels and thinks. So to me,like learning the skills of painting, you can learn them these days, you can learn a lot on YouTube videos.
Carolyn Botelho: Yes!
But in the old days, they used to have a set of paper, paper back books called the Walter Foster series, and it's like how to paint a tree how to paint a portrait. I used to have a bunch of them, I think I tossed them, or gave them away at some point in my process. But I have met a couple of friends that were Artists that have become lifelong friends, from my early days of life drawing in Graham Coughtry's classes. One of them encouraged me to start teaching because I had such a nice way she thought of explaining things to people. And then I finally realized, it took me years to figure out if I wanted to teach and what and how. So, I eventually did, that was wheCarolyn I joined a Co-operative in Brampton that I was on a committee that designed workshops and invited Artists to teach. And one of the founding members of Beaux Arts Brampton, Paulette Murphy said to me, 'Well, that sounds like a good idea Gwen why don't you teach it.' So that's when I started teaching. And my parents were both teachers. So it just kind of seemed to come naturally to me,
Carolyn Botelho 19:25
Yeah, it just kind of fit.
Gwen Tooth 19:27
I designed my own course curriculum. And it just, it's simple. People can get all frightened and scared of abstraction, but it's really very easy if you take away all the riffraff and write it down to the essentials and boil it into concepts. And then just use those as guidelines, like anything else. The rules are just there to help guide you and you can blur them and change them. If you can figure out how to make it work.
Carolyn Botelho: 19:59 Exactly, yeah. And we'll be right back.
Carolyn Botelho 20:11
So you also must have had so much confidence at this time. And so that's good to share as well, right?
Gwen Tooth 20:18
Well, I was raising little children at home. And it started out Yes, I always wanted to do this. But it started out it was my night out of the house away from screaming babies.
Carolyn Botelho 20:31
That's funny!
Gwen Tooth 20:31
But those babies grew up to be adults and have children of their own. And they've all come to my shows, and particularly...
Carolyn Botelho: Oh, wow.
Gwen Tooth: 20:39...the ones that live close, in Toronto, they've been to almost everyone on my show, since they've been little. And now they're grownups. So yeah, it's been a fun journey. And I wouldn't have it any other way. It's just, I find that doing Art it grounds me and helps me through all of the crises of life.
Carolyn Botelho 21:03
Have you noticed a trend with educators on how they were trying to guide your, your practice? Was there any common thread of where they wanted your creativity to go?
Gwen Tooth: 21:15
Not too much. I know that. Some of them, they have certain rules or teaching a certain subject, like I took courses in pastel, and in watercolor, and I belong to societies for both of those media for a while. And I submitted work, and they have a lot of guidelines and rules on how to frame paintings and everything. And it works for those organizations. And if you have society and jury shows, you have to have some guidelines, I've tended to move away from those into groups where the jury criteria are a little freer. For instance I belong to, it's called an Artist run gallery, called Propeller Art Gallery. They have beautiful walls, I just had a show, I have another one planned for a couple of years down the road. And I have full curatorial freedom to do what I want. And there are certain rules for keeping the walls nice and trying not to bash them to pieces. And people are pretty good at that. But you can hang things from the ceiling now, or you can hang the line across. And I generally, when I know what gallery I'm assigned, I do usually a maximum of 21 paintings. Sometimes they're quite large, sometimes they're large and small, and whatever shapes are available, especially during the Pandemic, I painted on five long, narrow ones, that were I think one foot wide by four foot deep. And that was something new for me. I like in every series to try something absolutely new. And so what I do before I have the show, is I kind of visualize how the show's going to look and where the paintings are going to go. Because there are different events in the Gallery I visit it many times. So when it's, when the paintings are done, I have a fairly small space to work in, I have to imagine them on a distant wall. Because I don't have a huge studio. When I get them there, I kind of know where I'm going to place them. And we start hanging. And then I say no, that doesn't look right, it doesn't look the way I thought it would. So then we start moving them around. So I am more of, a making it an installation while I'm on site and creating the right feeling so that people can walk, stand, in the middle of the room and turn around and experience the work as if they're immmersed in it. So as far as teachers trying to influence me, it didn't work very well. Because when the more work I got, and certain things you were supposed to do within a figure drawing or a portrait, I would use that as a starting board. But then I would eventually veer off in my own direction. So everything. At that point, I probably didn't really need to have any teachers anymore. But we Artists are susceptible to wanting more and more information all the time. And the other benefit of having Art friends is when they tell you, you don't need to do anymore, that you need to start teaching. You don't need to travel to any more museums, you need to just get down and get busy and work. Basically, I eventually did that I traveled many places around the world after I had an early retirement from work. And on painting trips Art focused trips,I first traveled with my Mother on sort of the general grand European type tours. And saw a lot of Europe and Asia, that wasn't really Art focused, but it introduced me to travel. And my Mother did believe as a teacher that travel was the greatest way of learning. And I agree with that, to the things I have experienced, are within me, and I can remember them all pretty well. I just hope I keep my memory and kind of always remember those things. But it's somewhere it's in there intuitively within me. There was an artist...
