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Cynthia
Worthen Vascak at work in her studio.
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For
some artists the actual process of a creating a work of art is a
means to an end, both artistically and financially. The process is
sometimes onerous, sometimes exhilarating, but it is always
focused on achieving an end result that is both pleasing to the
public and satisfying to the artist. That is what being an artist
is all about.
For Cynthia Worthen Vascak, however, the formula is
somewhat different and reversed, not too dissimilar from the kind
of relief and transfer prints that she produces today. Influenced
by the work of early Japanese woodblock printmakers Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and Ando
Hiroshige (1797-1850) the art of actually
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creating
is an end in itself. Creating the perfect line, creating just the right
expressive curve, the most exacting floral pattern or etching― the
act of drawing, one line at a time, in its simplest and most profound
form, is its own reward. It is a process she defines, and we can best
understand, as “calligraphic painting”.
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An admittedly private person, Vascak spent decades
of her life developing a skill that was seen by few outside her close
circle of friends and family. Her work is so personal; she blushes when
she speaks of it, even today, almost as if she’s sharing a part of
herself that is meant to be kept private.
“When you show your work,” she says, “you show your soul.
For me, it’s very symbolic in terms of conceptualization. It’s
organic and curvaceous.” An artist’s statement she produced herself says: “My
prints and drawings are journeys of discovery and responsivity.
Ultimately, they are paths to deeper awareness and appreciation . . .
part of a larger journey of mindful living.”
Even her words are laced with symbolism, metaphors,
and references to a higher purpose of her art. There is an almost
childlike
innocence about her desire to communicate
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©
"LADY
WITH FAN",
monoprint, 11" X 8 1/2"
by Cynthia
Worthen Vascak
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spirituality
and purpose through her work that is truly infectious.
When you view her art there is the obvious; it’s what
you see on first glance. But closer examination reveals layered meaning
underneath, particularly in her detailed etchings that tell stories through
the interconnectivity of each piece of the whole. Because of the subtle meaning of what is contained in her etchings,
and the muted colors and simple lines of her relief and transfer prints, which
may appear at first blush, imperfect and incomplete, there is the risk that
some may dismiss her efforts or view her work as parochial. Those who view her
work this way, however, don’t understand the style. It’s a style that is
not much seen or fully appreciated these days. To understand the medium
better, you almost have to experience what the artist experiences in creating
such intricate works.
Mystical imagery
from the artist’s perspective.
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© "WAITING",
16
1/2"X 9 1/2", monoprint,
by Cynthia
Worthen Vascak
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As she describes the process of creating one of her
transfer prints, for example, she holds out her hand, wrist turned
downward at a ninety degree angle, and with an imaginary pencil,
delicately sketches in air what is in her mind. “The secret is in not
allowing your hands to touch the paper.” she says, describing the
process by which she lightly places an almost translucent piece of paper
on a layer of etching ink, which is, itself, placed atop Plexiglas. She
then sketches an image. “You want to draw in such a way that only the
pencil mark shows. At that moment you have to know what you’re
doing.” If you press too firmly, she explains, the result will be
blotches of ink on the reverse side, and a failed effort. If everything
goes as planned, however, when you lift the paper, you end up with a
slightly raised, sharp image, called a transfer print ― an
original work of art in everything but its name, “print”.
Another method she
enjoys is referred to as relief printing. Here, she carves a reverse
image on polystyrene foam and uses it as a woodblock to impress the image on paper. Up to fifteen thin layers of
various colors of paint per print may be applied by the same “block”, all
to produce one monoprint. She rarely produces two.
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It’s a process not much
different from the Japanese artists she admires. In the days of Hokusai and
Hiroshige, however, the process of woodblock printing involved many different
artisans. Hiroshige, for example, would produce a final drawing of the
subject, and then turn it over to another artisan who would carve it into a
block of hardwood like cherry, using special knives, chisels and scrapers.
With the original sketch placed on top of the wood in reverse, so that it
would reproduce in the same manner the artists drew it; the master carver
would carefully scrape away everything but the image, leaving a raised, or
relief, surface. It would then be turned over to another artisan who would
imprint multiple images, each of a different color, on paper ― all
supervised by the master artist. Today, Vascak does it all herself,
substituting foam for wood and achieving near the same result.
It’s not your traditional painting on canvas or board,
she says, not as vibrant or colorful or as rich as oil. She stresses, however,
that her “work is as complete as one of these paintings,” pointing to a
painting hanging on a wall across from us, adding, “just as complete, but
completely different.
Of her work today, Vascak says her images “tend to be
on the side of graceful and poetic, to draw attention to the beauty of
something as simple as a flower. If you can achieve that,” she says,
“it’s beautiful. It’s part of the spirituality of art.”
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A
long and winding road to success:
As a young
girl, Ms. Vascak remembers having an early interest in art,
supported largely by her parents who encouraged her at every
turn. “I knew I always wanted to be an artist,” she recalls
humorously, adding “and my parents always wanted me to be an
art teacher.” As fate would have it, today she is both.
