Kat Masella, abstract and figurative painter
Painting fast, her paint recipe, and advice for creating when you don't feel like it
Think Cat in the Hat. Now, think cat in a yurt. Actually, it's Kat, as in Kat Masella. Writing Palate & Palette has taken me to some interesting places but interviewing an artist in a yurt during a heavy rainstorm in April was a new experience. It was Kat's yurt, standing right beside her traditional house in a wooded area of Manchester bordering Gloucester, MA.
Inside, a worktable held sizable paint containers filled with paint-laden brushes that look like they have…been through a lot. Clearly, paint has flown in this yurt because the floor looks inspired by a Jackson Pollock painting. Even though Kat finished the wood floors beautifully when constructing the yurt with her husband Bob, protective tarps were a tripping hazard. Kat's work sneakers are also "Pollocked." Oh yes, Kat also applies paint to canvas. Her yurt is heavily populated by large, abstract paintings hung on circular walls of the yurt and living in stacks. The yurt's circularity and dome give Kat's studio a cyclic quality, with paintings in various stages of completion; an artistic womb of sorts.
Something about being in a yurt, being greeted with a sincere hug by a hippie headband-wearing Kat, makes me think there should be incense burning, Grateful Dead emanating from big floor speakers of yesteryear, and a VW bus parked outside. But it's 2023, so there's a practical car in the driveway, and if music was playing, it would be Bruce Springsteen, a favorite of Kat's.
In high school, Kat dreamed of being an art major, but the urge to be independent and self-sufficient won over, and so instead she earned a computer science degree. Upon graduation, a serendipitous, year-long work study in London exposed her to art all over Europe thanks to Eurail passes (and a good income). By day she worked as the database programmer for a housing corporation; weekends and evenings included regular visits to galleries, museums, and of course, the pubs—a fun lifestyle for someone in her early twenties.
Subsequently, she returned to the US (Boston) and worked in marketing for a high-tech consulting firm. She married and had two children. Making art and studying art remained in the background as a hobby because raising a family was her first priority. When her kids were both in full-time school, she went back to work establishing an art workshop retreat center in Gloucester, MA, while earning a graduate certificate in Visual Arts from Harvard University and then a four-year certificate from the Art Students League of New York. Today, she seems to be thriving as an artist, enjoying herself and selling work.
Why do you sometimes work with live models?
The energy of a live person is more palpable. Memories of real-life experience are what gets stored in my brain. I don’t really need a model per se, because life experiences can be filed away for later retrieval. Putting pencil to paper for quick sketches of life imprints images onto my brain whether I’m working on figures, landscapes, cityscapes, or interior spaces.
The brain and the subconscious are so mysterious and have always intrigued me. I want people to feel fully alive when viewing my work and so working from life, past experiences, or from the dream world are good resources.
I like the short poses partly because I don't want the models to become uncomfortable. A one-minute pose has an energy that may be difficult to sustain for more extended periods. Trying to abstract the figure is complex, and it's a brain exercise for me, mainly because we identify with the human figure more than anything else. I think about how what I do can make a difference in the world. Generating a feeling of empathy for humanity or the awe of the mysteries of life are a couple ways, and I hope that is elucidated and passed on in my work.
It seems painting fast is important to you. Tell me more about that.
My inclination is to paint fast because it doesn't give me time to overthink things and get too analytical. I can trust the process and what I have learned thus far through all my studies and practice.
Around 80% of my work paints itself as it pours out of me. But it is not all action painting; the final 20% is the resolution part that can take much longer. Often, I'll begin with intuitive mark-making and throwing paint to generate the challenge of…how can I turn this mess into in a well-executed and resolved composition? It's similar to puzzle-solving. The only thing I loved about computer science was finding the riddles to solve.
What are your favorite materials to use for your art?
I love working with casein paint. I've become slightly impatient with oil, especially in the beginning stages, so I start with casein. It's similar to acrylic in dry-time, but it is a natural, ancient, and archival medium versus the plastic and ammonia base of acrylic. Casein also has a nice lush, satiny finish.
