Out of all the artist presentations at Southampton Arts Center's "TAKEOVER! Artist in Residents," Kara Hoblin's space may be the most challenging to gain a quick entrance into her art. Adopting a wide expansive of wall and wrapping it with chalkboard paint, her studio reveals the creative exploration artists can sometimes go through as they move from one distinct body of work to the next.
Kara Hoblin is in the early part of her art career and is finding her way forward both as an artist, an illustrator and a person entering a new phase of her life, she explained. Her studio space at the Southampton Arts Center (SAC) in Southampton Village, NY reveals much of this while still keeping her personal journey private.
On view are artworks made in college, drawings that were transformed into commissioned commercial work, along with sketches, drawings plus notes, and written thoughts as she coaxes her next series to life.
Front and center--larger than life--stretches a new chalkboard drawing that integrates Holbin's interest in deep space, sea, astronomy, the human journey and they way they interconnect.
This drawing is the one Hoblin hopes will bring her art to the next phase and integrate her primary interests into a single body of work, she said. Hearing her hopes described of the drawing reaching almost floor to ceiling is also a way to bring visitors into her process, she said. Through return visits, it will be easy to see the progress and she works her way through the drawing, Hoblin offered.
Chalkboard as a medium may feel like an unusual choice but Hoblin disagrees and explained her becoming a "chalkboard artist" rose naturally after she moved to the North Fork with its abundant of restaurants. After a time, she was commissioned to make drawings for chalkboards whose function is to make ordering simple for customers but with extra flair and her personal touch.
From this, a new art direction was born and expanded into a signature. She also explained that her art isn't always made on actual chalkboards. Chalkboard paint allows any surface to be transformed with the wall at SAC a prime example of what's possible.
Dubbing workshops, "the Chalk Art of Letting Go," Hoblin has become known for her workshops and happenings where people make a chalkboard drawing and then erase it as part of letting go of the past, she said, similar to sand mandalas rituals by monks to symbolize impermanence and the fleeting nature of life.
At her SAC studio, Holbin demonstrates that chalkboard art can also be more than a memory: she sometimes makes prints of the work before erasing the original. In this way, a record of her art and experience can live on in a new form while she continues to let go of the past.
The chalk drawing she's been working on throughout her residency will be "completed" at 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 2019 when it's erased. Catch the experience if you can.
BASIC FACTS: "TAKEOVER! Artists in Residence" is on view February 9 to April 14, 2019 at the Southampton Arts Center, 25 Jobs Lane, Southampton, NY 11968. Click here to discover more about the exhibition.
To see more of Kara Hoblin's art, visit www.karahoblin.com.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Kara Hoblin was incorrectly referenced as a graphic artists in the original publication. She is an illustrator and the story has been corrected to reflect this.
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