Andrew Saftel

Mixing Media: Ideas to Images

Course Description
In this workshop we will focus on the importance of developing ideas and choosing appropriate materials and processes. We will experiment with both to develop a personal narrative. A combination of drawing, painting, watercolor, collage, and assemblage, on a variety of surfaces, will be covered. The process of finding source material, building a vocabulary of images, forms, and symbols, and storytelling in art will be important. Students will produce a small body of cohesive work within the week-long workshop.

Artist's Biography
Andrew Saftel, a graduate of San Francisco Art Institute, makes paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture in his studio in rural East Tennessee. He has taught workshops at Penland, Haystack, and Arrowmont. Saftel is represented by The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta; Cumberland Gallery, Nashville; and Lanoue Fine Art, Boston, and has had over 38 solo exhibitions since 1987. Most recently, he was featured in a solo exhibition at the Huntsville Museum of Art.

Artist's Statement
I am increasingly interested in the transience of life: how people move through time together - the inventions and failures, war and destruction, rebuilding and the will to go on, which have brought us to the present.

In the last year, the hurricanes and ensuing destruction and displacement of an entire community and its culture on the Gulf Coast made a strong impact on me. Higher ground meant safety and survival. I can’t forget the stories and images, such as a woman floating on her bedroom mattress for eight days, people paddling to safety in a child’s plastic swimming pool using a street sign for an oar, a woman returning to a vacant lot that had been her home saying she was so sad to lose her flowers. I am moved by the determination of people to rebuild their lives, even after losing everything. The sense of loss must be outweighed by hope in order for people to go on.

I live in the rural countryside where I am inspired daily by the natural beauty but also saddened by the wanton loss of natural habitat I witness. It is a hopeful miracle to see the wildflowers and the birds return in Spring. The balance between significant, often tragic, ongoing events and the hope and beauty outside my window is what I try to achieve in my work.