Makers’ Making: Barbara Miszkiel – Painting

We are pleased to welcome Basia (Barbara) Miszkiel and her acrylic landscape and still life paintings to this years tour.

Get to know Basia with this Q and A:

Why do you do what you do?

I find it incredibly moving and invigorating! Painting gives me an outlet for creative expression that does not take five years to realize. When an idea takes hold, I am all in. When I paint I see things more intensely. I hear myself saying “What brushstrokes would I use to convey that” and “what’s the big idea behind this painting?”. For me, it is not about recording or observing. It’s a conversation on canvas. 

What about this area inspires you?

How often have we passed a beautiful landscape without really noticing, or seen an old building and once it is demolished, forgotten almost immediately what was there? How many times have we experienced the joy of little things without stopping to realize how they made us who we are? I love exploring the effect of colour, light and texture to capture memories big and small, from sagging old barns to simple stovetop cranberries.

What is your most memorable experience with art?

Spending 10 days in a plein air painting course led by Marc D’Alessio in Pujols, France, I came back home knowing that painting is not something I want to do but something I need to do, in order to feel whole.

Please describe the qualities of one of the materials you work with.

I love the flexibility of acrylics. Because they dry so quickly, I can layer over top if I want to make a change or create a different effect, which suits my creative process of trying things out as I go. Acrylics are also the friend who always supports you – need it thinned out for watercolour effects? No problem.  Thicker applications similar to oil paints? Absolutely. Need to bring in a partner like modelling paste? Welcome to the team.

Give us a fun fact about you not directly related to your art.  

As an architecture student in Denmark, my love of old buildings almost got the better of me. Together with a couple of other die-hards I broke into the Copenhagen Police Headquarters Building (1924), to experience the famous circular interior courtyard of what is known as the last example of Neoclassical Architecture in Northern Europe. We got caught, but not before getting to see this amazing space, luckily not deported and allowed to finish our school term. 

Basia (Barbara) Miszkiel, studio B

September 18 – 19, 10 am – 5pm

apsleystudiotour.com