Carolyn Botelho: Yeah.
Gwen Tooth: Oh, I can't think of his name right now that he ended up wiaroth Dementia and Alzheimer's. And he, he could still paint because he was working from a different part of his brain.
Carolyn Botelho 25:57
The right side, right?
Gwen Tooth 26:00
Yeah, the right left brain thing? Yeah. Yeah.
Carolyn Botelho 26:03
Yeah. Yeah. So can you expand on your thoughts about Art schools? How some Galleries prefer Artists who figure it out on their own outside of the rules in school? How do you see the rules in school? Are they helping or hindering your creativity?
Gwen Tooth 26:23
I think, as I mentioned, before, I was afraid to go to Art school in the beginning.
Carolyn Botelho 26:29
Yeah,
Gwen Tooth 26:29
I had my own sense of colour. And I didn't want the color theory to destroy that. But I managed to get through the colour theory course. And there are parts of it that I use to this day. And it's more along the side of the Fauvist tendency for bright colors. And there's a principle of inherent values, where if you, you could do a painting with a grayscale, and then put those same values of color on top of that. And there was a teacher who used to teach that way, not at Art school. But John Cavin, he's passed away since; but I just worked directly with the values of the colours, right out of the tube, I buy quite expensive high quality paints. And sometimes I just don't want to mix them, I want to use that colour. But if I'm doing a series where I want to blend, I'm personally even doing it, and have done it. So it's a matter of pulling out the tools you need for the specific work. And so I guess the main idea is to learn the rules, keep some of them, and only use a couple at a time and figure out how to break them successfully. As I mentioned before, when you move to pull abstraction, and talking about the surface of the water. As many of my series have, it's about the light reflecting on the surface of the water and the energy on the top of the water, whether it's a calm day or a stormy day. And the horizon line disappears, it just becomes the whole painting becomes the focal point, because you're looking at one thought zooming into that. That's one of my sort of three main principles of abstraction. We're all so familiar with zooming in now with our portable cameras, portable phones.
Carolyn Botelho 28:31
Yeah,
Gwen Tooth 28:31
If you take an object and you zoom in, for instance, on a teapot, and you only end up with the spout and a part of the handle, that simple shapes, which can be turned into an abstract painting. Now that's not a busy one where you're using all your muster and drips and everything that's a more controlled painting, where you're focusing on patches of colour, and you've got to get the colour just right. And sometimes just a tiny little bit of a complimentary colour or something. Put in one, one little spot on the painting, and maybe a couple others somewhere else. It's, it just makes the painting or finishes it. And that's kind of taking focal points to an extreme. Or it's bringing in principles of design where you might have a big object on one side of the painting and a couple of smaller ones on the other side.
Carolyn Botelho 29:27
When you said it's a memory you carry with you do you mean the visual memory of the ice hanging down the branches (From your Niagage in Winter Series). Do you mean the experience with your husband getting to the falls in Winter? Or your mind storing the visualization of the ice branches? Where you were doing the Niagara Falls?
Gwen Tooth 29:46
Niagara Falls in Winter one?
Carolyn Botelho 29:48
Yeah, the Niagara Falls in Winter.
