Featured artist: Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch
Murmur Installation, each 4x4, encaustic on Ampersand Unprimed Basswood
Artist, author, and international instructor Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch has shaped the world of encaustic through her teaching, books, and inspiring creative vision. Her work has been exhibited and collected worldwide, earning numerous awards and recognition for both artistry and influence.
Almost Like Sunshine, 48x36, encaustic on Ampersand Encausticbord
Q: Tell us about the first time you tried encaustic painting and what made you fall in love with it?
My journey into encaustic painting began in 2003 out of a desire to create image transfers from landscape design blueprints. Even before taking the official plunge, I was already exploring wax as a textural element in my mixed media works, primarily using a stovetop setup. Discovering formal encaustic channels for learning and growth was a game-changer.
Interestingly, my love for the Ampersand surfaces developed much earlier. I first started working on Ampersand’s Claybord, using Golden Fluid Acrylics and alcohol to create abstract color reductions. It was another lifetime ago, but if memory serves, I discovered the panels through a workshop with Maxine Masterfield. The luminous beauty of that initial surface discovery has stayed with me.
When Encausticbord was introduced, transitioning to it for my encaustic paintings was a natural and immediate choice. The thing I enjoy most about the surface is its ability to illuminate the paint it carries. I also tend to begin a surface with charcoal. The Encausticbord surface marries beautifully with this treatment, allowing the marks to smear or be defined while bonding to the surface to become an underpainting for my encaustic compositions through the application of a quick fuse. Between its luminosity and the pleasure offered through working with charcoal, it’s become something of an obsession for me.
Torial, 24x18, encaustic on Ampersand Encausticbord
Q: What’s the most challenging aspect of encaustic painting?
While most artists I work with will point to the technical challenge of ‘controlling the wax,’ for me and my process, the difficulty lies in the artistic discipline it demands.
The most challenging aspect is maintaining my values and working within the bounds of simplicity. This involves a constant effort to preserve the integrity of both the wax medium and my design, all while simultaneously pushing into the realm of ‘what if.’
Encaustic offers an unparalleled opportunity for exploration and creative expression, and it’s a medium that demands curiosity. It never fails to lead me down one fresh path after another. This perpetual sense of discovery—and the need to trust that intuitive curiosity—is what I strive to instill in my students. It is, ultimately, the greatest challenge the medium presents: not to overplay the depth of opportunity and inclusion encaustic offers.
The First Walls, Diptych, 24x36, encaustic on Ampersand Encausticbord
Q: Tell us about your annual EncaustiCamp retreats. How did they begin, and has their purpose evolved?
I conceived EncaustiCamp in 2010 as an all-inclusive, all-encaustic, week-long retreat—a complete immersion into the world of encaustic painting. From the start, I aimed to offer a deep dive into the medium’s multifaceted inclusiveness and endless possibilities. While the format has adapted and gone through many iterations over the last 15 years, that commitment to a profound, single-medium focus has never wavered.
My recent hiatus was critical; it began with the challenges of COVID and continued by my own choice to take the necessary time to evolve the program’s structure. As I look forward to the 2026 relaunch, the original motivations have been infused with greater intentionality, particularly regarding sustainability—both environmental and the long-term health of each artist’s practice.
This refreshed purpose is anchored in fostering intimate, cohesive community building and the passionate drive to help each participant realize their highest personal expression. I truly believe this commitment is a significant contribution I can make now, creating an impact that will resonate in the creative landscape far beyond my own lifetime.
And with all that said, EncaustiCamp is back and blossoming in two beautiful locations as I relaunch the community! Join us for our first retreat near Nashville, Tennessee, April 26–May 1, followed by a return to our origins near Seattle, Washington, July 25–31. Both intimate retreats offer the same all-inclusive, intensive focus on encaustic painting, providing a unique atmosphere and instruction tailored to each location. Secure your spot and find all the details and registration information here.
To Make a House a Home (detail), 24x18, encaustic on Ampersand Encausticbord
Q: How does teaching artists feed your own creative joy and practice?
Having recently spent time away from instructing, the value and sheer necessity of teaching to that of my own creative expression has become blindingly clear. I simply cannot create with the deepest intentionality I’m here for without the second arm of my artistic body—that of teaching, or as I prefer to call it: sharing, inspiring, and empowering others.
My personal art practice is now relaunching right alongside my return to teaching. While the reentry process can sometimes feel unwieldy, the necessity of standing here, with both arms fully engaged, is crystal clear. The two practices are completely symbiotic: my work in the studio enhances my teaching, and the act of teaching always inspires and deepens my personal art.
This powerful connection is a gift. I’m regularly, if not daily, awakened to the joy of getting to do what I do—to create, to teach, and to teach to create—and now realize I wouldn’t have it any other way, and am delighted anew that I still get to.
Given as a Gift, 48x36, encaustic on Ampersand Encausticbord
Q: How do you decide when to use soft, muted hues versus bold, saturated ones?
I don’t decide; the rhythm of the process decides! Honestly, I’ve discovered that rhythm is the true key to impactful art. My color choices—whether they are soft, muted hues or bold, saturated ones—emerge from a practice of releasing my grip and letting go of preconceived notions.
While initial ideas are necessary to begin, the deepest, richest work happens when I allow the first stroke to speak directly to the next, rather than imposing my own will. This is a lifelong process of release, but one I am now more than ever delighted to engage in.
This philosophy of surrender isn’t limited to my brushstrokes; it guides the design and delivery of my retreats and art events as well. While the notion of “release” can sound cliché, I find that its power lies in the fact that clichés are always grounded in fundamental truth.
Only on the Southside, each 21x7, encaustic on Ampersand Encausticbord
Q: When working on a painting, what stage do you like best and why?
I love two distinct places in the painting process.
The first is the moment before the first mark is made. That blank surface holds the richest potential—the point where a single, niggling idea has me itching to hold the brush. However, this initiation inevitably begets frustration as I wrestle with the “rhythm and release” inherent in my process.
Once I let go and the painting begins to grow into the beauty it’s meant to become, I reach my second favorite place. This is the moment when I can see clearly how the current painting is calling to the next, and the next. Therein lies the original, larger vision that was always the potential from the start: the realization of a full installation of expression.
Whether that installation involves three, five, fifteen, or even three thousand paintings, like my Murmur installation in 2021, the joy of seeing the individual work connect to the whole is the ultimate reward.
Poetry Wall (detail), each 21x7, encaustic on Ampersand Encausticbord
Q: Do you consider how the pieces in a series interact within a space, as if they come together to create one sculptural form?
Consideration of the final installation is never an initiating force, but it absolutely becomes one as a series evolves. I need first to understand why the work is coming into being, then where it can serve, and how it will show itself to the world begins to take shape.
Collections like Murmur (2021) or Poetry Wall (2017) began to emerge along this timeline. My vision for their final placement and installation began to take shape as I started the process of primitive creation, and the place for installation or exhibition certainly comes into consideration as part of its final expression. It’s a bit of a dance: the work comes together of its own volition and flow, yet at a certain point, it actively demands to find a place to live outside of the studio.
I rarely create a truly stand-alone work. If a piece does exist alone, I have now come to consider it as ‘transitional’—a stepping stone on the way to the next large installation or collection that is already waiting to take on its final, sculptural distinction.
Communal Quilting Bee, each 4x4, encaustic on Ampersand Unprimed Basswood
Q: What inspired you to create EncaustiCastle, and how has it become a space for nurturing and sharing the encaustic community?
While the name EncaustiCastle was an easy choice—a natural fit after establishing EncaustiCamp and EncaustiKits—the true inspiration was a lifelong, deep-seated desire for community. I wanted to create an environment dedicated to nurturing encaustic expression, a space where local and global artists could come together, connect, and then weave those connections back into their own respective worlds.
This desire became acutely focused after my years of teaching abroad from 2013 to 2015, during which I traveled through Australia, New Zealand, Bali, and Italy. Being so far from my home base, community, and family created an unexpected ache in my soul. This profound longing manifested as the driving force behind this development.
Upon returning to the U.S. in 2015, I established the EncaustiCastle. Today, it has grown into a full-fledged compound offering residency capacity for artists from around the world, creative and business development through retreats like WinterWax, and studio spaces for local artists on grounds rich with perennial fruits, flowers, and forage.
I can now confidently own the fact that this sensibility for community building and nurturing is simply part of my soul. Having honed this ability as a mother of four for the past 35 years, the EncaustiCastle Compound is a culmination of that practice: a physical space built on a foundation of care and connection.
Artist Bio:
Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch is a recognized figure in the encaustic art community with three decades of artistic exploration and teaching. She is dedicated to crafting the art of encaustic, drawing inspiration from its unique materiality, color, and boundless opportunities for self-expression. Her abstract artwork reflects a sophisticated understanding of the medium.
Beyond her personal practice, Trish is a passionate educator who empowers artists worldwide through immersive retreats and workshops globally. She is the author of influential guides, including Encaustic Workshop, Encaustic Mixed Media, and Encaustic Revelation. She also founded EncaustiCamp in 2010, which continues to be an invaluable resource for the encaustic community.
Currently, her endeavors keep her deeply involved in:
- The relaunch of EncaustiCamp, the annual retreat run 2010-2022, now in two locations: Horizon, near Nashville, TN and the Hearth location outside of Seattle, WA.
- Building anew, renovating old at the EncaustiCastle Compound as the vision for its potential grows and takes on new energy.
- Managing and hosting eight studio artists on this compound.
- Fostering the 1/4-acre compound perennial market flower gardens
- Serving as editor of the Enkaustikos newsletter.
Trish continues to inspire and empower artists to discover the transformative power of encaustic through her extensive experience and unwavering commitment to the medium.
To see more of Patricia's work, visit her website, Instagram, and Facebook.
