Austin’s Armadillo Christmas Bazaar began in 1976. One of its founders, Bruce Willenzik, recently stated “The favourite thing for me is watching a young up-and-coming artist with a sense of compassion learn how to be successful.”
A case in point is Jonathan Metzger and his wife Allison, from Des Moines, Iowa. Their production of lunar-inspired art is what drew me to their booth. I interviewed Jonathan for Sun News Austin.
“We have a lot of friends who recommended that we try this show so this is our first time. My wife and I co-create all the work that you see.” Referring to the many images of the Moon that they depict, Jonathan said “We both grew up in rural parts of Minnesota, so the night skies were a huge part of that. My wife grew up in the Northwoods of Minnesota, among the tall pines, with the Moon and stars. So it’s always something that we found fascinating. It’s very reflective, I feel like. And kind of a solid grounding space to place oneself in being amongst these huge celestial bodies.” They also depict other aspects of nature, being inspired by organic plants and animals.
“This is all traditional printmaking,” he explained, in describing the process. “It’s specifically silk screen on paper, so it’s a stencil process. Many stencils pulled on to ink, pulled on to paper. So that’s a silk screen monotype. That’s a term that we’ve actually kind of come up with. So once you pull it, that’s the only one that you can create of it. So, mono means one of: each is a unique piece, one of a kind. And then we actually collage those monotypes onto a board and keep on building up those layers with clear acrylic medium. So, you get that kind of depth to the piece. It’s a very kind of a time-consuming labor of love.”
How long did it take to create something like that large one up there?, I asked.
With regard to the big piece (Moon with Leaves, pictured, 30×30″) “we were probably working on it for about three to four weeks. If we can’t resolve a piece, we’ll set it to the side a little bit, let it breathe and come back to it: you don’t want to edit two things too fast.”
The couple met in art school (University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas) and have been creating this work for eight years.
Jonathan described how his first exhibit at Armadillo here in Austin came about.
“A lot of times the organizers of this show like to see you in the field, so they like to find you and visit art festivals. They find a lot of artists by just going around the country and looking for artists. They stopped in our booth in Cottonwood, Texas. They loved our stuff and they said we’d love to do an official interview with you guys over Zoom and we’d love to see your studio, your process. It was about an hour and a half interview.” Luckily for the attendees at Armadillo, the Metzgers were selected.
Their studio is in Des Moines, Iowa. “We are doing many shows a year, but trying to pair it down to around 20 a year. It’s hard because you’re always trying to make works and you’re always sketching and wanting to create new work. But then, of course, travelling and selling it takes away from the creative side. But we enjoy both.”
Visit their website
midnightoilstudioworkshop.com
The Armadillo Art Fest is on until Dec 23, 2024. Location: Palmer Center