We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Justine Mantor-Waldie . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Justine below.

Justine, appreciate you joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

I attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for my Undergraduate education. The school was highly competitive with very few students actually attaining the BFA degree. I was one of a very few women to actually receive the degree. On Friday, every week students would put up their paintings to be critiqued by a professional Chicago artist. Students were encouraged to participate in the critique. When I volunteered an opinion I was told by a male student, “What do you know, you’re a woman and you will never pursue your art professionally. You’ll get married, have children and drop out of art.”
How wrong he was.
My major at the time was drawing and painting. My painting teacher was Mr. Stegeman who gave no instruction, requiring the students to discover how to paint on their own. I struggled with composition, not comprehending how to organize the image with negative space. In frustration I painted the canvas black to better see the negative space; a method I still utilize to this day. My teacher kept demanding my paintings to get larger and larger; until I was painting on a 4 x 4′ canvas that my Dad made the stretchers for in Wisconsin and I stretched and sealed the canvas in Chicago. The final straw came when Dad made a 5 x 6′ stretcher, couldn’t get it up from the basement, requiring him to break down the stretcher then reassemble it upstairs. In Chicago He tied the monster stretched canvas to the roof of his car. As we were driving it to school on the Outer Drive the canvas blew off bouncing across the Drive and blocking traffic.
I took two years of drawing from Mr. Fabion, a well-known artist who taught Contour drawing with beautiful lines depicting the model in a particular method started by Nicolides. I loved the class but always got a B+, never achieving an A. One day as he watched me draw he declared, “That’s the problem, you’re left handed and drag your hand across the paper.” I was mortified. I no longer do figure drawing but have retained the love of contour lines which are etched into the black clayboard surface as I create my ink and etched landscapes.
Additionally the great barrier to attaining the BFA degree was students were required to take anatomy which required illustration and memorization of the bones in the body and two layers of muscles. We had to draw a layered chart illustrating the bones with transparent overlays of the muscles. The final exam gave an action description of the body in motion which we had to illustrate from memory and describe the bones and muscles involved in that action. Most of the male students were so frightened of the class that they decided to opt out and receive a diploma rather than a degree. I perservered attaining a B- final grade. I almost kissed the instructor’s hand.
In my Junior year at the Art Institute I was awarded a summer scholarship to attend the Ox Bow Summer School of Art in Michigan. My parents delivered me, my stretchers, canvas and oil paints for the ten week stint at the school. Oil painting became more frustrating since I was forced to wait for an oil layer to dry before painting again. I was introduced to printmaking by a teacher who had attended school in Paris. He demonstrated how to do a soft ground layered on the copper surface, then taking natural flat objects from the forest, embedding them into the soft ground, etching with nitric acid and finally, producing a print depicting nature with a sensitivity which I had been unable to achieve with my painting. I was electrified discovering the layering process. I gave away my paints and brushes, left the canvases in Michigan and became a printmaker. I went on to achieve my MA and MFA in Printmaking from Northern Illinois University. I created prints at the University and went on to teach Drawing and Printmaking at Loyola University, Chicago. My particular process was Viscosity printing which featured deeply etched layers on the plate. The process was labor intensive, with 60 pound rollers. I was represented by galleries and sold my prints for thirty years until my spine had too many injuries from hefting the rollers. I was forced to seeking an alternative method for my creativity. Through years of experimenting I discovered the clay boards from Ampersand which also featured the black clay board allowing me to recreate the layering process I so loved in printmaking by using inks, pearlescent inks and line etching on the boards. So I had come full circle from my beginnings.

Justine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I began art and plein air painting when I was 7 years old. I did water colors along the shores of Lake Winnebago in Neenah, Wisconsin. My art passion let me to be the only student from Wisconsin to be admitted and graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I went on to become an artist and educator. The month after finishing Graduate School at Northern Illinois University I started work as a part-time teacher at Loyola University, Chicago. The Art area was a fledgling depart with lots of part time art specialists who basically built the department.At first art was only taught at Loyola’s downtown Chicago campus. I helped create classes in design, figure drawing, painting, drawing and the Introduction to Studio Art which was team taught. Additionally I ran the University art gallery for seven years, booking, installing art and conducting art opening receptions monthly. In four years I was hired full time teaching design, drawing and printmaking. When I obtained tenure as an Associate Professor the Department had fired the part time Color teacher. During a departmental meeting the Chair asked who would like to teach Color and I volunteered. Creating the course involved extensive research on my part and went on to be a major emphasis in my life and art work. Other classes I helped develop were: Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology and “The Artist Was a Women” classes. My work at Loyola continued for 22 years, but increasingly my academic responsibilities kept me from my art creativity.
During a summer trip my husband and I discovered the lovely community of Fountain Hills nestled among the Supersitiion Mountains on one side and the McDowell Mountains on the other. I had identified my inspiration for painting. I received a leave of absence from Loyola to move to Arizona. I became a commuting professor for three years until I finally submitted my resignation from Loyola to begin a new life. I was an Artist in Residence for the Phoenix Center for four years creating classes in Water Color and a weekly class that looked at a variety of mediums from collage to colored pencil, oil pastel and finally discovering the Ampersand clayboards with ink and etching which has been my emphasis in art to the present day.
Finally I returned to academic teaching working with Mesa Community College teaching Drawing, Design and Color Theory for thirteen years.
The desert, its many variations,luminous light and atmosphere plus the desert plants and blooms are continuing sources of inspiration as I create my ink and etching paintings using acrylic and pearlescent inks on black clayboard. I am represented by the Sedona Arts Center along with my work presented in the yearly “Hidden in the Hills” art event in Cave Creek, Carefree and North Scottsdale. I also show my work locally with Fountain Hills “Tour d’ Artistes”. My work is in collections through out the United States, Canada, Japan and Mexico.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I first attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago it was the first time I left my small town in Wisconsin to move to Chicago. I was terrified of the city, didn’t know my way around and found the school more than challenging. At the conclusion of the first year my grades were bad and I think I cried all the way back to Wisconsin. I dropped out the the Institute for a semester to lick my wounds but determined I would return, I finally learned what it meant to be totally committed to art and after five tough years I finally earned my BFA.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I find it is most rewarding to share my art with both students and people who are curious about my process. Creativity for me is finding new expressions of my views of nature, light and shadow, movement and many facets of color I am able to see and interpret in my work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.justjustine.com
• Other: [email protected] Justine [email protected]