U The Michigan Daily I michigan ily.com I Thursday, October 29, 2009

weekend
essentials
Oct. 29 to Nov 1
LECTURE
Sometimes Michigan
alumni do pretty cool
stuff. Sometimes they
come back to tell us
about it. Class of '85
alum and theatre
and film critic Dennis
Harvey will be back
in Ann Arbor today to
share his knowledge
and experiences as
a reviewer tonight as
part of the Hubert I.
Cohen Film Criticism
and Film Scholarship
Lecture Series. His
free lecture happens
at 7 p.m. tonight at the
Helmut Stern Audi-
torium in UMMA.
ON STAGE
Looking to exorcise
your inner demon on
the most evil night of
the year? Then creep
over to the Blind Pig
tomorrow night where
the The Tickled Fancy
Burlesque Co. will be
performing a special
Devil's Night show.
Tickled Fancy is known
for its distinct, sexy
brand of vaudevil-
lian entertainment.
Also performing
are bands Mazinga
and Suicide By Cop.
Tickets start at $7,
doors open at 9 p.m.
FILM
Instead of another
"Saw" snooze-fest,
go for elegant scares
this Halloween and
see the 1922 vampire
classic "Nosferatu"
tonight at 7:30 p.m. at
the Michigan Theater.
Not only will you get to
witness Max Schreck
as Count Orlok, one
of the greatest blood-
suckers to grace the
silver screen, but you'll
also be treated to live

organ accompaniment,
making for the true
night-in-a-haunted-
house experience.
Student tickets are $12.

. .

'HOW A MICHIGCAN
STUDENT IS
REAWAKENING AN
ANCIENT ARTFORM

Encaustic painting is an involved process requiring the use of a variety of materials and instruments including
scalpels, heat guns, wax and resin.

BY LEAH BURGIN
DAILY ARTS WRITER

n the quiet darkness just before morn-
ing, LSA senior Ariela Steif leans over
her work table. Passersby - if there
were any - would be presented with
a peculiar scene: Framed in the window of
her first floor apartment, Steif is surrounded
by brushes of every size and shape, scalpels, a
heat gun and a heating tray filled with cans of
molten colored wax.
The window is open. The sound of buzz-
ing and the smell of paint fumes fill the air.
Her medium, known as encaustic painting, is
as ancient as the Greeks, though it is now an
obscure art form. This type of painting, using
a combination of beeswax, resin and pigment,
is labor intensive - the colored wax must be
heated to the right temperature, mixed a very
specific way and applied quickly before it
cools. The art commands her attention:
The process is long and complex: Multi-col-
ored layers of wax are added to the canvas, and
each addition mustbe reheated and fused to its
hardened predecessors. Most encaustic artists
go through many periods of adding wax, fus-
ing it, chipping it away and adding more wax
until they achieve the desired effect. So why
would an artist, in this age of instantaneous
results, take the time to revive such an archaic
art form? Why deal with such a tedious medi-
um? Steif says that, for her, the dividends are
worth the painstaking effort.
"It's an incredibly difficult medium to mas-
ter. It took me months and months and months
to learn - learning how to control the wax,
choosing the right tools and implements, a
thousand different things," she said.
"From the angle you hold the heat gun
to mixing different colors, there's just so
many things to learn. But there are so many
effects you can achieve. You can bury things
in encaustic, like paper. You can build up mul-
tiple layers. And this depth is important to the
concepts I have been exploring."
It is a combination of encaustic painting's
qualities of translucency and depth that

draws Steif to the medium. Steif has been
working in encaustic since her sophomore
year. Originally an oil painter and water-
colorist, she chose to switch to encaustic
because the medium better fit her expressive
nature. Over the past two years, this inter-
est has grown into a dedication to encaustic
painting and has recently resulted in a solo
installation in the Michigan Union.
"It comes down to the way I paint or the
themes that I'm interested in. I've always been
interested in looking at marginalia and things
that are not one thing or another. They're sort
of in between," Steif said.
"And encaustic fits that really well because
it's sometimes a solid and it's sometimes a
liquid. It's sometimes opaque and sometimes
transparent. It exists in this strange region in
between all of these things. It works well with
what I want to say."
According to Steif's artist statement (a
description of the medium and her artistic
intentions), she is interested in representing
"fragments of dreams and memories" and
exploring "the interstices of things, sites of
liminality." It should be no surprise that she
chooses to paint in the early morning - a time
when dreams and memories are still connect-
ed and the day has not quite begun. And she
draws from multiple sources for inspiration.
"In medieval folklore the spaces in the mar-
gins, those which are betwixt and between
- the edge of the sea, between night and day,
doorways and thresholds - were thought to
be dangerous places of power and transfor-
mation," Steif wrote in her artist statement.
"These marginal spaces are reflected in the
region that my paintings occupy: the no-man's
land between representation and non-repre-
sentation."
Encaustic, rooted inthe Greek wordencaus-
tikos - meaning "to burn in" - was first men-
tioned by Pliny the Elder in his manuscript
"Naturalis Historia." According to Pliny, the
See ENCAUSTIC, Page 4B

CONCERT
Get your beers out
of your mini-fridges:
Octubafest is here! It's
that succulent time of
year when we get to
watch students spit
freewheeling tuba and
euphonium licks in the
Stamps Auditorium at
the Walgreen Drama
Center on North Cam-
pus. So prepare for
some serious brass,
because the concert is
free. The good vibra-
tions start tomor-
row night at 8 p.m.

DESIGN BY ANNA LEIN-ZIELINSKI