Her first brush with formalized art training came when,
at the ripe age of thirteen, a friend of her parents, an artist
himself, noticed a portrait of the Beatles she had done and
which her mother had hung on a kitchen wall. He observed the
portrait and said, simply: “That girl has talent.” Soon
thereafter, she visited his studio and was given her first commission. “I went to his
studio and he said: ‘Draw me a hand’. I looked at my hand and drew
it and I guess I passed. ” The experience was a positive one that
lasted six months. But her Needham
High School days were filled with other interests besides art.
Although she continued to draw, art took a second seat to just being a
teen.
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© "AMARYLLIS",
11" X 6 1/2", relief print,
Cynthia
Worthen Vascak
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After high school she enrolled at Boston University hoping to pursue a more formal art education. BU
offered the kind of classical approach to art that she hoped for,
and it has stayed with her ever since. “I was painting objects and
cubes and figures, very traditional stuff, and my friends were doing
soft sculpture and installation.” BU may have been ready for her,
but she was not inclined or ready to reciprocate the offer.
It was fortuitous, too, for after two years at
BU her education was interrupted by a marriage proposal from her
“childhood sweetheart”― a proposal which she gladly
accepted. Eager for change, she moved to Canada with her new
husband, and for the next ten years worked at various jobs while he
pursued both an undergraduate and graduate degree. During this
period she worked as dressmaker and a graphic designer. When she
wasn’t working or tending home, she attended classes at University
of Quebec, Beaux Arts, the Montreal
Museum of Fine Arts, Concordia
University and the Saidye
Bronfman Center. It was during her stay in Montreal, Vascak
says, that she took an interest in etching and relief printing, and
“found her voice in the human figure”.
She also discovered that the man of her dreams,
wasn’t.
Incredibly,
after ten years working at developing her skill as an artist,
accumulating a body of work that showed promise and constant
improvement, she had not exhibited or shown her work to anyone
outside of family and perhaps a few close friends.
She felt she needed change, and sought it
through travel and education. She boarded a plane and headed south,
way south, about as far away from hurtful memories as she could get.
She enrolled at the Instituto
de belles Artes in San Miguel d’Allende Mexico and pursued her
interest in art there ― for a while.
With all her courses and experience, one hurdle
had not been overcome. She wanted to complete her formal education.
If she knew little else about what direction her life would take,
she knew that it would not go in the direction she hoped until she
completed her
education. She left Mexico and traveled to Brownsville Texas and
enrolled at the University of
Texas-Pan American for two additional years of study. There, she
accumulated the credits needed to earn a B.A.
It was while taking courses at Pan American that Vascak developed an interest in the arts of Asia
and particularly a “personal fascination with the traditions of
Japanese ink painting, calligraphy, and printmaking.”
When she applied for an art instructor’s job at Pan American, however, she discovered to her dismay that even with
all her experience and courses, and a B.A., academia wanted someone
with an MFA degree to actually teach art. She resolved to get that
degree where she began, at BU.
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© "BOUDOIR",
9" X 9 1/2", monoprint,
by Cynthia
Worthen Vascak
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Vascak eventually received her M.F.A degree
from BU’s School of Arts. Building on her fascination with Asian
art, she also used her time at BU to delve into Tai Chi and Eastern
Philosophy. All these subjects, she said,
contributed toward her specialization today. They “had a
deep influence upon me,” she says, “and upon my
artistry.”
M.F.A completed, Vascak decided to add
depth to her academic background. She applied for and was
accepted at the University of New Hampshire, where she earned a Doctorate in
Education. Today, along with her husband, Vladimir, who
teaches at the Wreath
School in New Hampshire. Ms. Vascak is an Associate
Professor of Art and Education and Coordinator of Art
Education programs at Plymouth
State Collage in Plymouth New Hampshire, a job she says,
she thoroughly enjoys.
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As for Cynthia Worthen Vascak, the
artist, she now displays her art at Winstanley-Roark
Fine Arts in Brewster, MA., and discusses it eagerly
with anyone who expresses an interest. Where in the past she
kept her work private, hidden from others, she now welcomes
critique and dialogue and searches for new outlets through
the New England
Monoprint Guild and the Cape
Cod Printmakers’ Association. “I find it all very
inspirational and informative,.” she says of the newly
acquired exposure.
Still, there is a part of Vascak I sense that
is hidden and will remain hidden for as long as she wishes. It comes
out in pieces, and even then it is often layered in the art she
produces. Those fortunate enough to talk with her at any length on this aspect of
her art will find the experience rewarding, for once opened, her
words freely flow, and her life’s experiences, fears, hopes and
dreams surface. This, then, is the artist, Cynthia Worthen Vascak: a
mystery, wrapped in a riddle; it is also a large part of her art. To
know one, is to know the other.
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