I never follow a recipe while cooking or when I mix paint. I make my own paint mediums for higher pigmentation. For casein medium, I mix a powdered form of pure milk protein and add enough boric acid to achieve a chemistry accepting of oil mediums (such as linseed).
I use permanant lightfast pigments from Guerra Paint and Pigment. I'll also add a touch of clove oil for its pleasing scent and the added benefit of keeping the mice out of the yurt. This form of handmade paint also adds challenge because the consistency can vary significantly from batch to batch, unlike commercially made paints. Sometimes the viscosity is a little thick and sticky one day and loose and juicy another. Similarly, all my tools are like that. My brushes, rollers, and squeegees are never cleaned, so they provide unpredictable marks to resolve. Even when some of them are gunked up and dry, they'll still have some life to them where some pigment will come out in an odd fashion.
I work in oil for the upper layers of the work to add greater luminosity.
Why do you choose to work on large canvases?
For some background to my answer, I went from painting part-time to full-time during the pandemic. For seven years before the pandemic, I ran Northeast Art Workshop Retreats in Magnolia, MA, bringing internationally known artists to teach weeklong art workshops. It was rewarding to see the growth that happened in a week. Artists with BFA's and MFA's would often comment on how they learned more in the one-week retreat than the years in academia.
I only had time between hosting workshops and running the business to hunch over small-scale projects. Once I began painting full-time, I started feeling my whole body becoming immersed in the work. Larger canvases made this possible. Also, many of my clients and collectors began asking for larger works.
Do you have a painting routine?
Before I start my day, I tend to do some yoga/meditation, connecting my heart and mind. I feel our state of mind affects the marks we make and if we are coming from a good soulful place, we pass that energetic quality along to the viewer.
Afterward, I mix it up, so sometimes I'll do sketches for 30 minutes or I might do a few monotype warm-ups to get my eyes, brain, heart, and hand talking to each other. Once I sense that connection, then I'll hit the larger canvases.
I have to get better at taking breaks because I will work until my legs and feet are utterly fatigued. Taking short breaks to sit and look at the work are worthwhile.
You say you try to be creative every day. Are you focused on painting?
If not painting, then it's sketching. Keeping a sketchbook helps me filter out the nonsense and file away the essential in life. It's also surprising what can be done in 60 seconds or when we don't get sucked into the virtual world
Sometimes I'll study the old masters, such as Rembrandt. Then I'll do simple sketches of the spatial relations of planes and volumes to exercise my brain. The old masters knew what they were doing with creating space without using a one-point perspective. The Renaissance perspective put things in space rather than the creation of space.
I think drawing is important, even for an abstract artist. Abstracting from life around us provides infinite possibilities to find rhythms and movements of forms and volumes and rearrange these spatially and allow the subconscious and imagination to take over. Sketching in watercolor adds another layer of exercise for my brain to make all the colors work together. Using a muted palette or monochromatic colors requires far less brain power because they are much easier to resolve.
You've taught many workshops. What do you do to get people to loosen up?
Sometimes I ask students to grab whatever materials are nearby—literally anything, including dirt, beets, berries—then close their eyes, make marks with the material on canvas, and see what happens.
Other times I will encourage students to throw paint, spill the color, do collage, do a drawing without lifting the tool from the surface, or create a sketch by distilling the subject down to five or six brushstrokes. Or I will suggest they make marks to the rhythm, music, or sounds around them; the silence in between sound can be the negative space in the work. Another exercise is to make a sculpture with the first objects you see or from the top of your trash or recycling bin.
Doing any of these exercises blindfolded is even more freeing. Then with your eyes and heart open, you can convert what you started into a resolved piece of work. Loosening up your body can also loosen your mind and hand, so some form of stretching or dancing is also helpful.
What advice do you have for other artists?
Besides working hard and showing up to work, let go of perfection because that will hinder growth. My mentor would say, “There has never been a perfect painting in art history.” I like the wabi-sabi philosophy of intentionally introducing a defect as it gives a piece an added uniqueness that emulates life's imperfections.
