Carolyn Latanision, watercolor artist
Her award-winning Bethlehem Steel series, tricks of the trade for repairing watercolor mishaps, and how riding rollercoasters relates to painting
In a corner of Carolyn’s Latanision’s Woburn, MA, studio, which showcases over 100 watercolor, gouache, and acrylic masterworks, rests a few aged and utilitarian wire baskets that figure into her story. Carolyn “obtained” several so-called welfare baskets during one of her visits to the shuttered Bethlehem Steel factory.
At the start of their shifts, Carolyn explained, workers would store their wallets and clothes in the baskets, raise them high off the ground using pulleys, and padlock the apparatus. “At the end of the shift, they would put their street clothes back on and the dirty work clothes would stay,” Carolyn said. She says the clothes would come home once a week for laundering. She added wistfully, “They would take ‘black lung’ home with them. My dad died at 58 from lead poisoning because he painted smokestacks with red lead paint primer as part of his job, and they didn’t know about the harms of lead at that time.”
The Bethlehem Steel’s plants, logically located in Bethlehem, PA, was the formative and literal backdrop to Carolyn’s childhood and would later lead her to paint an award-winning series of paintings. When Carolyn described to me her experiences growing up in the factory town, the personal nature of these paintings became quite apparent. Like many people who grew up in the company town, Carolyn saw multiple generations of her family, starting with her great grandfather, work at Bethlehem Steel, often at their peril.
Carolyn’s journey toward award-winning watercolorist and much-loved instructor began in childhood. She was drawing from an early age, nurtured by her mother who was an artist and art teacher. Carolyn would go on to study art education at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, but she considers herself largely self-taught. Being surrounded by the factory structures influenced her interest in architecture. Later when she moved to Boston, she started painting doorways in Beacon Hill to teach herself how to paint architecture, and she would go on to paint larger buildings.
She began painting landscapes and then ventured into nonrepresentational art. The Bethlehem Steel plant didn’t become a painting subject until she learned of the plant’s closing in 1995.
Your mother was an artist and an art teacher. What did you learn from her?
She had an art education background, as do I, and she mostly encouraged me to do my thing. Once in a while, she'd give me instruction. I remember drawing a box, and she showed me two-point perspective [as practiced in her drawing], which was already obvious to me as a five-year-old.
When did you first start selling your work and what was that like?
I sold some paintings when I was in high school. [She said someone found her on Facebook to tell her they discovered one of those paintings in an antique shop in Virginia!]
I was creating very large abstract pieces on canvas when we first moved to Maryland for my husband’s postdoc. Then we went to Japan for a conference for my husband’s work.
There was something about Japanese art and the landscape in Japan that struck me. I pulled out my mother’s old watercolors and I painted still lifes and landscapes. I created some large pieces in which I used [watered-down] acrylic paint as watercolor. My husband hung them at Martin Marietta [a research vendor in Baltimore] where he was working, and I sold many of them, which was encouraging.
What was it about Japanese art that you liked?
There's a simplicity to the design that translates to an abstract foundation of composition.
Whenever I start a painting, I think about the abstract composition before I think about the subject matter. I see the composition in terms of shapes and values before I see the actual subject matter. If I don't see that, I don't paint it.
Let’s talk about your Bethlehem Steel series. You grew up near the factory and then went back to paint it after it closed.
My great-grandfather worked there and died from gangrene after an accident at the factory. At the time, his son and my grandfather was 11. He quit school to work there to support his mother and five sisters. He was a foreman in the heavy forge, and they were managing big sand casting, which was done in the ground. Groundwater seeped in, which they didn't realize, and the whole thing blew up. People were killed and he was badly burned. The company sent him home and told him to come back when he was feeling better, which he did. But he had scarring from it, and would walk out outside in winter because the cold was soothing. He died at 52 from pneumonia.
My dad came back from World War II after he spent a year in a German prison camp, and he took a job at Bethlehem Steel washing windows and painting smokestacks. We lived on the south side of Bethlehem, which was the blue-collar side of town. We were surrounded by the factory. You smelled it. The dirt was everywhere. It was really noisy from the banging in the foundry, which you could hear all over the city. I couldn't get away fast enough.
Much later, when I was living in Boston, I saw a front-page article in the Boston Globe about the plant closing for good. It struck me emotionally. I was able to get access to the plant on four occasions and took many photographs.
Was this the first time you had painted industrial subjects?
Yes. My interest in architectural subjects comes from growing up there. That plant was four and a half miles long and occupied a fifth of the city. [And clearly a portion of Carolyn’s young brain.]
These structures were interesting to me in a visual sense, independent of anything else about the plant because of the light, the shadow, the bulk. The nuances of the structures imprinted themselves on me.
There's one particular painting of the series, Slag Car Under the Blast Furnace, that I really like.
To view the subject of that painting, I stood inside a blast furnace, which was obviously not in operation [you can see the blast furnaces and surroundings in this video].
Inside the blast furnace, they would push the slag, which was a waste product, off the molten metal, down into these slag cars. I used to stand on a bridge and look down at these cars, which were on railroad tracks. The cars would move the slag all the way down to the other end of the track and dump that red-hot slag onto what we always in Bethlehem referred to as the slag heap [This video shows this process].
It was a mountain with glowing red-hot slag on its surface. You could see it at night. My dad literally painted those blast furnaces, which they would shut down. The blast furnaces are still standing and are now part of an arts venue [SteelStacks]. [The National Museum of Industrial History is also on the grounds.]
Do you have a favorite painting from the Bethlehem Steel series?
Ladles and Cranes. I loved painting it and it's won many awards. I liked the composition, and that the cranes would carry the ladles filled with molten steel to be poured. It was an iconic part of the operation. It was massive; a man standing there would only reach the bottom of the letter B in the ladle.
Let’s talk about your process. Can you walk me through how you made one of those paintings?
I took tons of photos. I don't do a lot of sketching because I compose through the lens, even if it's a photo I take using my cell phone.
I draw it, and if I want the painted subject to be fairly close to a photo I have, I'll grid it. [She adds grid lines to both the photo and watercolor paper, very lightly in pencil, to place key features accurately.] But I will still edit the photo, usually substantially to produce the desired composition.
I do as little drawing as possible before I start to paint because I don't want pencil marks on the paper. I'll put more drawing lines in if I need to as I'm going.
Were there particular pieces in that series that were challenging, more so than others?
Yes. The one I call Powered Down was challenging because I was editing strongly. I was thinking about that abstract composition and seeing it in my head already edited.
Tell me about how you painted Powered Down.
I brushed 1:1 acrylic matte medium and water on the gas engine part of the equipment somewhat loosely and then let it dry. Then I'm almost dropping the paint on and letting it dry in a puddle. That comes from my years of puddling acrylic paint.
Some of the straight pieces were taped [to create a crisp line], and then there were places where I used masking fluid [frisket]. I applied many layers—probably about seven layers—of paint to get the dark background to look absolutely smooth and flat, and used different colors so that the dark part has depth to it.
You were asked by the Museum of Fine Arts to make a video showing how you'd replicate a JMW Turner painting. Did you research his technique or did you look at the painting and just know how you would replicate it?
I knew what to do. I've painted for so long, I can imitate almost anybody. But he was working with materials that were different than what’s available today.
He used paints that were very fugitive, meaning they were not permanent and faded over time since he created the painting. I was reproducing a painting that faded and was reproducing the fading.
Turner also used paper unlike anything you can buy today, so I experimented with different papers to get the same appearance. The museum [people] wanted me to paint the same size as the original, so I was gridding.
You paint with acrylic, casein, gouache, and watercolor. Can you talk about how you're using the different mediums?
Most of what I paint is traditional watercolor. I will use the other media when I need to sharpen an edge or when a detail needs a pop. Watercolor and gouache are soluble when they're dry. Acrylic and casein [a milk-based paint] are insoluble when they're dry.
I use acrylic gouache when I don't want the previous layer to lift when I work back over it and I want it to look like watercolor.
Tell me about the painting of your granddaughter with your dog, and how you used the different mediums.
In this painting, I used almost equal parts of casein, watercolor, and gouache. I painted my granddaughter and the dog in watercolor. I put the panels in with watercolor, and they weren't as flat as I wanted them to be. I wanted them flatter, so I pulled out the casein because it dries insoluble, and I can put another coat on without lifting the one under it. For her black clothes, I wanted this deep, almost shapeless solid black area, so I used regular gouache.
Tell me about your corner store painting.
A lot of people recognize where that is, amazingly. It's up at Long Sands Beach in York, ME. I started it in watercolor, but as I worked it down, I used casein. I combined the two to create the lighter clouds. And then from the rooftops down, it's solid casein, which I used like a silk screen, so it's all flat, solid areas that I didn't blend.
You mentioned using frisket, a masking fluid. Can you tell me about how you use it?
I use very little masking fluid because it doesn’t enable me to produce clean edges and most of the time it's easier to paint around an area.
But, as an example, I used frisket masking fluid for the sails in this painting, but when I removed it, the edges were messy. I went back in and refined the edges with white gouache. [Carolyn makes no apologies for mixing mediums to achieve the result she seeks. However, she respects artists devoted to using only transparent watercolor and none of the “tricks” to preserving white portions of paper.]
There’s a saying that lawyers send their mistakes to jail and doctors bury their mistakes. But what does a watercolorist do when working on a big piece and making a mistake that needs to be undone?
You can lift the paint with a stiff brush, such as one you might use when oil painting. If it's small, you can wet it with a regular brush and use facial tissue to lift it.
You can scrub out areas using a sponge. I usually work on 300-pound paper, which enables some scrubbing.
I sometimes correct an area using casein in thin layers so it still has some transparency, and I can make it look how I initially wanted it to look.
