Hot Takes with Jill Gustavis
Jill Gustavis’s art work will be featured on all of the labels for our small batch beer releases during the Ten by Ten festival.
Jill Gustavis is a 38 year old painter, living in Pittsfield, MA. A Berkshire native, Jill is inspired by a wide range of local subjects, from still lifes and florals to landscapes and animals. Working primarily in watercolor with the occasional oil piece, she uses layers of color and value to sculpt a sense of presence between the subject and viewer. Jill's portfolio includes everything from urban sketches & plein air paintings to planned series and formal studio pieces. Often taking her art outside of the studio, you can often find her painting on local hiking trails and at community events.
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1. At what age did you start painting?
I don’t know an exact age. I’ve always been “that kid” and I have early memories of sitting in my grandmother’s lake-side porch playing with giant chalky pans of watercolor paint. I mostly worked in graphite pencils later in Elementary, copying out of How to Draw books of realistic horses, cats, and other animals. During middle and high school, I’d “taught myself” oils by playing around and painting coral reefs. Between 2004 and 2016 I did a handful of acrylic pieces in what was probably my slowest life season of art. It wasn’t until 2016 when I came across artist grade watercolors, I rekindled my art practice, and began my journey with that media.
2. Have you always worked in watercolors, or do you paint in other media too?
I thrive in just considering myself an all-around creative. Some ideas need to be expressed with different media. I love a good sketchy drawing but sometimes you need color. I love the fluidity and surprise of watercolor, but sometimes I want to really tweak a painting and fiddle until it’s just right. Now fiddling is definitely not an encouraged habit in watercolor, so I’ve been picking back up oil painting after a 20 year hiatus. However some spontaneous pieces (like the live sketch) are way easier and more lively in ink and watercolor. So each media has its own unique style and niche within my practice.
I also like to explore tangent creative fields to stay inspired. I’ve dabbled in fabric dyeing, cyanotypes, calligraphy, ceramics, clay-modeling, collage, visible mending/embroidery, linocut, book-binding, photography, and I’ve grown very fond of knitting and crocheting functional items. You name it and I’ve probably either already tried it or it’s on my bucket list to try it at least once.
3. Who have been some of your favorite painters or visual artists?
Stylistically, I like the Northern Renaissance still lifes, the tonalism movement, and artists that make a good “half-finished” vignette look effortless. But no one artist name in particular. If you want 5-10 names of each “see me after class” because I’d have to look up exact examples myself.
I’m more in it for the process. My favorite artist’s mind will always be Da Vinci. His habits, reasoning, and sketchbooks interest me far more than his famous oil paintings. I’d like to think we could get along for an afternoon, discussing philosophy while covering pages in seemingly repetitive water current studies.
Slightly more contemporary is Winslow Homer. Once again, more for his self-taught and slightly grumpy New England attitude of “I’ll do what the painting needs no matter what the rules say” approach to his watercolor paintings than the fame of his popular oil works.
4. What artists working in other media/art forms do you look up to?
I actually don’t have any names of other artists off the top of my head (Not that I don’t enjoy others’ work, I’m just terrible at remembering exact names, movements, dates, etc). However, I can offer another mind-mentor. I find a lot to contemplate from Albert Einstein. No, it doesn't involve formulas or math. There are two main quotes that resonate with me and a practice he coined called Combinatory Play.
“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” And yes, I think it’s cheating if you ask AI to simplify it for you since it’s the process of studying and understanding that is actually the benefit, not just having the result.
“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” Is often my go-to answer for people who like to tell me I have mythical art “talent” or “gift”. I just love what I do and am willing to spend my time devoted to finding out more. Maybe I just have more patience…
Last but definitely not least is Einstein’s theory of Combinatory Play or actively practicing an art form to make new connections in the brain and stimulate creative problem solving. Einstein found breakthrough ideas while he played the violin. I find ways to understand the world and myself through art. In reverse, I also find cooking, knitting, gardening, and hiking all help my artist brain think. These tangential hobbies help me to move my hands/body in a thoughtful but meditative way and stimulate my brain to make connections in new directions. In turn, areas that I’ve already developed heavily are also reordered and new connections unlock new insight.
5. Do you have any advice for amateurs and novices who would like to take up painting?
Good question. If you couldn’t tell, I have kind of a left-brain approach to painting, so I’d say start with the basics of how your media works and then keep doing what parts you find fun, and build off of that. If you’re enjoying yourself, you’ll learn faster, your brain is wired that way. So lose the “shoulds” and explore more “coulds”.
From personal experience, most often you will find that some of the art that inspired you to start painting (maybe hyper realistic botanicals) would drive you crazy to level up and achieve, while some of the art you have the most joy making (like loose plein air landscapes) is not what you originally set out to do. Or maybe it’s flipped, either way, if you’ve found joy painting, mission accomplished. If you’re painting for anything other than joy, maybe reconsider?