Gwen Tooth 29:50
Yeah, we, we love going to Niagara Falls we have photos of it in winter with icicles off the trees and our been in the fall and one walked along the rapids and I did a series before the Winter series about Whitewater, Whitewater rapids. And (you) walk along there, and you could just feel the power of that water. If you happen to drop over the edge, you're gone instantly. That's the end. So it's an amazing power, but in the Winter, the falls don't always look pretty, I took videos and I took pictures. And sometimes that ice at the bottom of the falls, the Horseshoe Falls I'm talking about it's kind of dirty and rugged looking. Some of my paintings in the series, I kind of incorporated that into them. And I did use, after I did the sketch of the whole section of the falls. For some of the abstract pieces I did later on, which were quite large, I zoomed in to a small portion of the falls, and highlighted and started to focus on the way the light was reflecting against them so one of the paintings is got pinks and oranges in which is kind of the lights of the fall, the autumn. And the blue and green ones are kind of more of the ice and the there's a different light shining on the falls in the Winter. It's not necessarily as happy a light.
Carolyn Botelho 31:27
No, it's not as warm, not strong. Yeah.
Gwen Tooth 31:31
And the other thing that's hard to capture, but I try to in the Falls is when you're there, we stayed over night, for a few nights. At one point, we sat outside our motel room. And this was blocks away from the falls. But you could feel the mist dropping on you from the falls, so to capture that feeling of that mist in the work is another thing that's there, but it's not. And I don't plan to do these things. But I kind of have an idea of how I want that to come out.
Carolyn Botelho 32:03
Just comes through, right?
Gwen Tooth 32:05
Yeah, it does. It happens. I have very few failures in my paintings, because I walk them around in my head so long. When I get my paints and my supplies ready and when I actually execute, I do it quite quickly.
Carolyn Botelho 32:21
That's good.
Gwen Tooth 32:22
And I also have a room in, at home right now where I can put on one layer. And if I need to, I can let it dry for five days and cure naturally. I never use blow dryers or anything like that. Then I can come back, and I can look in for five minutes, and say looks good. Or I can come back and say Oh, I better come back and visit that later tonight and put on, such and such, or might be just a brush stroke. Or it might be a whole glaze over a whole surface, or colored glaze over the part of it. Anything is possible. One thing I did want to say is that if you're doing something that comes from a landscape or a seascape, go and visit it many times, so that it becomes so familiar with you that it becomes ingrained in your spirit. And then the work will come out. That might take years, it might percolate for a very long time.
Carolyn Botelho 33:23
All of those things. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like you were just saying that you just, you visit the landscapes or seascapes so many times that it, it just becomes so much part of your consciousness that it just then comes out of you. Much easier. Yeah.
Gwen Tooth 33:42
It's really, all of those things, seeing the actual image is only a trigger. But what, what is really important to me is that it's what's inside me that comes out intuitively. And...
Carolyn Botelho 34:01
All those snapshots you've taken, like you said, probably 1000s of them, right? And then they're just, they're just the snapshots in your psyche that just, just stay there until you're ready for them to, to come through you and come out of you in into a painted form. Right?
Gwen Tooth 34:22
Exactly! And in the beginning, I used to, I figured out I had to take my own photographs of everything because there are always these copyright issues. Don't use anybody else's photo. So I've always used all my own things. And I've got 1000s of photos, but I found I don't really use them. It just, taking the photo is the, is the act. It sort of ingrains in my internal psyche. It may not come out for years later. So I've been going to the falls for many years it wasn't until one day - hey I'm ready to paint about these. And that's years later. So it settles within you or percolates, as they say, until it's ready to come out. Yeah. And what they are is a lot of Artists now are showing their photographs. I had never thought of that. And it's just part of a process. Like for me, it was a journal. Because I've never journaled a lot. I'm not one of those people that sits down and journals every day and does little sketches. I do them periodically, and for certain series. And right now I'm working on some printmaking with small prints. And printmaking has become easier in many ways. I love working on the traditional copper plates, but copper has become quite expensive. So I now have access through Open Studio (401 Richmond St, Toronto, Artist Run Centre), to some very light aluminum plates; which I can literally draw on and have a plate ready. in like five minute. I work very fast. But those ideas have, have been in me for a long time. Because...
Carolyn Botelho 36:09
or it's time to just let it percolate.
Gwen Tooth 36:13
They were used in my last show. And I just took something from that and created some new work. So I have two plates ready for when the next time I go, I can just play around different colors and try things. And I have an entirely new idea, which I haven't totally worked out yet for what I might show the next time. Because I am. I'm primarily an acrylic painter, but I also have worked in many different media. So it's a matter of knowing when to bring those tools forward and use a different media to express something.
Carolyn Botelho 36:48
Yeah, must be also part of how you were saying that you're painting with your shoulder, it's like a whole. Like, the whole movement of painting is so large on these larger works. That that's most likely how, how the musicians can see the the movement and the energy; and the, and just the spirit of the whole painting coming, coming, out of the paint. Right?
