{"id":35636,"date":"2018-06-06T12:16:11","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T18:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=35636"},"modified":"2018-09-11T07:26:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T13:26:52","slug":"jamie-wayman-dialogues-in-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/jamie-wayman-dialogues-in-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Wayman: Dialogues in Water"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Jamie Wayman\u2019s show at the Art Barn in 2003 drew approval from the 15 Bytes critic of the day, but Kasey Boone questioned whether an interesting idea might not become a gimmick, asking, \u201cCan you paint underwater scenes your whole life?\u201d The answer is, absolutely: Wayman\u2019s career has moved along swimmingly since then (there, we\u2019ve gotten the inevitable pun out of the way early \u2014 and fairly painlessly at that). \u201cI feel like I haven\u2019t quite finished with them, really,\u201d she says.<\/h4>\n

This artist has practically drowned in water all her life. She\u2019s an Aquarius, and even has her moon in Pisces, another astrological water sign, which may explain her artistic destiny (smile). Even her father, Larry Anderson, an engineer, served for 27 years as director of the Utah Division of Water Resources in the state\u2019s Department of Natural Resources. Jamie Wayman, it seems, didn\u2019t stand a chance. She was going to paint water.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cLittle Swimmers,\u201d 36\u2033 x 36\u2033<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Besides her Art Barn show, in 2003 she also found a gallery \u2013 or one found her. Wayman was featured in the inaugural show of Horne Fine Art that year. As Karen Horne recalls: \u201cWe met at Rockwood Studios in Sugar House; Jamie had a studio down the hall from me and painted there after she graduated. I was doing some water scenes from Long Island, not at all the same thing, but when we opened the gallery and did the\u00a0Splash<\/em>\u00a0show, Jamie was sort of the centerpiece of it.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Now, 15 years later, that show is coming around again.\u00a015th<\/sup>\u00a0Anniversary SPLASH! \u2013 Featuring New Paintings by Jamie Wayman<\/em>\u00a0runs June 14-30 with a reception Friday, June 15, from 6- 9 p.m. during Gallery Stroll. Other artists included in this water-themed exhibition are Ryan Cannon, Ken Baxter, Phyllis Horne, and Karen Horne. A variation of\u00a0SPLASH!<\/em>\u00a0will run through July with gallery hours by appointment and a second Stroll reception July 20.<\/h4>\n
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Jamie recalls of that era that she had married Steven Wayman, a pharmacy student, and the couple happily resided in very cramped student housing at the U. She badly needed a studio and Professor Bob Kleinschmidt had tacked up an ad in the art department for shared studio space at Rockwood. \u201cSuch a nice man. He had another studio upstairs where Connie Borup was,\u201d she recalls. \u201cOne night I was working late cleaning brushes and Karen Horne said she was opening a gallery. I told her that I was doing a show at Finch Lane, but I started with her gallery right after. She\u2019s been so patient with me all this time, with my kids and some less-productive years.\u201d<\/h4>\n

A Bountiful native, Wayman always had a little art box as a child that she would take in the car when the family traveled to Logan to visit relatives. Mostly she drew unicorns, but when she was 13, she did a drawing of her sister, Michelle, \u201cthat looked just like her. I still have it,\u201d she says. By then, Wayman knew drawing and painting would be a major part of her life, that she would always \u201cmake art.\u201d To this day she takes a sketchbook wherever she goes.<\/h4>\n

She began a 12-year competitive swimming career, first at Woods Cross High, rising at 4 a.m. to practice and putting in four or more hours a day in community and school pools.<\/h4>\n

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\nIt\u2019s a lifestyle, she says. \u201cMornings, afternoons weekends, I was like kind of crazy dedicated to it. Now, I see my daughter at the age I was when I started and I think if she told me she had to be at practice at 5 in the morning I\u2019d say, \u2018Do you really? I mean\u00a0really<\/em>, do we have to do that?\u2019 But I spent a big part of my life in the water. It\u2019s an honest reflection when I paint swimming. My husband was a swimmer, also. We both played water polo on the club team in college, in addition to my swimming. We just got back from Lake Tahoe, that\u2019s where we go, that\u2019s what we do.<\/h4>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m just scratching the surface, potentially, with water. I\u2019m trying to experiment a little bit with a lake and how that changes things. My most recent work has been about reflection. Water reflects looking down on the water on both surfaces. Without sounding too\u00a0Alice in Wonderland,<\/em>\u00a0when you go under the water and you look up it reflects on the surface, right? And then when you\u2019re above the water and look down it reflects on that surface, too. And I feel like all the pieces I\u2019ve done recently are all about the reflections on the water and how they move. Choppy water, it\u2019s slow moving, you can get big pieces of reflection from the bottom of the pool when the water is a little slower from the top or the bottom.\u201d<\/h4>\n

When she was in high school Wayman painted swimmers but says it was more about the athletes and the competition. \u201cWhen I got into college it started to become more about water and the physical properties of water and the reflective properties of water and the movement of it and I just kind of kept going with that.\u201d<\/h4>\n

She enrolled at the U of U in the late \u201890s on a swimming scholarship and led the team, but also loved the art classes she had taken in high school. She fought the lure of the paintbrush until her junior year, when she threw herself under the tutelage of John Erickson, determined to get her bachelor\u2019s degree in painting and drawing.<\/h4>\n

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\nSince she clearly had found her niche in swimming pools and the realm of water, frequently sketching her teammates, Erickson suggested Wayman take underwater photos and later paint from them. After taking some shots and putting the resulting images on canvas, Wayman never looked back.<\/h4>\n

