Mikus in her studio
Over the many years I have been practicing art, I have had numerous memorable art teachers. Today, when I’m working in my studio, I sometimes imagine them looking over my shoulder, and remember the things they said to me. I recall techniques they taught, the artists they told me to study, and books they recommended I read. When I’m painting, I know that a little bit of their influence is always with me.
When I find myself losing focus on my work, I see Eleanor Mikus, my painting instructor from my Cornell undergraduate days. She is wearing her leather fedora, and bright red lipstick. She is saying “You must SIT on yourself, Domenica!” As she put both hands firmly on my shoulders in an effort to still my flighty restlessness.
She had a passion for structure. “Everything is structure. You must have structure in your artwork to support what is underneath.” She would have us draw the skeleton of the human form, and then the muscle structure on top to help us understand what was beneath the skin holding the form together in our figure drawings.
Mikus’s own work was mostly abstract, often monochromatic and highly textured with folds, creases and tactile layers of paint and wax on uneven surfaces. I thought that when she referred to structure, she meant in drawing and painting figurative work, but after many years I understood that her abstract work was all about structure too.
There is some beautiful work by Eleanore Mikus in the Museum of Modern Art. To see her work at MOMA, please click here .
I painted one abstract painting in her class, which she said was “too avant guard for Cornell.” I believe this was meant as a compliment, but it intimidated me, so I turned back to working on the figure and portraiture instead. I graduated from Cornell in 1990, and I didn’t embrace abstract art until 2017, which coincidentally is the year Mikus passed away. However, when I picked up my brushes, Mikus was there in spirit. You can see her influence in my textured monochromatic paintings, and in the fact that I work with wax, and I keep her words about structure foremost in my mind while painting. She pointed me in the direction of the work of great artists like Paul Klee, Albert Pinkham-Ryder, Marsden Hartley, and Kazimir Malevich, and she stands with them in my mind’s eye as I paint now.
“Louder than Bombs”, Domenica Brockman, encaustic on panel, 24”x24
To see more of my work, influenced by Eleanore Mikus, please click <here.>
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