Hi! My name is Kirstin Lamb, and I’m coming to you from my studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where I make paintings from objects that I organize on the wall. I’m going to share with you some interesting information about salon walls and show you how I organize my research on monarch butterflies — and how you can do that, too!
Salon walls originated in the 1600s at the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris. In order to fit student artwork, all wall space possible was used. The exhibition was moved to the Salon Carre (Square Salon) in the Louvre in 1725 and the hanging style and exhibition became known as Salon.
For more information, see:
What are you researching? How is that communicated visually? What is most important to communicate about your topic? For this project I have chosen to focus my research on monarch butterflies.
What are your sources? Where are you finding information about what you are studying? Keep a running list so you can cite your sources and go back for more information.
Look first, edit later. Gather visual and written material to you. Do not yet decide which are more visually appealing or most meaningful to the project. You may have to lay everything out multiple times to decide what is most important to communicate and what looks visually strongest.
As you are thinking about your images, I wanted to share the way I use imagery in my paintings. I make pictures that are depictions of my wall and art studio, images of the research and images I have pinned or taped to the wall. I find it very important to always be looking at objects and images in new ways, so I keep a wall or pinboard of new images which I rearrange weekly, hung with tape, tacks, string, and nails. I take photographs of my wall and I draw the wall from those photographs and from life.
Let’s visit my studio:
Where should you look for images to work with? Do you have a good dictionary? Do you have a local library? Do you have a local museum resource? These are great places to start. You can cite your initial source and then find additional resources from this original place. I frequently work with images from museum collections photographed by me in person or from online fair use collections. If you visit an online dictionary or resource, be sure to bookmark and make note of its URL so you can cite it later.
What do you want to say with your images? How much information do you want to communicate? Which images communicate the most information? Which images are the clearest? Which are the most appealing? Try to find a mix of visually appealing and information-rich images. I tend to choose a mix of text-heavy charts and images chosen purely for visual beauty. It can be overwhelming if you have too much information.
Should you be reproducing images that are not your own? I prefer to use images that have fair use exceptions attached to them, meaning they are approved for free educational use. I, however, feel that reproducing an image in your own hand is an act of authorship, and can be a way to translate a work into your own world, provided you make enough changes. For more information on working with images in an art context I would encourage you to research appropriation art. A few links to get started:
Appropriation Art ->
Artland ->
Life cycle diagram. Sourced from the Encyclopedia Britannica, this easy to read visual chart of the lifecycle of a butterfly, though square in presentation, has a round drawing, making it a change in shape from many of the other pictures I found.
Butterfly chart. Chosen not only for depicting a monarch butterfly, but its near neighbors in species. This chart has great color and visual interest created by the repetition of the grid in its presentation.
Images of disease and predators. Sourced from Project Monarch Health on monarchparasites.org, I found a ton of images of predators and diseases. Many of the problems facing monarchs were related to human interference in their environment or climate change. I found I wanted to focus my presentation on imagery associated with the healthy insects and their habitat not their diseases or predators. There is a whole separate project here.
Milkweed photo. This photograph was not particularly visually inspiring when compared to vintage illustrations of milkweed or the large scale diagrams I found. Image sourced from Monarch Milkweed Mapper (monarchmilkweedmapper.org).
What is your focus? Has it narrowed? In my case, I focused on the visual characteristics of the monarch butterfly, diagrams depicting the butterflies, the life cycle of the butterfly, and the monarch’s migration journey. Ask yourself, can I cut anything out? Do I need to add content?
What have you edited out? What is no longer necessary? What is too much? I took out predators and disease from my visual presentation. I also edited out imagery I felt didn't add to the overall presentation, like uninspiring photographs or unnecessary depictions of monarch butterflies in art.
What do you feel are the images and information to emphasize? Pick out the images and information you want to emphasize. These images may end up not in the very center or top, but where the arrangement pulls the eye the most. Make sure you know what you want to emphasize before you start.
Look at the arrangement from all sides, upside down, and from as far away as possible. Take one thing away. Does it look better? How can you do with a few more or a few less things? What do you feel is the strongest area? What is the weakest? What could be moved? Move it.
This drawing will now be painted in my studio over the next few months, using my studio wall as inspiration and a color guide. I may play loosely with the colors and lines, I don't have to be as exact as I am with the drawing here. I would encourage you to add color to your drawing if you choose to make one.
In the first video below, I figure out where everything lies on the wall and then I tell you about it. Then, in the second video, I show you the drawing I made from it.
Pin board:
Drawing
These videos are sped up 5x. I start out with a light sketch above and then slowly sketch in and darken to the right. I took my time here and made a few errors! Please don't think you need to make a super accurate drawing of your research. Translate things into your unique hand.
A few things to remember when drawing:
These videos are sped up 5x. I start out with a light sketch above and then slowly sketch in and darken to the right. I took my time here and made a few errors! Please don't think you need to make a super accurate drawing of your research. Translate things into your unique hand.
A few things to remember when drawing:
I hope you have enjoyed making a salon wall with me in my studio. I hope your visual research is just as much fun for you as it is for me. Keep making and thinking. :)
Kirstin Lamb is a painter living in Providence, Rhode Island and working in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Kirstin studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with an MFA in 2005, and she received her AB in Visual Art and Literatures in English from Brown Univeristy in 2001. Kirstin’s work has been shown in venues across the country and abroad, recently showing at the Spring Break Art Fair in NY, Periphery Space at Paper Nautilus in Providence, RI, the Wassaic Project in Amenia, NY, the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA and Providence College Galleries in Providence, RI, among others. She has attended residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Bunker Projects, the Wassaic Project, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, The Ora Lerman Trust Soaring Gardens Artist Residency, and the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation. Kirstin recently completed a two-year contract curator position at The Yard, Williamsburg, a coworking space in Brooklyn that hosts solo and group shows quarterly, and has begun planning online and new curatorial projects in New England. Kirstin gratefully acknowledges the role that her 2020 Rhode Island State Council for the Arts grant has played in her newest work. Her work is in the collections of Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA; the Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA; and Providence College, Providence, RI, among others.
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Images of Kirstin’s work photographed by Karen Philippi Photography unless otherwise noted.
This lesson was produced in collaboration with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and the Pine Plains Central School District. Funding was provided by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation.