Artist Interview - Carolyn Hartling Timberline Interviewer: Today we visit with Carolyn Hartling, Chair of the Installation Committee at Timberline.

Preferences  
Foothill-Blues mainhead
CH

Artist Interview - Carolyn Hartling


Timberline Interviewer: Today we visit with Carolyn Hartling, Chair of the Installation Committee at Timberline. Carolyn, we continually receive high compliments from the visiting  public on the exhibition of shows at Timberline. What is the secret to your success?
Yosemite-Jewel-Box

CH: I have a whole lot of help from the member artists who form the Installation Committee! I keep a floor plan record of everyone’s art, so that each artist’s work is rotated around the gallery. This ensures that each artist’s work can be viewed from different perspectives and highlighted in the company of other pieces. The show themes provide a guide for focus. Integrating pieces of new work among the art in the outer areas gives the gallery a fresh look. Every two months we hang a new show. That is a major effort: at closing time the day prior, the artist on duty (usually with help from one or two other artist members) take down all the work then on display, and lean it up against the wall. Any marks on the walls are repaired and repainted. All work is inspected and remanded to the artist for attention if need be. When I come in the next day with my basic plan for the new show, we are ready to roll. The load of new work is brought out and we discuss how we want to present each display area not only so that it stands alone, but so that the visual flow is coordinated throughout the gallery. Achieving a look of freshness and continuity is a whole day affair! Sometimes we are still here into the dark of the evening getting the show ready for the public’s perusal the next day.

Hartling

TI: As I recall you have a special background in Interior Design. Please tell us how you got into that.

CH: Art has been an integral part of my whole life; but I did not think of it as a career path. My major in college was actually biology. I worked as a medical assistant for surgeries. Did a lot of lab work. It became a challenge to balance that with  my personal responsibilities. I was married and raising three children. Besides, as his career advanced, my husband Don traveled a lot and I wanted to go with him. That travel gave me the opportunity to experience the art and culture of many countries. As my kids became more self sufficient, I realized I would prefer to have my own business, setting my own schedules and priorities.  I also wanted a career outlet with a creative focus. So I enrolled in a two year Interior Design School then  started my own Interior Design business which I ran for 18 years in the LA area before retiring to the mountains.

Waverider

TI: If a patron wanted your advice with Interior Design, say, how to utilize some of this art to make their home as attractive as Timberline, would you.... 

CH: Oh, I would be delighted to talk about how any of our art could be integrated into the home! There are some general concepts in Interior Design that I would be happy to share to help a patron give new life to their surroundings. Sometimes people are intimidated and reluctant to branch out. Integrating ART into the home can give the home—and the individual— a whole new perspective!  Fun to do.

Desert-Wanderings

TI: You have exhibited many beautiful pieces of art here at Timberline over the years of your membership. Tell me about your choice of medium.

CH: I work in watercolor and/or pastels

TI: What prompts you to use one medium rather than the other? 

CH: I guess it's the mood... what effect I want to achieve. Each medium has a different feel... a way of blending. For instance, I love the immediacy of pastels, the intensity of colors... it is pure pigment! I have the work on the easel, life interrupts, I come back two hours or two days later, I see an area that needs something and I can walk up and make a correcting swipe, highlighting with a new color, or softening with a smudge of the surface.  For my watercolors I need to devote larger blocks of time to execution. I guess it has a “wetter” feel, a different way of blending, kind of flow, let it happen. But it demands unremitting attention to get the feel I want to achieve. Pastels are instantaneous and malleable. It is good to travel with, too. I am off to Florida for two weeks and my pastels are going with me. Can you imagine what would happen if I tried to get on the plane with my crumpled tubes of water color pigments and pointy paint brushes? [Laughter]

Ancestral Whispers

TI: You still travel ... CH: Not as often as I would like, now...Travel has been one of my life-long passions.
TI: You noted that you had the opportunity to experience many cultures. Tell us about some of your memorable travels.

CH: Been to many cities in Europe; England, Italy, Germany. Lot of South America: Argentina, Uruguay, Chile. Antarctic. Lot of US, Baja California, Sea of Cortez...Lot of Asia/Southeast Asia: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia , Philippines, South Korea, China, Japan. There is something soulfully beautiful about the ancient cites and cultures in Asia. The colors of the out door market places. I think seeing these places awakened a place in my heart that told me I have to re-create some of these images. An incident during a trip to Africa reverberated through my whole being and touched my soul.  We were on a kind of  photography safari  out in an isolated animal protection area of Botswana where tourist viewing sites had been erected. We were in a sort of cabana built up on stilts so that our veranda was about eye level with the adult elephants. It was past sun down, early evening. A herd of about 20 elephants mulled around, then shuffled off  for the water hole. Following the older moms, teenagers and babies was a huge bull. As he passed beneath us he emitted a low rumbling. His vocalizations are below our hearing range, but his call literally shook my physical body: my collar bone vibrated so intensely that it reverberated through my spine! It was like an epiphany.  I found myself crying. My heart and soul told me simultaneously: we human beings NEED to have this contact with our animal relatives on this planet. We need to re-connect with nature. 

Carolyn

TI: For the Animal Totem show you have done a lovely rendition in pastels in soft desert tones of an ancient looking turtle.

CH: Actually Tex is a tortoise.  Turtles are water folks; tortoises adhere to the land. Tex, a Texas desert tortoise,  came to live with me in the early 70’s via a connection with a local zoo. Many people drop off unwanted pets or strays at zoos, mistakenly believing that the zoo will care and feed them. Most often this is not the case. I like the shape of the animal. Kind of reminds me of the bulk of the elephants. Both have lots of wrinkles to give them character.

I grew up in the very wet Pacific Northwest of Seattle, so the antipodarity of the very dry desert was always intriguing to me. When Tex appeared in my life I gladly took on the task of becoming informed and caring for him. A few years later I was asked to take in three California desert tortoises when their elderly owner could no longer care for them. Two females Chip and Rose, along with Mort the Tort, a very large and aggressive male joined our family. Lo and behold the following Spring we were privileged to witness the preparation and laying of two clutches eggs. Twelve of the most perfect ping pong balls  you’ve ever seen. Knowing that coastal California is not naturally warm enough to successfully incubate the eggs and struggling with our consciences we took a crash course in incubation techniques...

Delta-Mist

TI: Don’t tell me you and Don had to build a nest and sit on these eggs.....[Laughter]

CH: Almost! We had to acquire a proper incubator then had to constantly monitor the temperature and humidity of it for several months. But we were bountifully rewarded. We became the proud grandparents of eleven beautiful tiny tortoises. Since these creatures can live for eighty years or more it is truly a lifetime commitment. Finding acceptable homes with committed owners became almost a full time job! Chip and Mort passed away a few years ago but Rose and Tex continue to reside with us. These creatures have brought me much joy, but I would be happier knowing that they had spent their lives as nature intended.... in their natural environment and without interference from man.

Garden-Tapestry

TI: Thank you so much, Carolyn for sharing with our Timberline patrons this insight into your life. Can you tell me something that most people do not know about you?

CH: Hmmm, let me see...I used to run 26.2 mile marathons. TI: Wow! What motivated you to do that?

CH: Because I could... [chuckles]... I still run... but now it is on my treadmill. The raging fire for running those 26 miles has long since mellowed to mere coals.

facebook
1px