She focuses her Nikon sport lens mostly on children, frequently on her own family, sometimes quite effectively on just their legs dangling underwater in the pool, occasionally topped by colorful swim wear, but will shoot a few grownups as well, and then renders them artfully in oil, though she once used acrylic exclusively. She\u2019ll urge her sister to don a brightly colored suit instead of her black one: \u201cWear something bold so I can see the color.\u201d She adds, \u201cI look at the paintings and I remember where I was, what we were doing and who I was with and what our life was like at that moment.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Wayman prefers outdoor pools because \u201cI like the amazing color you get. And you get more drama. With indoor pools you get more shadow. But you have to have the light. It\u2019s essential for what I do. Since I do a lot of surface work, the reflected light from the bottom of the pool creates just as much interest on the surface of the water as the actual model.\u201c<\/h4>\n

Now, she says, she has to push through the lake photos. \u201cYou don\u2019t get reflected water in lakes because you don\u2019t have that bottom shining like you do in pools and they\u2019re murky. Even if it\u2019s a clean lake, it\u2019s usually pretty deep and there\u2019s darkness below them. And you don\u2019t have a lot of things reflecting, giving me the form in space,\u201d she observes.<\/h4>\n

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Horne describes Wayman as very approachable and grounded and writes that she is discriminating in her work, skillfully capturing \u201cwater\u2019s visual magic \u2013 ripples, reflections, distortions \u2013 in paint.\u201d Horne wonders aloud what would have happened to Wayman\u2019s career had she not started a family at so young an age. \u201cHer work is very periodic,\u201d says Horne, who clearly would like to have more of it in the gallery. \u201cShe puts her family first,\u201d she says, adding, \u201cShe\u2019s a wonderful mother.\u201d Horne believes there was \u201ca big creative push with Jamie\u2019s paintings when she was expecting,\u201d saying that she envies the fact that the artist was able to settle on \u201ca theme she is so dedicated to for her work at such an early age. Seeing her over the years has been interesting. She\u2019s such a gem.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Wayman doesn\u2019t see her young children (Abigail is 13, Noah 11, and Sam 8) as an interruption to her career, but rather \u201cwithout getting too poetic, we have all extremes in my husband\u2019s and my life: we have aging parents and grandparents and nephews and nieces and we\u2019re all really close. Family is so much a part of our life \u2013 our beautiful, messy life to be honest \u2013 but it\u2019s great. They don\u2019t interrupt it; they\u2019ve only enhanced it. They are my primary models, for one thing,\u201d she says with a wistful smile. \u201cAlong with their friends and our family. So I really just paint my life,\u201d After some thought, though, Wayman acknowledges that \u201ckids interrupt everything, but I wouldn\u2019t trade it.\u201d<\/h4>\n
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She says she doesn\u2019t \u201cpaint eight hours a day, that\u2019s for sure. I feel pretty good if I get two hours a day in. Every big painting reaches a point were it needs a four-to-six hour chunk of time and I can see it coming and I\u2019ll just get the kids off to school and we try to adjust our schedule so I get it. But taking a break helps me not to overwork something, to come back with fresh eyes. There will come a day when I\u2019ll have six-to-eight hours and I think I may be lonely.<\/h4>\n

\u201cMy daughter gets up at 6 so she can catch the bus at 7 a.m. I have a friend I swam with in college and we go to the pool a few days a week but in order to go and get everything done in time you have to get up at 4:30. And we swore we\u2019d never get up that early ever again,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cBut we do because we get our exercise in for the day and take the dogs for a walk and get the boys on the bus \u2014 typical mom things. I just kind of make sure I\u2019m balancing our ever-changing life to fit it all in.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The Waymans live in a small historic home in Huntsville, children\u2019s art and family photographs covering the walls and backs of doors, her studio set in a charming garden shed. The home backs on Pineview Reservoir and, of course, has water access directly behind the house. More importantly, Wayman says, the Huntsville Library is nearby and is a home away from home for the whole family.<\/h4>\n
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View from the Wayman\u2019s backyard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Hunstville is a wonderfully pastoral setting, with plenty of non-aquatic material for a painter. While Wayman does see herself painting something besides water someday, she finds that water is always present now. \u201cI\u2019ll go do a plein air painting and I\u2019m always coming to the water. I\u2019ll go do a barn in town and feel like I\u2019m not quite doing it justice. I haven\u2019t dialed in a technique that I don\u2019t feel I\u2019m experimenting with. So I don\u2019t know. But I wanted to bring so much of what I love about lakes and rivers and mountains and everyplace I like to go because they\u2019re so inspiring. And the birds where I live and the animals that are here and the stuff that I love \u2014 and I love more than just the water \u2014 I truly just paint what inspires me. They are kind of a dialogue of my life.\u201d<\/h4>\n

15th<\/sup>Anniversary SPLASH!\u201d \u2013 Featuring New Paintings by Jamie Wayman,\u00a0<\/em>Horne Fine Art<\/a>,\u00a0Salt Lake City,\u00a0June 14-30, opening reception June 15 during Gallery Stroll, 6-9 p.m. A modified show continues through July by appointment only with a Gallery Stroll reception July 20, 6-9 p.m.<\/p>\n

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Jamie Wayman\u2019s show at the Art Barn in 2003 drew approval from the 15 Bytes critic of the day, but Kasey Boone questioned whether an interesting idea might not become a gimmick, asking, \u201cCan you paint underwater scenes your whole life?\u201d The answer is, absolutely: Wayman\u2019s career has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":36943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,14],"tags":[556,1216],"class_list":["post-35636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist_profiles","category-visual_arts","tag-horne-fine-art","tag-jamie-wayman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/jame_wayman_cr-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 17:55:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35636"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36783,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35636\/revisions\/36783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}