Cathy Hagen Life Interrupts Art
Busy Bee
Art interrupts Life.
By Larry Clifford
She wonders if she is an artist.
She says that she always wanted to be an artist. Even as a little girl, she thought about art and wondered about being an artist. For as long as she can remember, she has said, “I want to be an artist when I grow up.”
She laughingly admits today that sometimes she's perhaps not so much an artist as she is a collector of art supplies. The brushes, colors, papers, and other tools of the artist fill her studio. Her studio is upstairs in her lovely house, away from everything, by herself, but never alone.
Poppies
And admittedly, sometimes she's not only an artist, but also a librarian.
Hundreds of books line the walls of her studio and other rooms throughout her house. They are "how-to " books and books on the history and technique of art and artists. Art history is a special passion for her; "learning from outside my own time frame and worldview," as she explains it.
At other times, Hagen is a curator of her own gallery. Her own works, and the works of other favorite artists, line the walls and hallways of her spacious home.
She is an artist in all her roles, and she is a collaborator. She works with her husband, David, on illustrating patents. She studied Graphic Design at the University of the Nations in Hawaii and studied Theater Costume at the University of Missouri.
The graphic design background has allowed her to continue to practice a part-time “side hustle” with patent illustration. She also collaborates with her daughter, Anna, a professional harpist. Together, they design the title pages for Anna’s original sheet music, purchased by harpists all over the world.
Winter Creek
YES! Cathy Hagen is an artist! On so many levels.
Hagen uses transparent watercolor because she wants to be transparent in every area of her life. She relies on intense colors, and as there is intensity in every area of her life, she shares this intensity with her art.
Hagen currently lives and works in Goshen, but she has traveled extensively around the world. She was raised in Chillicothe, Missouri, but has lived in Canberra, Armidale, Cairns, Australia, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, and Israel. Each location has allowed her to expand her vision of the world and her art.
Hagen has expanded her knowledge by painting all the different sources of light throughout her travels.
“The play of light fascinates me,” she explains. She notes that a lifetime of learning trained her to see shape and color as well as the objects themselves. She is intrigued by finding paintable beauty everywhere, adding color, light, and shadows.
Light becomes an extra dimension to her vision and to her art.
Twelve Apostles
“I do commissions of people’s happy places, like first houses or family pets. My personal happy place is the view in front of me. Whether in the studio or plein air, from purple mountains to parking lots, I choose to find something paintable everywhere.”
Another dimension of her painting is interruption. “Life interrupts art.” She wants to create art "that interrupts life; art that is so engaging that you stop for a moment to rejoice.” Her art interrupts and affirms life with a bit of joy.
Her internet blog, cathyhagenartist.com, asks a revealing question: "Which Iris are you?" She notes that there are three differing ways that she paints many things, but especially the iris, one of her favorite and perfect flowers.
Sometimes she paints using “photo realism,” almost taking a watercolor photograph of the iris in her yard. Depending on the sun's angle, the same iris can be “clothed in royal purple or skirted in hot pink.” She notes, "The purples are some of my darkest paints while, sunlit petals need pale washes gently dabbed with freckles.”
Next, her preferred style is “artistic realism.” Visualizing the iris and using the extra dimension of light and imagination—a brighter color here, a more intense value there, a loose edge elsewhere—she seizes "opportunities for artistic license.”
And then there is the iris in “recognizable abstraction.” Undoubtedly, it is a flower, but “the point of the painting is color and shape, the value and JOY !” The abstract iris is lovely, but so different, encouraging artistic license, light, and creativity.
But skill is the servant of creativity. Creativity without skill is just an idea. Worse, skill without creativity, intensity, and joy misses the mark.
Her paintings tell stories. The painting "Happy Up a Tree!" is such a story. She remembers when her aunt sent her a photo: "a small Missouri farmhouse in black and white, and a little out of focus.” But this wasn't just any photo; it encompassed her memory of her childhood in a small town in Missouri, where she grew up, and the memory of her aunt who lived nearby, on a small farm down the road. This photo was of that farm.
Barn Caught in the Wore Fence
She describes it as an “outhouse-hand pump-hilltop” small farm. But mostly, she remembers the tree. “The biggest thing I remember was the tree house!” On family visits, that tree house was the first place she went “when the car door opened and was the last place I was found” when it was time to go home.
It was a haven where the older cousins would get away from the “little kids.” The tree house was a retreat to "sort through memories and dream of the future.” So, from the black-and-white, old-worn photo, she created the painting “Happy up a tree!”
She painted that wonderful childhood space in the brilliant greens and yellows she remembered, her happy place.
She turned that happy memory into art that still makes her smile.
She sees that happy memory as one of the ways that art changes one’s life. “How does art reflect you?” she asks.
Her own home, filled with art, reflects her and her family.
She encourages her clients to love beauty, sunshine on water, and walks in the woods, as a reflection of their inner desire for beauty. "Too often we are surrounded by plain walls.”
She encourages us to “interrupt the plain walls, with art,” with a beautiful landscape, still life, or whimsical painting that reflects your personality.
Color Wheel Canoes
One such whimsical painting is the "Avian Gothic," cover art, a delightful watercolor of a rooster and a hen, side-by-side in front of a farmyard barn, evoking the “American Gothic” of Grant Wood. You stand there, immediately recognizing something vaguely familiar. But then you chuckle at the artistic pun, bringing mirth and joy to your voice. (I need that painting for my kitchen!)
Another way that Hagen believes art changes your life is that “art creates your space the way you want to live it.” Recognizing that your life is partially shaped by the space you live in, Hagen's art allows you to “make your living space express you.” She encourages others to “surround yourself with what makes your own heart smile.”
Frank the Tank French Bull Dog
“I paint in transparent watercolor because I want to be transparent in
every area of my life. Using intense colors intensely, I call my style
artistic realism.”
The third way that Hagen wants art to change your life is by recognizing that art "tells deeper stories than a photo can.” She recognizes that photos can’t always capture the “thing you love about your favorite place, or person," or perception. As she says, “the power lines are optional” in a work of art.
Hagen is deeply in love with Jesus. Throughout her art, there is a very spiritual viewpoint. But it doesn’t proselytize. It lifts you and enhances you.
Cathy Hagen
Corn’s Ready
She sees her art as a diary of her life. Looking back at her art, she can look back at her life. The places she’s lived, the people she has met, the landscapes she has admired. Painting her stories of life as she passes through it. She wants to pass into your story, as she passes through her own.
That diary of artistic expression also helps her remember the lessons that she has learned from family, friends, places she has visited, and the creativity that has come to her while she paints. It is especially helpful for remembering the wonderful teachers that she has encountered on her artistic journey.
I a child, tho a lamb
Like a Sheppard
She gives credit to a series of workshop teachers who have influenced her work. A special way to layer her work from one; a special method of stroke from another; a fuller understanding of watercolor as a special medium, and a new view of light, color, or creativity.
Yes! She IS an artist!
Hagen has participated in the juried art competition for fifteen years at the Midwest Museum of American Art in Elkhart. Hagen won many awards throughout her painting career.
Hagen will show her art at the Wellfield Taste of the Gardens in August and will participate again this year in the Art on the Mill Race in September.
Michigan Barn