Wax and Light in Woodstock: Regina B. Quinn’s Art of Atmosphere and Defiance

Above photo: Image Source Maeve McCool

WOODSTOCK — At 68, Regina B. Quinn paints with the energy of someone who cannot wait for morning.“I can’t wait to get up and turn the hot plates on,” she said, describing her process with a thrill that feels contagious. Even when a piece does not resolve the way she hopes, the act of painting itself remains electrifying.

Quinn is currently featured in the group exhibition Media Annual: Waxworks at the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, which runs through March 8, which is fittingly concluding on International Women’s Day. She will also participate in WAAM’s upcoming FOCUS: A Feast for the Eyes, opening March 14 and on view through April 26. This past Saturday, she led a public encaustic workshop at WAAM, introducing participants to the luminous and deeply textural medium she has spent decades mastering.

Encaustic painting, which involves layering pigmented wax fused with heat, is both ancient and immediate. In Quinn’s hands, it becomes atmospheric and immersive. Her work often evokes landscapes without depicting them directly. Viewers sense marshes at dawn, forests glazed with ice, or expanses of sky glowing with restrained intensity.

She builds these effects patiently. When asked about the mixing of styles of painting, as to her unique gift of fusing intensity and restraint in her works, “As you build up the layers, the colors intensify. And when you paint translucently, then you're getting kind of optical blending as opposed to mixing two colors, they glow individually because one is laid over the other.” The process demands restraint. She uses very little pigment relative to wax medium, allowing light to permeate even darker passages. The result is what one might call a dance between intensity and control. Her ‘After the Ice Storm’ painting, currently at WAAM, was created after a brutal ice storm left her without power for a week and grew from the sound of ice coated branches tinkling like glass in the woods. Scratches and slashes hint at frozen limbs. The glow beneath suggests lingering light. The sense of place emerges not through literal description but through memory and atmosphere.

When asked about the way the eye moves through her “Marsh at Dawn” painting,            which in the background is a very traditional one dimensional sky and in the foreground is a completely different technique that offers a multidimensional layer, Quinn offered a revealing insight, “Yes,” she explained, “you kind of paint in the reverse direction. Really building that distant atmosphere, and then I can kind of get closer to the viewer and build that texture.” By starting with what feels farthest away and gradually advancing toward the foreground, she recreates the way human vision naturally focuses. 

Quinn’s artistic journey unfolded alongside a distinguished career in education. Originally from New York City, she studied art at St. John’s University before continuing her studies in Vermont, where she spent much of her adult life. She worked as a public-school teacher and eventually served as a principal from kindergarten through high school. Throughout those years, she maintained a parallel art practice.

Her experience in theater painting in Burlington, Vermont, continues to inform her approach. Large scale scenic backdrops appear abstract up close but resolve into convincing spaces from a distance. That understanding of scale and perception carries into her encaustic work.

Now living in the Catskills, Quinn has become a significant force in the regional arts community. She serves as Vice Chair of WAAM and as President of International Encaustic Artists, connecting her with practitioners around the globe. Her work is represented by Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson and held in collections including the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in Brooklyn and the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe. She has received major honors such as the Faber Birren National Color Award and WAAM’s Yasuo Kuniyoshi Award.

Teaching remains central to her identity. She instructs at the Woodstock School of Art, an institution she describes with heartfelt enthusiasm, “I cannot believe that this place exists,” she said. Quinn had become friends with the current artistic director of the Woodstock School of Arts, Heather Caufield, after meeting her at the View Arts Center in Old Forge years ago.  

“The variety of workshops and classes, the level of talent of the students and the faculty. Nina Doyle is a force. Every time I see her, you feel like you’re on top of the world. She is never too busy to express how much she appreciates you.” Quinn credits the school with deepening both her community ties and her own artistic growth. Every encaustic class sells out, drawing participants from across the country. In October, she will participate in a collaborative wax exhibition at the school.

For Quinn, painting is not an escape from turbulent times but a form of response. She writes and speaks openly about civic responsibility and the fragility of democracy. At the same time, she believes in placing beauty into the world as a kind of defiance.

“There is beauty in the world, and we need to preserve that beauty and tend to that goodness,” she said. Teaching, mentoring younger artists, and fostering community feel essential. Though she admits it never feels like enough, the effort matters.

In Gilboa, just beyond the corridor from Delhi to Margaretville, Quinn continues to layer wax and light, building atmosphere slowly and deliberately. In each fused surface lies a quiet insistence that patience, luminosity, and shared creativity still hold power. The ideal way of celebrating International Women’s Month, now upon us, is to visit WAAM and enjoy the marvels of Quinn’s contribution to art in our region firsthand.