Gwen Tooth 37:18
Yeah, I'm just going to play with it over the Summer. I have done a lot of sessions of outdoor painting. And I find that's very helpful. And I do a lot of sketches. I don't often work up large paintings from those sketches. They just are what they are
Carolyn Botelho 37:37
An exercise for you.
Gwen Tooth 37:40
Yeah, yeah, keep keep the hand eye color. Process. Available. Practice. Like, I used to be a pianist when I was young, and the practice those scales, I review. And it's a very complicated music. So I don't listen to music when I paint. But I think people have told me it comes out in my work. I don't try to put it there. It just is there sometimes. Yes, and a lot of Artists, a lot of Artists I know are musicians. And they will come in and they can definitely see and feel the rhythm in the works. Absolutely. And I can remember when I was in Art school, I used to get these canvases, three feet by four feet. For life drawing, and Graham Coughtry would come along and say yeah, that's the right size for you. It's as far as you can reach in both directions. But I always wanted to go larger than that. And I have since then, but I have a huge easel that I can put bigger ones on. But I can't go as big as some of the Artists I know like who have these giant studios and do five foot high by nine foot long paintings and more. I would love to do that someday. But one has to know one's limitations and what will fit inside one's vehicle when getting them to show; unless you're prepared to pay for shipping to get them to the show.
Carolyn Botelho 39:11
Yeah, exactly we need to know our limits.
Gwen Tooth 39:16
Yeah, there's a few boundaries but not too many.
Carolyn Botelho 39:19
Yes. Yeah, just a few. When you described yourself as wanting to become more of a Sculptor, do you see this as a reaction to your chosen medium, or more as an expansion of your expressionistic style in 3D perspective?
Gwen Tooth 39:40
Well, I don't think I really meant I wanted to be a Sculptor over being a Painter. I've always done some sculpture at Art school and at Central Tech. I went and did some large figures and I did a smaller bust that I really love. The big figures I just can't work that large, so I would need to work with someone on that. But I do like the hands on part of sculpting.
Carolyn Botelho 40:08
And we'll be right back.
Gwen Tooth 40:17
I've always done a lot of printmaking in Art school and later on I, my medium continues to evolve to include new practices I see that's where the young Artists are going. And so I try to learn new things like I took some courses at Trinity Square Video (Art Gallery, Toronto) on installation and performance Art. And I just feel I never know when I might want to use that skill.
Carolyn Botelho 40:48
Another tool for the toolbox. Right?
Gwen Tooth 40:51
Yeah, so and I go to Galleries and Gathie Falk was at the Mc Michael recently, and she has done a lot of sculptural installations plus she did piles of fruit. And the shoes, she did shoes in, in case - and knowing about someone is one thing but seeing the work is what is the mind blower.
Carolyn Botelho 41:18
Exactly.
Gwen Tooth 41:19
And I can't see myself doing that (referring to piles of shoes of above). Because I'm not a person who likes symmetry. I like asymmetry. And like for instance, I have a pair of earrings where one earring is longer then the other and one is quite short, and they don't match at all. That's the kind of person I am. So, my emotional sensibilities, they come and become engaged in whatever I do. And you know, it just goes on my library of things to do. And I veer off from time to time and say, let's try this. When I was talking about the things I made with my Mother. I did a sketchbook for the sketchbook project a few years ago. And it was all about memories of tools that she and I had used together to make some dollhouse furniture.That was the basic memory. And there were other tools. And from that, that offset me on some drawings of saws and hammers and things that were very non traditional. And I've seen traditional Artists do beautiful drawings of tools. And I can do that too. But I choose not to. So, making Art is a choice as to what you tackle. But knowing it all is good, because you have a big toolbox out there that basically; if we know it all, we can do anything if we put our minds to it, and our spirits.
Carolyn Botelho 42:42
Yeah, exactly. When you're speaking about not staying too long with teachers, because you don't want them to affect your thoughts and style. Can you expand on, on this? Because that, that is what I thought teachers do they teach us a new way of seeing?