I tell my students I'm the queen of mishaps and the queen of fixing them. They tell me I should write a book on fixing. As an example, in my painting of the Olsen house pantry [below], the walls were a little too dark for the composition. I used tape around the doorway and the items in front of the walls and I sponged off the paint and then I removed the tape.
What type of tape did you use?
It's an automotive tape that is used for adding pinstripes to cars.
What do you think is the difference between a technically proficient and a truly great watercolor painter?
There are a lot of people working in watercolor, and oftentimes the paintings are almost rubber stamps of other paintings. What grabs my attention is when painters do something different with the composition. Painters I admire for their strong compositions are Andrew Wyeth and Winslow Homer.
You've said you enjoy the difficulty of watercolor. Yet, you’ve become very proficient, so what remains difficult about it?
If you're not challenged when you're doing a painting, then you're not progressing. If I think I'm not going to be challenged, I’m not going to paint it. For the same reason, I love riding on roller coasters.
When I first met my husband, we went on a date to an amusement park near Bethlehem and rode the rollercoaster three times in a row because finally, it didn't scare me anymore [she says her husband hates rollercoasters]. That’s how I feel with painting. If it doesn't scare me, it doesn’t interest me. I continue to look for subject matter that's different than what other people are doing and that I know will challenge me a bit.
Do you have a favorite paper?
My go-to paper is Saunders Waterford. I also like a handmade paper called Twinrocker, which is not available anymore. I bought a lot of it and keep it sealed in plastic bags so it doesn't dry out. I used Arches for the Bethlehem Steel pieces. The roughness enables me to get that old, ratty, rusted texture.
Are there any experiments that you're wanting to try with your art?
I've done so many experiments. I've printed by applying acrylic marble paste onto matte board, carving into it, and then pressing it onto watercolor paper.
I've done pourings, which is too messy. I've done crazy things with oil paint—huge oil paintings on the floor where I was mixing oil paint with medium and even printing with it. I worked on big acrylic paintings on the floor. I've made 360 degree turns from quite realistic and detailed work to nonobjective paintings several times.
What advice do you have for people seeking to progress as painters?
I tell my students not to take too many workshops because they will learn to paint like their teachers instead of following their own instincts. When I teach, I set up the parameters but they have to work it through themselves. If needed, I show them how to work with the medium, but I encourage them to work intuitively. What comes out of them is what comes out of them. I usually don't do long demos, although I did when I was teaching on Zoom during the pandemic.
What's the largest piece you painted?
A 4’ x 5’ oil painting called A Century of Steel. It's in my house.
I've also done huge watercolors. There's a 60” x 80” woods scene watercolor I did for Bank of Boston. It's a diptych of two 40” x 60” pieces.
What's the favorite piece of art that you own?
I have a lot of my mother's art, and some of it I just love. She died when I was 20. I can see a lot of my mother’s composition and sense of color in my work.
Do you have a painting of yours that you won't sell?
I won't sell Ladles and Cranes [shown above].
My granddaughter recently did an inventory and tracked 900 of my paintings, which include those I’ve sold and ones I have.
Do you sometimes choose subjects based on what you think will sell?
Those two little oil paintings up there, for example [She points to two beach paintings]. I consider them ordinary for me, but they are typically what the average public buys.
People want paintings that fit into their decorating, and they are thinking of the colors in their homes. Most people wouldn't hang one of my hat paintings [see above] in their living room or dining room unless they are a very eclectic person. The Bethlehem Steel paintings are bought by collectors. Most people want something that doesn't challenge them, and that feels soothing.
Lightening round questions
What's been your most captivating art viewing experience?
I grew up 70 miles from New York City, so I would visit my grandmother and my aunt who lived there. As a four-year-old, I'd say, "I want to go to the Metropolitan Museum."
What's the most memorable meal you've ever had?
It was at an upscale hotel restaurant in Tokyo. We probably had 12 courses, and each was artfully presented.
Do you like to cook?
Hate it. Hate it.
What's your favorite dessert?
Fastnachts. The name means “fast night,” the night before Lent begins, and they are a Pennsylvania German tradition. They are similar to donuts.
Palate and Palette menu
Here’s what I would serve if Carolyn and her husband came to dinner, which they are invited to do.
Winter salad with pecans, pears, and gorgonzola
Provencal chicken or Wine harvester’s chicken (I couldn’t decide)
Tarte normande
Where to find Carolyn Latanision (and you should!)
Carolyn Latanision
@carolynlatanisionart
North Shore Arts Association
Rockport Art Association
Copley Society of Art
Cape Cod Art Center
Carolyn's work transcends the subject matter, showcasing her mastery in every piece. This article provided such a valuable insight into her artistic process, further deepening my appreciation for her talent. Truly inspiring
It's a wonderful thing for the subject matter to be so personal. Her family story at the steel mill is a history lesson and a peak into another time that wasn't so very long ago. I am less than an hour from Bethlehem and today many people probably associate the city with its casino. Thanks, as always, Amy.