“Patricia Czepiel Hayes (right) with husband John Hayes”
Today we’d like to introduce you to Patricia Czepiel Hayes.
Patricia, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Obsessed with drawing at an early age, I redrew my coloring books using a #2 pencil and yellow-lined paper (crayons were for losers). I nagged my parents regularly (“What should I draw today?”) and was disappointed if they ran out of ideas. Art wasn’t their thing, but it kept me out of their hair so they made sure I had art supplies. I’d usually come up with something … I’d draw a lamp, a vase, Ginger the family dog or my goldfish Fluffy. I started painting eventually, in acrylics and watercolor. A total introvert, I avoided the world by immersing myself in art. Fancy lessons weren’t necessary. I knew how to entertain myself and was happy.
In school I was only interested in art and sports but generally did well in all of my classes. I worked extremely hard, achieving good grades and eventually earning merit and financial aid scholarships for college. My parents were hardworking. Originally from Easthampton, Mass., they met in a factory. My father worked most of his life in that factory; my mother in a local clothing store. They didn’t go to fancy colleges but managed to send me to one. They chose Smith College for me (in nearby Northampton) due to its stellar reputation and to keep an eye on me. I helped pay my tuition by working summers in the factories, a typical job for students back then. We all had tuitions to pay, were happy to get full-time employment, worked alongside very nice people who didn’t get to go to college, and we didn’t dare complain.
While at Smith I majored in studio art and fell in love with oil painting. I also played sports but mostly hurt myself, and briefly considered a career as an athletic trainer since I spent so much time draped in ice packs. (On the plus side I was able to keep up with my reading classes since I was rarely out on the field.) I did well academically but looked forward to graduation and earning a living. With my liberal arts bachelor’s degree in hand, I began a career as a graphic designer. [Insert 30 years of ranting about graphic design here.] During those decades as a publications designer for educational institutions, I painted part time. The practical issues of life kept me busy, but I never lost my instinct to make visual art. I’m now in my fifties, life is short, and I’m painting full time. I’m completely me again.
No longer a total introvert, I show my paintings publicly, love talking about art at receptions, and I share my method of painting without solvents by teaching beginners who can’t draw. (Who needs that pressure?)
I’m married to someone who’s very supportive of my full-time art endeavors, and I hear from friends that that’s not a typical situation. I appreciate him every day, and I try to make sure he knows that.
My studio is in Easthampton, ironically in one of the factories that employed me more than 35 years ago. The building’s been renovated and is full of artists now. On the way there each day, I pass my parents’ old neighborhood, their first apartment, the buildings they worked in, and their cemetery. From my studio window I can still see my old factory entrance, that summer job. One hundred yards away. A lifetime ago.
What do you do / make / create? How? Why? What’s the message or inspiration, what do you hope people take away from it? What should people know about your artwork?
I paint in oils, focusing on trees, landscapes, birds, and florals. My art is inspired by nature, peace, turmoil and the general sense of hope that lives in my imagination. I use traditional, professional-grade oil paints without adding solvents. With landscapes I often work without a plan, from my imagination, one brush stroke to the next. I paint in layers, working on three or four paintings at a time. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a painting is complete. If I’m bored, it’s probably not done. If I can’t look at it another minute, it might be done.
There is turmoil in some of my images, a fracturing of trees and landscape; not specific places, but maybe memories. I hope viewers see the peace and the struggle, but I try not to say much about each painting. I don’t want to interfere with how others interpret them.
Trees and open space symbolize the passage of time for me. I’m inspired by the land around me in Hadley and am grateful that farmland has been preserved through investments of local land trusts. I’m also inspired by the land on Cape Cod and a visit a few years ago to New Mexico. No matter where I go I see color and compositions with every turn of my head. I’m completely obsessed with the sky, which may explain my husband’s preference for driving the car.
Painting in layers requires me to consider “fat over lean.” This has nothing to do with my fondness for potato chips (another suggestion from my husband). “Fat over lean” refers to a layering technique in which oil is added to later layers to protect the paint film’s flexibility.
Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national or international events and issues affect your art?
Artists have always defined their own roles and each artist is different, so I can’t generalize. Personally, I stay informed about local and world events, but I don’t leave the television on for long. I look each day for reliable sources of information and I value facts. (In the original definition of the word.) I value a free press and I value my sanity. I value the most important thing my education gave me: how to think critically, analyze the source of information, and to understand that, if I’m not careful, my desire to believe something is true or not true might interfere with how I absorb the material. If I use that kind of rational thinking with my creative work, I’ll make images that are, at the very least, honest. If that honesty resonates with people, that’s a good thing.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I’ve had solo and group shows over the years in Western Mass., as well as a few in Connecticut and New York City. More recently my work is available through the Sawmill River Arts Gallery in Montague, MA (a collective), Cottage Street Studios in Easthampton, MA (a collective), Paradise City Arts Festival in Northampton, MA, and the Elusie Gallery in Easthampton, in June 2019. My work can also be seen by appointment in my studio (#508) at 1 Cottage Street in Easthampton. (For images, contact information and news about upcoming shows, please visit www.hadleydesignworks.net.)
Regarding public support, sales are of course the best way. Sales allow artists to move forward. Also, I would ask two things of the public:
1) Please try not to negotiate prices downward. The most direct way to support the arts is to avoid taking money out of an artist’s pocket.
2) Please refrain from asking me to donate my art to charities. This may sound harsh, but the reality is most artists can’t afford to give away their work. When I do donate art, I’m met with annual expectations from the same charities plus requests from new charities. Events like silent auctions can devalue handmade work. I think it’s assumed my paintings are easily created, but the reverse is true. Each is a struggle. An expensive, time-consuming struggle. That struggle is my choice of course. But with time, materials and rent being what they are, I really can’t give this work away, yet feel pressured to do so.
Contact Info:
- Address: Studio address:
Cottage Street Studios #508
1 Cottage Street, Easthampton, MA - Website: www.hadleydesignworks.net
- Phone: 4132595164
- Email: ph@hadleydesignworks.net
Image Credit:
Jim Gipe/Pivot Media
Judy Cummings
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