Gwen Tooth 43:02
I guess the answer to that is, it takes a long time to find the teachers that are right for you. And I encourage young, people that are starting to paint or draw or whatever. If they're not happy with what they're doing with one, teacher. To, if not dropping that teacher, move on and try another one add something; someone else to their repertoire. Because eventually an Artist and a teacher click, and you find the ones that are right for you. It's the same as when you get to a different level and you want to show in a Gallery you need to be able to co-operate with The Gallerist the Artists and Galleries need to work together. So with students, yes, I am fiercely independent as far as an Artist is concerned, and I my main goal is to be authentic. I have not ventured into the world of Fine Art Prints at this point. Maybe someday I will when I can no longer work and do large works. But now I'm focused on doing original work. And each series I do I try to include a couple new tools or techniques. For instance, in this last series, which was called Let Loose, I actually used an old very simple kitchen knife as a palette knife that had a serrated edge. And I was able to create stippling over certain areas of a pile of lemons. I was painting...
Carolyn Botelho 44:35
And just increased awareness creatively on your side, right? Yeah.
Gwen Tooth 44:43
As far as staying too long with a teacher, yes, I've done some jurying of different shows. And I've looked at many, many shows in Toronto, in Ontario in Canada, around the world. I spend a lot of time in Paris going to different museums. and budget trips. And I know good Art. It's just ingrained in me now. And I appreciate what anyone does, in whatever time they have available to do Art; whether they're doing it for fun, or for serious competition. But when I go to jury a show or look at a show, I don't want to have to say, "oh, I can see who they studied with." I won't mention any names. Well, out of respect for the teachers, because yeah, the teachers, the teachers are all just doing what they can, to people. Yeah. And it might be five or 10 years before any of those concepts come out and the teacher understands it. I had one teacher that I did outdoor painting with. And we'd be sitting at the bank of a creek and he'd say 'Do you see the purple and the yellow and the pink shimmering off the water?' And this was many decades ago. And I couldn't see it back then. But I can now. So it just takes a lot of practice. And a lot of trying.
Carolyn Botelho 46:13
You spoke of a teacher saying if you think of putting on one more stroke, don't, just stop. How do you know where the quote Hammertime is? Or, your moment when the collaboration with the canvas is complete?
Gwen Tooth 46:31
Yeah, yeah, you just one day you see it, or one day you feel it. Yeah. So I guess when I teach students, I tell them to; I, I may do a demo (that) is usually fairly quick. We kind of shocked them into how easy it can be if you just let loose of your inhibitions. And don't think too much. So I would say, do a work, don't do a work that looks like mine, but use the concept, and make your own painting or creation from those ideas. In other words, I teach them how to paint creatively. Learning to copy an image is a different thing. And I've done that, and it has its place. But you can't learn everything in one course, if you're focusing on freeing up, and abstracting. It's kind of good to put that aside. Which further concepts aside. Painting is a vast world, the Art world you could, you could just spend every minute of every day on it. And I would if I could. Well, I just know, now, but it took me many years to get to that point. But I know that less is more, especially when I am creating the essence, and or the energy of a subject or an object. Or if I'm painting non objectively, which means no object, or a sound or music in mind, you're talking about dealing with colours and shapes and forms only. But it's very difficult to achieve that level. I feel there's always some blurring between those concepts. And I don't like students or myself to get hung up on any of these. If I have trouble myself, which is not that often anymore, I go back and think about those things. But it just takes a lot of years of trying different things. And I often look at things like I do have underlying structures in my work, but I don't intentionally put them there. Maybe they come from the days when I took courses in how to, how to paint a landscape or a seascape, or where to put the horizon line, or where abouts to put the focal points. And then there's always what light is the direction coming from. But if you're in the case of a painting of the surface of the water, the light is coming from above, and is focusing down on the whole painting. So that really jars the, some of the traditional rules of Art, you have to prepare to free your mind up to new concepts. And that's the hardest part. When I teach a five day course it takes to the end of day three. Before I see breakthroughs, most people don't loosen up right away. One or two get it the first day, others come in, they just want to paint with the group and I help them with what they're doing. But other than that, things like the golden mean, or intersection of lines on a grid. They can be, they can be useful to know and they used to say if you put your focal point or a special like lemon in a still life at the intersection of that grid. Then and something else of lesser maybe value. And on the other intersections, your eye will be led around the painting. And this is a very good principle. I was just thinking for a bit, thinking, trying not to think thinking is very dangerous when you're talking about Art and painting. So, composition is extremely important. But what can be even more powerful is taking that grid and putting something just a little off from those intersections. And then it really gets noticed. Because it's not so easy. It either has a wallpower, or you have to wander around. In an abstract painting as well, you can, there are lots of little details that you can look for, like layers, like with a lot of my series, I put a mother color underneath. This last one particularly, I coloured the whole canvas, one color. Some of them are yellow, some of them are black, and then I built up layers on top. But that mother colour held everything together. So that's another tool. I don't think of those things when I'm painting. But, I see them after I love to once I get a show hung, is go to the Gallery and just sit alone with the works and see what they can tell me. And they sometimes show me references to Art history, to other Artists that I wasn't thinking about at all when I was painting it. So it's all in there. But then I've been studying Art and painting for about 50 years or more now.
