Artistic Summer Dreams with Michelle Gagliano and Benedict Scheuer

May 31, 2024

Art

Nesha Ruther and Maggie Lemak

Summertime is all about stepping back and tuning in. A season that empowers us to escape from the busyness of everyday life and really indulge in rest and relaxation. Whether you get your escape from a vacation, a good book, or blocking off time to connect with your creative side, this is the season for doing what makes you happy! Those dreamy activities that make life all the sweeter.

We caught up with two of the Artists featured in our Frankenstein Art Collective, Michelle Gagliano and Benedict Scheuer to talk about their practice and process, and how it intersects with rest and relaxation.

B&G: What part of your process do you find the most meditative/dreamy?

Michelle: I’m so incredibly process-driven. When working on the Artwork for the Frankenstein Art Novel, for example, I found it very dreamy to have these dialogues with both the narrative of the text and then delving into the meditative process of finding materials to match the spirit of what I want to respond to.

It became a conversation between myself and this visceral idea I want to pursue, this would put me into this dream state for the duration of the studio.

Benedict: For me, the most meditative part of the process is drawing the pattern I have in mind on the silk. I often start by creating a box on the edge of the silk that crisscrosses in the corners, creating a border. Creating a long, straight line on this material requires a lot of focus, and there’s this incredible moment while I’m drawing where I’m focusing on my breathing, focusing on the task at hand, and my brain just shuts off. I’m totally in that moment.

Sometimes it happens for a split second, sometimes a bit longer, and in that moment I get this warm, internal feeling. It’s a really special part of drawing for me.

B&G: How do you feel like your art connects you to nature / the environment?

Michelle: My art has always centered around nature and the environment. My work aims to convey that sense you get, the breathless moment when you see an inspiring sunset or the first snow, Nature creates the most stunning art, and I aim to reflect a tiny amount of that. For me, it’s all about a moment of exhale when walking into the studio...like walking in a park. Working in the studio is a lot like nature, some days are sunny and smooth and others a storm will take over the painting and you can’t get away.

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But I am always awestruck by how nature has provided the material for artists for thousands and thousands of years, and how we are still painting with sticks, oils, stones, veg and soot. That’s what I try to bring into the studio, that sense of authentic self through the materials.

Benedict: I have always thought about drawing as a way of being connected to nature and the environment. So for me, nature includes everything involved in the artistic process, including my own self. I think we can become numb to our bodies, our environments, and everything is environment. But to draw is a deliberate action in which I am practicing an intense presence and awareness of the world around me, and therefore I am practicing connection to nature and connection to environment. For me, that is what the work is made from and what the work is largely about.

B&G: Is there something you wish more people knew about your artwork or the details of its creation?

Michelle: I wish people knew the extent of the process I go through with my materials to create artwork that reflects my commitment to the environment. I’m an active member of the Gallery Climate Coalition and try to keep my studio as safe and sustainable as I can. I use recipes from the Renaissance to create my artwork with a contemporary dialogue.

I mix my own paints and have eliminated acrylics from my studio because of the issues of microplastics.

This is in addition to creating the artwork…… I’m in love with making my own gesso now. (Gesso is a white paint mixture used to coat rigid surfaces such as wood or stone and serve as a primer for the paint.)

B&G: Which artwork is your favorite from your Frankenstein collection and why?

Michelle: I enjoyed working on all the work! But, I found that making Mont Blanc was especially a tender moment for me, choosing the fraying linen to convey the human condition within Frankenstein.

I also meditatively mixed all the paint and kept the palette limited to have a focused feeling of the weather as reflective of the emotions that were happening in that passage of the book.

Benedict: One of my favorite themes throughout Frankenstein was how multiple characters, particularly Victor Frankenstein and the Creature found so much solace and grounding energy by being present to their sensations and the natural environment. That’s something I try to intentionally practice in my everyday life, this idea of mindfulness and presence. I was able to run with that theme in an artwork titled Nature is a Touchstone to Harmony.

This work is all about the breath and at the center of the Artwork there are a pair of lungs that are inhaling or exhaling, surrounded by a cascade of black circles at the center of the image.

The art is surrounded by this rich, echoing border that is coming into or out of the center of the piece. Each of these border elements is affected by the one previous to it, and they are supposed to be paying attention to the negative and positive space of the segment adjacent to it. I love that Artwork because there does seem to be this great harmony within it, it’s really reflective of that theme. So, I feel that work is very successful.

B&G: What are you daydreaming about this summer?

Michelle: I’m daydreaming about the bounty from our garden, wine made from our vineyard, both of which involve a lot of chasing of deer on my end… and always peace on earth.

Benedict: My daydreams go in two directions. One is my garden, I love to grow flowers and vegetables and I’m constantly out there checking on my plants, sowing new seeds, and weeding. So I love to stand out there in the sun and envision how full and lush the garden will be by the middle of summertime. That is one place where I really get to appreciate the moment. It’s a life-giving force for me.

When I’m not daydreaming about the garden, I’m daydreaming about the studio, what is possible through the work I want to produce, and what goals I have for myself.

I am always dreaming about the studio, and what I want to make and where it is going to take me.

B&G: What books do you read to "escape"?

Michelle: I’m currently reading a truly mesmerizing book, The Covenant of Water by Abraham Vergese. I love how he extracts so many levels of emotion from his observational studies of people, it’s awe-inspiring. Plus, I always like to read anything about Renaissance and Medieval painting practices. I’m currently obsessed with the Art Historian Spike Buklow, he writes a lot about the history of pigments and his knowledge base is just mind-boggling.

Benedict: I feel like I don’t really utilize books for that purpose. There are books for entertainment or knowledge, or just joy and pleasure and I use books for all of these things, but I don’t see those purposes as an escape as much as enriching my daily life. I know some people might see that as an escape, but for me, I enrich my daily experience through reading. By reading I can make everything around me a little bit more full and vivacious and vibrant.

B&G: Where is your favorite place to vacation in the summer months?

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Michelle: My studio!

Benedict: One of my favorite places to go during the summer is Northern Minnesota. I was born and raised there and my dad and grandparents actually live in very, very, Northern Minnesota, on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It has such a strange beauty and wildness to it, and I hate that word because in many ways it paints an incorrect image. But the landscape there feels a little tougher, a little more sparse and it carries a unique beauty. There’s beautiful water and lakes everywhere. I love to go up there and spend time in nature and see my family. It’s a place for me to reconnect with the natural escapes I grew up with. I find it very recharging and generative. It’s absolutely gobsmackingly beautiful up there. Even now, thinking about it, I can smell the lake, I can hear the lap of the waves and I’m thinking about the loon calls. I’m going to be there in July and I can’t wait.

B&G: Is there a passage from Frankenstein you find particularly dreamy?

Michelle: I love this particular passage, you can close your eyes and be transported into the scene.

“The black ground was covered with herbage, and the green banks interspersed with innumerable flowers, sweet to the scent and the eyes, stars of pale radiance among the moonlight woods….”

Benedict: I absolutely love chapter 11 where we are introduced to the Creature coming into their senses for the first time. In that chapter, they allow for this full pleasure to run through them where they are seeing the moon for the first time, understanding birds or fire, and moving forward with what pleases them and interests them the most. That moment added such beautiful humanity to the Creature. It also allowed us as readers to reflect on what everything in the world was fresh and new for us, and how absolutely stunning and magical the world can be.

Michelle Gagliano is an American artist based in Scottsville, Virginia and is known for enigmatic, abstract oil paintings that depict natural forms with textural patinas, particularly of landscapes and light.

Benedict Scheuer draws on paper and silk that is hand-dyed, steam set, and hung freely. He also expands his drawings into sculpture and sometimes creates video, performance, photography, and writing. His artwork often imagines possibilities of belonging.

Thank you Michelle and Benedict, and see their full collections in our Frankenstein Art Collection.

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