I think it’s essential to study great artists, not to copy, but to understand their successes and failures and the reasons for both. I also advise that while creating, don't think. Trust your eye, what you know, and what is inside you.
Cross-training in different mediums helps us grow exponentially faster than working in a single medium. With dedicated practice and good self-disciplined study, an art degree is not necessary for artists to make it.
What advice do you have about creating when you don't feel creative?
Inspiration is more likely to come when you are creating. Trying out new or untraditional materials and methods can be fun to jump-start ideas. Tell yourself you are going to spend a few minutes doing simple “play” such as scribbling, finger painting, collaging, using a nondominant hand, or creating something while blindfolded.
Those few minutes can often generate enough ideas for finished pieces and even a body of work. Matisse did monotypes as kick-starters.
Using a mirror is another trick I use to get out of my logical brain. Seeing your working hand and subject in the mirror, opposite of what you feel kinetically, is kind of trippy. These are simple ways to access our inner being and the unconscious so that soulful work can happen.
Who are your art heroes?
They tend to be artists ahead of their time, and many were underappreciated in their day. Also, those who lived tormented lives, I have great empathy for them. I admire Rembrandt and Cezanne, as many do. I also admire van Gogh, Gorky, de Kooning, Kline, Romare Bearden, early Motherwell, Frida Kahlo, and Artemisia Gentileschi.
My biggest heroes are my family and friends. What is most meaningful to me is when what I do makes my family proud. I feel deep gratitude for my family, artist friends, and the Boston and Cape Ann art communities, clients, and collectors. Their support and camaraderie are special, and I could not do what I do without them. My most influential artist mentor is Frank O'Cain. He painted alongside de Kooning, Rauschenberg, Twombly, and Bourgeois while studying under their mentor, Vaclav Vytlacil.
What is it like to have a studio at the SOWA space in Boston?
I feel lucky to have been offered a space in the SoWa Art+Design district of Boston. I'm there every other week and the first Friday of the month. Having high ceilings in the Boston studio saves my back from hunching over the taller pieces on my yurt floor. SoWa has enabled me to have a self-sustainable full-time art practice. My collectors will visit to purchase my latest works or talk about a commission. It is THE place for artists in Boston, with so much talent, inspiration, and fun in one square block.
If you were going to spend an hour at a local museum where would you focus your time?
I like studying German expressionist paintings at the Harvard Art Museums. Lately, though, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional art from the ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Asian times are interesting to me. I appreciate the positive and negative spacial relations and the subtle and sublime energy of the ancient Asian art created thousands of years before Rembrandt. Given an hour at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, I would go to the Asian art wing to sketch and study. I often wonder—how differently would the old masters and ancients paint if they lived in our times?
What's the most memorable meal you've ever had?
It’s a tie between the meal at our wedding in Rome and a dinner during our honeymoon at the Auberge Ravoux dite Maison de Van Gogh. I'll never forget eating the duck and the foot-wide bowl of chocolate pudding they brought to our table for dessert. [Kat and her now husband and their families went to Italy, they got married at the Vatican in a chapel next to the Sistine Chapel, and traced Van Gogh's footsteps across Western Europe, ending in Auvers, France.]
What has been your most captivating museum visit?
The Accademia Gallery in Florence in 1994. My husband and I sprinted to get to that museum just minutes before it closed for the evening. We were alone in the room except for the guard, standing in awe directly beneath the great Michelangelo's David. That was an unforgettable, immersive moment.
Palate & Palette menu
If Kat and her husband came to dinner, which they are invited to do, here's what I would serve:
Peanut soba noodles with kale noodle salad
Grilled tofu with tamarind glaze
Smitten Kitchen's "I want chocolate cake" cake
Where to find Kat Masella (and you should!)
Kat Masella
SoWa Boston, Studio 214
@kat_masella_art
Upcoming Solo Show
Rockport Art Association & Museum
June 23-July 13, 2023
Reception: Saturday, June 24, 2-4pm
Kat's work is so gutsy. I love that she adds clove oil to the paint that she makes. And I am intrigued by your grilled tofu. Thanks Amy.
Wonderful interview , great artist and art!!! Congrats Kat xo