Sandi Miot

Gotta love that Facebook - mostly! I saw a notice from someone about Sandi Miot's upcoming show, "Reliquaries: Requiem for the Printed Word" at Market Street Gallery in San Francisco (opening October 8th). This piqued my interest on several counts: first, I know Sandi and her work from the annual encaustic conference, I showed  with her in the Wax Libris II show at the 2010 conference and admired her works with book parts. Finally, anything called a "reliquary" is bound to attract me.

Sandi Miot, Found Out Along the Way, 12" x 12" x 2", encaustic, graphite, book parts

The still images in this post are from Sandi's website,  from her Folio Series, and I think will be included in her October show. I find them very beautiful - the deep black of the waxy grounds, the stained and aged pieces of old books displayed as relics, the simplicity of the compositions in the first two pieces that emphasizes their physical nature.

Sandi Miot, Things I've Learned, 12" x 12" x 3"

Sandi Miot, Chopin's Etudes, 24" x 24" x 4"

This third piece introduces the element of music, along with those little heads. I am not sure if they are cast wax or another material. The physicality of the splayed book with dark cover and rusty looking binding is so rich and evocative of a lost history.

Sandi Miot, Transformation I, 36" x 36" x 2", encaustic with book spines

This piece has a different feeling from the first three, but I love the rhythm in the carved and colored lines, the texture, the pieces of buttons and the dark area at the bottom which seems like a book spine. (Sandi confirms that it is.)

Finally, I was really intrigued with a short video of Sandi talking about her work and showing her in the act of creating. She speaks about the importance of books and how they are being lost in the overwhelming deluge of digital media. About found objects, she says that she works with a jumble of things but aims to bring order out of chaos. As she works out initial ideas, the selection of objects becomes an intuitive process.






From Sandi's artist statement:

I paint because to not paint is unthinkable and encaustics as a medium totally absorbs me. It offers a sumptuous richness of color and an abundance of texture--a subtle variety of surface markings--contrasts of smooth, silky wax and rusted, pitted metal: order and disorder, chaos and plan.