Last weekend was the opening of the Hot Wax / Cold Wax Exhibition at the Kerr Arts and Cultural Center in Kerrville, Texas. Kerrville is a charming Hill Country town about an hour drive from my home in San Antonio. 26 Texas artists were invited to participate in the exhibition and it was wonderful to meet the artists and see their work.

Hot wax and cold wax are two very different mediums, the only common denominator is beeswax. Cold wax is a soft paste made with beeswax that adds body, transparency and depth to oil paint. Hot wax, or encaustic, painting is the use of molten beeswax to which pigments may be added. Because I use a lot of oil paint/ oil pigment sticks in my encaustic work, and I've been an oil painter for a long time, I will probably work with cold wax and oil more in the future. I have experimented with cold wax a little but put it aside because I was busy with other things. Currently, there are a few unfinished cold wax and oil panels sitting in my studio calling my name ever since I saw the great cold wax work in the Kerrville show. I was particularly intrigued by the work of Doris Vasek and Chris White. I liked Vasek's moody abstracts and White's use of both cold and hot wax in her work. The show definitely renewed my interest in the medium.

The show is up until March 27th. It's best to see in person, but here's a few photos from the exhibition.