in the local parlance. On the weekend, some artists
chose to stay in the studio and work, but Katherine
and some of the others used the time to explore the
area. Th ankfully, Joaquin moved out to sea, sparing
New England from all but a few days of heavy rain
and churning waves that drew a pack of hardy surfers
to Cape Ann’s outer beaches, along with a single
parasailer, invisible among the low, gray clouds but for
his rainbow-striped canopy.
Saturday morning was an opportunity to lin-
ger over coff ee at a lovely location next to the Cape
Ann Museum (which includes in its collection works
by Gilbert Stuart, Winslow Homer, Milton Avery,
Cecilia Beaux and John Sloan, along with native son
Fitz Henry Lane); to visit local galleries (“Converging
Lines: Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt” at Addison Gallery
of American Art at Phillips Academy was noteworthy);
to experience the tempestuous confl uence of sea and
rock at Halibut Point, or to browse the quaint shops
in Essex and Rockport. Th ere was a group dinner each
week and Katherine gave an invited lecture one eve-
ning at the North Shore Arts Association. As usually
happens, time seemed to speed up the second week,
and the end came much too quickly.
CRITIQUE, NOT CRITICISM Th e students
all gathered on the last day for a group critique—as
opposed to “criticism”—and Katherine discussed
each artist’s work, sometimes off ering suggestions
but always encouragement; she gave each person a
fi nal opportunity to ask questions. Katherine conveys
great confi dence in the potential of her students and
optimism that they can achieve their goals. Most
progress will be achieved after the artists return
home and begin the real task of putting what they’ve
discovered to work. “We paint because we must,” she
tells them. ■
JUDITH FAIRLY writes about the arts and makes art, as she
travels around the country and the world.MEET KATHERINE CHANG LIU
Katherine Chang Liu has a master of science degree from
the University of California, Berkeley. She has won grants
from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia
Commission for the Arts and Humanities. She has served as
judge for the Abstract/Experimental division of The Artist’s
Magazine’s Annual Art Competition several times. She has
said of her work,“My painting process is a process of addition
and subtraction, during which I try to edit the image down to
only what is needed.”Planning a Trip
To fi nd out more about Gloucester
and Katherine Chang Liu’s workshop- northeastartworkshops.com
- katherinechangliu.com
- gloucesterma.com
- http://www.andover.edu/museums/addison
- capeannmuseum.org
NEED HI RES
IMAGE
What I Did I hadn’t painted for years, and I
didn’t know what I wanted to do. Katherine told me
not to worry about creating a masterpiece; a workshop
is a place to work out your ideas. Katherine believes
the idea is paramount; technique is something you
can fi gure out later. Unlike me, the other students
knew what they were doing (particularly her long-time
students; some have been taking her workshops for
25 years) and were seeking guidance on their work
in progress. I had so many ideas and I didn’t know
how to distill them into a single work. It was all a
Hieronymus Bosch-like jumble in my head. I adopted
a sort of mosaiclike technique using old road maps
from family trips I discovered when I was cleaning
out my mom’s house. The labor-intensive process
became a sort of meditation on those ideas—
geography, ecology, natural catastrophes, global
strife—and I tried to order them using pattern and
symbols and images that had come to me in dreams.
(I see 11:11 on digital clocks all the time. It’s like
the time on the Doomsday Clock). I’m a big fan of
erasing, and the watercolor paper allowed me to redo
areas that became too overdone. At the end, though,
Everything I Knew Is Gone
looked to me like a roadmap of
the ideas I want to explore in
other media.—JUDITH FAIRLY
ABOVE: Everything
I Knew Is Gone
(collage, 12x17)DECEMBER 2016 61
54_tam1216Liu.indd 61 9/22/16 9:33 AM