Evolution

For years, Jodi Endicott put her inclinations aside, but now she is known nationally

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Jodi Endicott sees painting is a metaphor for living. "I love painting," she says. "You can get a surface you can't achieve with sculpture -- it's like life."

'Water' On exhibit: Through Nov. 7 Place: The Balcony Gallery, 442-A Uluniu St., Kailua Gallery hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays and by appointment Call: 263-4434

Endicott explains: When something deeply affects you, it leaves its mark, no matter how many more experiences are layered upon it. Sometimes the impact still shows many years and many experiences later.

Likewise, in painting an artist might make a mark on the canvas -- Endicott herself pencils in images before painting -- but even after being painted over, the marks show through.

"That adds to the wisdom of the painting," she says. "It's exciting, that wisdom and history of the material."

Endicott's latest show, "Water," on exhibit in her Kailua space, the Balcony Gallery, is much different from the animal paintings and sculptures she's become known for. For these pieces, Endicott worked with wet-on-wet paints, finding the experience to be "the most challenging in terms of painting."

While working on one large piece, comprising three canvases, Endicott was faced with the dilemma of the paint pooling in the center of the canvas. Worried that it would warp, she raised one side to get the paint to flow to the other end, then worked to have that flow appear like a natural continuation on the next canvas. The effort consumed a whole day.

"When you really get into the painting, you find that it has a life of its own. So you have to be open to accept what's coming," she says. "You're the facilitator."

But was there ever a time when she felt like giving up -- throwing away the canvas and starting over fresh?

"No!" she says emphatically. "You keep working with it. You can't just throw it away. There's too much history there. It's a continuum.

"I do see painting as very much like a relationship. It's like raising a child, raising your life, raising yourself. It's a deep commitment."

In the end, Endicott's diligence paid off. "I wanted the works to be contemplative, and I think that was accomplished."

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The answer was crystal clear early in Jodi Endicott's life: She was meant to be an artist. Art came easy; it was second nature.

"As a child, I was always drawing, doing art," the painter and sculptor says. "It was never really reinforced but I was good at it."

Yet as it turned out, Endicott took the long road in coming to a place where she could embrace the artist in herself.

"I grew up at a time when (feminist) Gloria Steinem said to women, 'Don't work for the company, own the company,'" Endicott explains. "So I felt a need to prove I was smart."

Thus, after high school, Endicott put aside her natural inclination and pursued a degree in pre-physical therapy. Graduation day "was the saddest day of my life," she recalls. "I felt I made a big mistake. I knew I should have studied art."

Endicott never did go to physical therapy school; instead, she went on to start a special-events company and then worked for a public-relations firm. The upside was that she learned to write, a skill she had always wanted to develop.

Still, art haunted her. So she removed herself from that world, refusing to enter galleries or read art magazines. This went on for 10 years.

Then one day, while working as marketing director for the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific, Endicott left the office on an errand.

"I was a very busy person, and my schedule was very tight. So I gave myself 15 minutes to run this errand. But for some reason, it only took five," she says.

"Well, there was this Georgia O'Keeffe show at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. I had passed by the museum, back and forth, many times while working around town, without ever going in. But (this time) I went in.

"And once I got in there, it was like an epiphany. I heard this voice inside me saying, 'You can do this.' Can you imagine? This was Georgia O'Keeffe, and I was being told I could do the same thing!

"So I walked out of there and went back to the office and quit my job."

A week later, Endicott was at the University of Hawaii, taking her first step into a bright future. All business, she was dressed in gray pinstripes and red pumps when she sat down with an adviser at the art department to talk about enrolling in the graduate program. Though the adviser seemed skeptical, questioning her extensively on the hows and whys of her sudden desire to study art, Endicott was accepted into the program in 1991.

"I knew I had a foundation, I knew I was good at art," Endicott says, recalling her new confidence. "When I was in school the first time, I took art classes to raise my GPA. Art always came easy, and I can create something pretty quickly. I wasn't afraid anymore. I was too old to be insecure. I knew why I was there."

In 1996, two children later and with a whole lot of education under her belt, Endicott earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture.

ANOTHER FACET of Endicott's education was visiting art museums around town. "Thank God there are good museums here," she says. "I've learned so much at those places."

One academy show in particular served as catalyst for Endicott's evolution as a painter. In 2004 the academy presented "Japan & Paris," the works of such painting icons as Monet, Picasso, Renoir and Matisse, along with their Japanese counterparts.

One Japanese painter, Fujita Tsuguharu, was masterful in distinguishing the figure he painted from the background it stood against -- all with a fine line.

"His paintings are completely flat," Endicott raves. "It's an effect that he was most skillful at achieving."

Endicott appreciated Tsuguharu's work because she began her own paintings in gesso, making marks in the white material in pencil. The effect of the line against white was reminiscent of Tsuguharu. "I always thought it was beautiful, but I covered it up with paint," she says.

Soon, Endicott was playing with the concept of background and figures. In her well-known bird paintings, she'd create figures in which the ground became part of the bird. "There's a complex relationship between the figure and the ground. The ground is integrated into the painting.

"This shifted my work, gave me new insights," she says. "Before, I worked from my own influences, but here I was, in the Pacific, being influenced by a Japanese artist who was influenced by French artists. I began to think of my work in universal terms, in patterns, and then the works became a story."

That led to Endicott's "roundabout" series, paintings of circles in relation to one another.

"You'd think painting circles should be easy, but even with shapes, the individual has to work with the group," she says, discussing the progression of one circle to the next. "That message kept coming back."

Endicott's latest paintings are a distinct detour from her figure works. Her water-inspired pieces border on the abstract and display a maturity of emotion and skill. The exhibit, titled "Water," is currently on display through Nov. 7 at the Balcony Gallery in Kailua, which she co-owns with fellow artist Linda von Geldern.

"I started realizing that we all come from individual experience ... but what's bigger than that is more global. It's the fact that we're all a part of this world. And so the water series became that. Water levels everyone, it encompasses everyone. It's important to us all."

THERE'S great irony in the fact that Endicott ever fretted over Steinem's message of empowerment. With the level of success she's achieved in her art career, she now serves as a model not only to female artists, but to Hawaii artists in general.

Earlier this year, Endicott was invited to show her works at the prestigious Ferrin Gallery in Pittsfield, Mass. Artists covet opportunities with the renowned contemporary arts gallery, as the gallery's participation in art fairs exposes their work all over the country. The gallery also emphasizes getting works into museums.

Endicott's invitation came after her bird paintings caught the eye of Ferrin partner Donald Clark, who juried last year's Hawaii Craftsmen annual exhibition.

She sold five of seven paintings within six weeks at Ferrin, and she's been invited back for a show next month. "That's a good sign," she says cautiously.

She's more openly optimistic about the recognition Hawaii's artists have been garnering recently.

"So many people here are doing interesting things," she says. "Jon Koga was in New York. Debbie Nehmad has a collector. Kloe Kang showed in Washington, D.C. There's a group of us who graduated from UH at the same time. We've all been doing this for a while, and now things are starting to take a little bit of a jump."

Other local artists who have earned national and international attention include Corrine Kamiya, Sally French, Dorothy Faison, Jason Teraoka, Esther Shimazu, Yida Wang and Lynda Hess.

"Earlier on, there were folks like Satoru Abe, Toshiko Takaezu and Tadashi Sato," she says, referring to local artists from the post-World War II era. "Now it's starting up again."

As for Endicott herself, the horizon looks especially bright. Not only is she slated to deliver more animal and roundabout pieces to Ferrin, she's pursuing a possible opportunity to show in New York.

And after that?

She shrugs, relaxed and confident in her artist's skin.

"I'll just wait and see," she says with a smile.