PROCESS
Izzy working on her drawing, Meat To Please You, in her MFA studio in at the Lamar Dodd School of Art in Athens, GA (2024).
WHAT MATERIALS DO YOU USE?
"I USE PASTELS - soft pastels on a prepared wood surface, to be specific. Lately, I've been working a lot with shaped plywood panels - first I cut out the shape that I want with a jigsaw, and then I apply a few solid layers of golden pumice gel/pastel ground to the surface of the panel. Then it is ready to go - the surface will be nice and toothy - rough enough to hold a lot of soft pastel. I like to draw using Sennelier soft pastels, and Terry Ludwig soft pastels, and I have to give an honorable mention to Schminke soft pastels, too. I'm definitely not sponsored by any of these brands, either - I wish I was! These are just the materials that I use and I like them a lot."
WHY DO YOU MAKE ART?
"I make art because
I always have something on my mind and drawing is the only way that I can seem to quiet my conscience for a moment. Though my work is conceptually based in contemporary research on gender and sexuality as it relates to popular consumer culture, each drawing for me is a sort of recollection of a moment that I've experienced in my life. And that's why the drawing process is so important to me; it allows me to sort through my experiences and reconcile them within the scope of a greater whole."
Izzy standing next to her pastel painting, Spread (ButterKnife) at a Juried Exhibition at the Arts Center of Greenwood in South Carolina (2024).
Izzy Losskarn relaxing in her MFA studio in at the Lamar Dodd School of Art in Athens, GA (2024).
HOW DO YOUKEEP THINGS FRESH IN THE STUDIO?
"I keep my pastels as unorganized as possible so that I am always looking for a new color, and I also definitely have favorite colors among my palette - but I never write down the number of the color (I like to keep track of the colors by eye - it keeps me sharp). I wear gloves when I work because I use a heavily textured, gritty paper, and the pigment in the pastels is toxic. So, my hands need protection when I'm drawing, because I mainly use my fingers and palm as blending tools to create the smooth gradients and color transitions that you see in my work."
Izzy touching-up Ripe & Reduced after installing her solo exhibition at Revolve Gallery in Asheville, NC (2023).
Izzy working on finishing her drawing, Lure, in her home studio in Asheville, NC (2023).
DO YOU SPRAY-FIX YOUR PASTEL PIECES?
"Because I work with pastel, sometimes I have to touch up my pieces that are unprotected (I'm talking about my shaped-panel pieces). People ask me a lot about sprayable fixative - I don't use it unless I am planning to ship something a long ways away. I layer my pastels very thickly (this is why I use a textured paper), and because of this, sprayable fixative doesn't have much of an effect on my pieces, other than making them more difficult to touch up before or after installing an exhibition. So I prefer to take my chances and maintain the ability to add pastel whenever I need to!"
Works in progress in Losskarn's studio in Athens, GA.
Tools of the trade: a worn-down Terry Ludwig pastel. "I use them until the very end!"