Carolyn Botelho 51:41
Now the painting structure. It's it's part of your DNA. Interesting.
Yeah.
Gwen Tooth 51:46
Yeah.
Carolyn Botelho 51:47
How did you get? How did you get to this point of the conversation with the canvas? Was it from years of experiencing that precious moment between Artist, paint, and canvas, where it becomes alive with its own energy as you move with the medium?
Gwen Tooth 52:06
That's a difficult question to answer. But I think it comes from just having many different teachers, not only in Art school, but out of Art school (say) in later years. I, after I graduated from Art school, I wanted to expand my horizons further. So I started looking at Artists on, on the net, and found Artists that I was drawn to. So I would read about them, then I'd order their DVDs. And if I liked what I heard, then I would pursue it further and find out where they were teaching workshops. And in a couple of cases, this led me to courses in the US(A) one up in the mountains of Colorado with Stephen Quiller. Another one I went to Arizona, to learn about finding my style from a guy called Skip Lawrence. And then I went to Hudson River Valley Art School to study with Robert Burridge. And he was a great painter on loosening up and doing big painting. Pushing paint with brooms.
Carolyn Botelho 53:18
You must have loved that.
Gwen Tooth 53:18
Yeah, it's fun. And we have a very famous Canadian Artist Lila Lewis Irving, who's still alive and painting. And I took several courses from her, and enjoyed them very much. And hers is what she calls Pure Abstruction. So she has a place in her studio where she pours some paint for a few hours a day and then watches it dry or see what direction it goes, and may guide it. And what I took from her, we did very basic exercises on first quarter pages of watercolor on just simple shapes, maybe four to five shapes, in black, white and gray, or we worked in black and white for about three days. And then after that, we went to a half page. And then we went to full page and then we moved into colour near the end of the course. So those are all exercises. But they're exercises that give you the structure to loosen up and forget about them, so and I have great admiration for her. I studied four different times with her. But she used to joke and say you know you people don't need me. And maybe we did, maybe we didn't, (but)we enjoyed working with her and doing things together, and it gave us a focus. So, I never like to get too tied down to anyone. So I, I always at some point know that I want to learn something else to make my work unique. You can always say you've studied with different people, and I must have 20 or 30 names listed on my detailed resume. I have about nine or 10 pages and then I have a three page version that is all they want when you apply for a lot of things, and some places (all they want)is one page. So you really have to edit it out. The main principle in the way I paint is put something down, and then respond to it. Repeat, it's like a recipe, just keep painting. Either be fast, or don't be fast. I don't often go back and do corrections. I just, because then it becomes overworked. You have to be daring, and just put it down. And in some cases, if you don't want the colours to blur and run, you've got to stop after one colour and let it dry for a few days. Because I often use quite thick paint. So I don't want too many layers, I want them to all dry naturally.
Carolyn Botelho 53:19
Wait a minute, don't you, you do glazing too? And so that that creates like multiple layers?
Gwen Tooth 56:00
I can do glazing I do glazing on some that's a skill I learned from, originally the first time was from Graham Coughtry because he went to Spain in Europe and he looked at El Greco paintings and, and he used a lot of glazes. And he taught us how to glaze just parts of the painting. And then come in with opaques and then glaze other areas. So I took it to my own extreme, I glaze the whole painting with sometimes a hint of color, just to change it and then add other layers. So you take what other people show you and you try to make it your own, all the time I do that
Carolyn Botelho 56:40
Or part of what they've shown you.
Gwen Tooth 56:40
Yeah but I like to pay recognition to these people when we don't always remember where everything came to, but it's important to try. So the meditation with the canvas kicks in when you just look at it and your eye gets so attuned to colors after working with colors for many years, you know what color it wants.
