The Rural We: Ilene Spiewak

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has announced the finalists in the sixth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, and one of the 42 finalists selected from more than 2,700 entries is Ilene Spiewak, an artist who lives in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her self portrait will be presented in “The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today,” a major exhibition premiering at the National Portrait Gallery from April 30 through February of 2023 before traveling to other cities in the United States. Because she had to sign a disclosure from the Smithsonian agreeing not to share her winning portrait until the exhibit opens, we can’t see it yet. But here, Spiewak tells us about her background, her studio, and her interest in portraiture.

I was born in Philadelphia and have been drawing and painting since I was a kid. In high school, I discovered that I wanted to be an art therapist, which at that time was a new field. I was living in Manhattan and when my children were young, we moved back to Pennsylvania. During the time of my divorce, I went to grad school for master’s degree in art therapy, then worked in psychiatric hospitals and a high school in West Philadelphia, where I developed an alternative art program. I was in a new relationship, and we wanted to live someplace that was less stressful than Philadelphia, a place that was more quiet and green.

Some friends suggested we consider the Berkshires. I love the culture here — the museums, Tanglewood, Jacob’s Pillow. The only downside was that I couldn’t find a job as an art teacher. I worked at a few places, including the Norman Rockwell Museum and the College Internship Program, but all part time. Then I decided to go back to get a master’s in painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. I did the coursework from home in the winter, and in the summer lived on campus. It was an intensive program, but the part that was most challenging was that I couldn’t get connectivity from my home in West Stockbridge. I had to go to other places to upload and download, and that was stressful!

Now I’m painting full time. That’s what got me through the pandemic, which kind of changed my work. I became acutely aware of how not only my space, but everybody’s space — the space you keep between yourself and someone else — was disrupted. The space in my studio became more important to me as I found myself more aware of its interior. I started to disrupt the space in my canvases, editing down my color palette as well as my compositions. Less became more. I’ve gotten a lot more discerning about the colors and the objects I use. That’s when self portraits became a more important subject.

The trend for me over the years has been to paint my ageing body and my ageing friends. I’m a person of small stature, but I can make myself really big on my canvases. A canvas is the only place you can have control.