Tait Hawes

Find More Work from Tait: Sons Studio | @sons_studio_art

Who are you and what have you been creating lately?

Tait Hawes.  I'm currently spending most of my time working on a large 48"x72" portrait commision in oils and then I rotate through other ongoing projects like paper mache vessels that are time capsules of past memories and people, a series of charcoal drawings of my friends and watercolors and blind contour drawings for our Sons Studio shop. 

Where are you from and how does it influence your art?

I grew up on the seacoast of Southern Maine and New Hampshire, specifically York and Portsmouth.  The sites, smells, memories are very clear. I reminisce a lot. The architecture, landscape and seasons have definitely stayed with me and inform my work through texture and color. There are a few specific ideas that have been percolating recently. One of them is about lying in the fields of Kittery Point as a boy with the smell of stink bugs on hot, humid summer days. Some of my work is about my relatives from that area as well. There's a vessel I just finished about my Great Grandfather Papi and Uncle Eddie's shed in Sandwich, NH. 

What is your creative process?

Ideas come at random times. I dictate the thought as clearly as I can into a note on my phone or doodle it in a sketchbook amongst hundreds of other random notes and hope I read it. It's weird how the ideas I can feel so passionate about at one moment can lose all of their power when I read it again later. The truth for me is that one idea will snowball and permeate until I can't escape it anymore and I have to take action. I also love keeping a messy studio so everything is within arms reach at any moment. cross-pollination is key. 

Right now, with the portrait, it's this ongoing struggle to "see" it. Every session leaves me either blinded or with hyper clarity. Lights and darks, colors, hues, tones. Chasing, chasing, chasing. 

Other pieces are fun jammers. Blind contours with surprises. Watercolors with mistakes that are crucial. 

The paper mache is like sensory therapy and the materials I use have a context of their own so they're mega rich with meaning.

I also make these large concentric circle paintings with mixed media I call "Sons" that are abstract expressions filled with color, texture and energy. Those are a process unto themselves.

What piece are you most proud of? 

My large oil paintings of my boys.

How do you define success as an artist?

Every time someone wants a piece of my art I feel successful. Something I've made has connected with them and that's a good feeling. Also, when I've completed a painting or creation and can look at it a few months later without wanting to change it. That's success too.