Carolyn Botelho 56:41
Yeah, exactly.
Gwen Tooth 56:40
Sometimes it maybe a compliment it wants. And of course there's the realm of tertiaries which is available for accents. Tertiaries being, well the primaries you mix to get secondaries then the secondaries you mix to get tertiaries. I may have that a little bit out of whack, but I have huge color wheels I carry around in my classes and I have at home if I want I can check it.
Carolyn Botelho 57:50
When you spoke of assimilation of your travels, and your suitcase of tools to advance your Art career in your Let Loose catalogue; what were the ones you choose to focus on currently? Did you notice if any experiences somehow fit easier and or better with certain techniques? Or was it trial and error?
Gwen Tooth 57:58
I kind of knew, kind o,f what I was going to be doing. I had the year before been working on just some sort of happy Pandemic experiments. And I did smaller paintings of lemons and flowers and paper cut out dolls, something I'd always wanted to have time to fool around with. So I cut out these paper dolls and you know when you open them up, there's a strip of figures. So I use those on some small canvases and did them in different colors. So out of those came the figure series. First of all I used with a mother color. So burgundy was the color that was underneath the figures. And I also experimented with metallics and micaceous iron oxide has some texture and I had gold paint. I have some silver as well. I found a mother color of burgundy. And make sure some of it shows throughout the painting. And then I used on ac iron oxide, which is a textured painting. It's kind of like a color of pewter. And then I had some silver and some gold. And so I made these figures I don't really consider from their from the dark side. They're just kind of from an introspective side of me. So I did about five or six of those and they will those came out of my playings around a year ago and a show I had a related to Kollowitz many years ago. So everything comes back and around. And this was the time again. And the long narrow ones. I painted black because I had some little pictograms and that's where the paper dolls. My grandson looked at it and said Oh, those are stick figures. And they were kind of, but I used gold and silver. Kept it to the essence of it. Other tools I used were the old kitchen knife I mentioned I used that as a palette knife near the surface. I used my gloves and hands to draw red shapes outside the lemons. This was not going to be a traditional still life, although I love lemons still lifes. I found one recently in a new book, that about Lucien Freud called Love, Love Letters, I think. And it was letters that he wrote. And I found this beautiful lemon painting, which is removed from his figurw work. But, and I also knew Ross Mendes out of OCAD showed us the work of Donald Sulton who did huge prints of lemons, mostly lemons, but other fruit as well.
Carolyn Botelho 1:00:49
They're your favorite fruit!
So I've been obssessed by lemons for many years. Yeah, yeah, I I love lemon pies and lemon cakes. So (I) use my hands as my brushes, when I put the gloves on my hands (they) become the brushes or the direct communication with the canvas. And the other thing I did on a final accent on that, the one of the peaches that's on the show cover was; I looked in my box of tubes. I collect these different colors. When I see them. When I walk into an Art supply store. It's like candy, and I say oh yes, I've got to use that color in something. So I had this one, it was kind of a pinkie coral. So I used that for the final accent. And that was straight out of the tube. And I applied it, pretty sure with my fingers. Yeah, for the accents. I feel it was my best painting. It was the last (in the) series. It was number 21.
That was the one to finish off the series. Well, great speaking with you today, Gwen it was really nice. Yeah, really nice to hear your thoughts on your Artwork and what inspires you. And just yeah, we should do this again. Because I'm sure there's, like you said, there's so many different podcasts we could do about really everything.
Gwen Tooth My pleasure. Well, yes, there is. And I have stories about many trips I've been on and how they influenced me. I went to India four times after I retired from work. And out of that it was many years before a series came out that I realized it was about India. So I had a series called Indian Variations. I think I called it so there's all kinds of things and new things will happen before we speak again,
Gwen Tooth 1:02:01
So thank you very much Carolyn for this opportunity to share my work and my feelings with other Artists and listeners.
Carolyn Botelho 1:02:56
Yeah no problem, yeah no problem. That's it for our Podcast with Gwen Tooth today and thank you again for, for for all that you were sharing with us today and I'll look forward to talking to you again in the future. All right, thanks so much Gwen!
Gwen Tooth 1:03:21
Same here was a pleasure! Take care.
Okay. Bye for now.
Carolyn Botelho 1:03:32
Join me next time as I go down another rabbit hole with the another creative professional on their insights, their inspirations and their ingenuity.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai