Bridgette Meinhold is no stranger to people who get lost trying to find her home. She lives in a secluded cabin community in Park City’s backcountry.
Cell service is limited, and the roads that lead to her property aren’t paved. In the winter it’s only accessible by snow mobile. Finding the house she shares with her husband Matt and their dog Boone is an adventurous journey, much like the art she creates.
“Yes, our property kind of goes down to this electric pole right here and goes up in the hill,” Meinhold said. “And then we are we go that way to the corner.”
Meinhold has lived full-time in Brighton Estates since 2007. She creates her one-of-a-kind artwork in a studio just a few steps away from the main house.
“So this is a forty foot shipping container,” she said. “And we took the money that we got from our wedding and bought these and retrofitted it and turned it into a studio space.”
Originally from Oklahoma, Meinhold says she majored in mechanical engineering with a master’s in civil and environmental engineering, but always knew she wanted to be an artist.
“I thought I had to get a real, you know, real job, real degree, whatever that means,” Meinhold said. “And I was, I was good at it. I was good at engineering. I was good at math and science. So I went that route and wanted to save the world with renewable energy and sustainability. And that's the path I took.”
Meinhold started the sustainability program at Sundance Resort and worked on carbon foot printing for Park City Mountain. She was keeping busy with various consulting projects when she took a workshop in 2009 on how to make encaustic art.
“It's painting with hot wax. It's beeswax, and it's combined with a damar resin,” Meinhold said. “And when I melt it in this electric skillet here, it gets basically liquidity. And then I use these big 8-inch-wide brushes to paint that liquid wax onto the hard surface of a panel. And as the wax cools, it hardens. And then I use scraping tools and a blowtorch to get the wax really smooth.”
Meinhold says her paintings are layers of wax on top of layers of paint and so on. She says there can be up to 24 layers of wax in between the painted layers which creates dimension in the piece.
“The painting is actually three dimensional,” Meinhold said. “When you look at one of the paintings, if you look at a mountain, in the distance, it is deeper in the painting than the first layer of trees, for say. So, there is actually dimensionality to it. And the wax acts the part of the atmosphere.”
Meinhold explained she has a watercolor study she paints that informs her bigger encaustic piece. Over the years her art has evolved, and while she still uses a watercolor reference, she also calls on her imagination.
“When I first started all the reference photos, I would paint, I would try to paint faithfully and reference the painting exactly as I was kind of learning and developing my style,” she said. “But now I make up a lot of scenes. Yeah, I move trees around you know, artistic license. I'm gonna move that tree.”
For Meinhold the Aspen groves that surround her property are like elders who have important lessons to teach her.
“Yeah, that's probably a good word for it. They are just kind of, they're omnipresent here. And I know they work on a different timescale. And I appreciate that.”
Gallery Mar located at 436 Main Street in Park City will showcase Meinhold’s latest work Friday, Nov. 3, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Live music and refreshments will be provided. The exhibition will hang for three weeks.
