From left to right: MS Art teacher Marianne Brand, Field Kallop ’00, Director of Alumnae Affairs Irina MacGuire
As the shades were being drawn against the sunny Tuesday morning, Class 7 students strolled into the ninth-floor Dance Studio. Although they weren’t here for Dance class, the larger room gave them – several of Middle School Art Teacher Marianne’s Brands Art sections – the thrilling opportunity to meet and learn from a professional artist, one who knows Chapin quite well.
New York-based visual artist Field Kallop, an alum from the Class of 2000, smiled warmly during Ms. Brand’s short introduction. Then, turning toward the students sitting around her on the floor, she told them, “As a kid I always loved art class.”
With this simple statement, Ms. Kallop eased into a fascinating presentation, one that touched on her circuitous artistic path, the meticulous process she goes through to create her paintings and where she discovers inspiration.
Ms. Kallop noted that, as a student at Chapin, she also found beauty in her Math and Science courses, especially geometry and physics with these disciplines’ focus on shapes and spaces. “I was interested in the way the world is connected and the invisible forces always at work.”
Throughout her youth (and still today), Ms. Kallop adored museums and felt incredibly fortunate to have grown up near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which she visited often, as well as the Guggenheim and the Frick. It was in the Met’s American Wing, surrounded by the paintings of the Hudson River School artists, that she experienced an epiphany of sorts.
“Seeing those paintings made me realize that art was so powerful, and I wanted to be around it,” Ms. Kallop recalled. After earning a degree in art history from Princeton University, she landed a position at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). This job gave her an excellent introduction to the art world. Yet, she felt restless.
“I wanted to be in the studio painting,” Ms. Kallop shared. Unsure how to proceed, she asked herself, “How do I become a painter?” Although a straightforward answer eluded her, she trusted her heart and soon embarked on deliberate steps toward her goal.
These steps included assisting the celebrated artist Chuck Close (1940-2021) in his studio – she shared with the students that she had just walked past Mr. Close’s self-portrait in the 86th Street Q station on her way to Chapin – and creating a portfolio for her applications to art schools. “I went back to science,” she noted about this early work. “Astronomy, outer space, life and patterns.”
At the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where Ms. Kallop received an M.F.A., she learned the difference between representative and abstract art.
“Who knows what abstract art is?” she asked her eager audience. “Art that doesn’t rely on just one thing,” a student offered. Ms. Kallop nodded enthusiastically. “I was painting representative paintings, but I was in a rut,” she confided. A “wonderful teacher” gave her some unconventional advice: no painting for the next month. Instead, she was urged to experiment with unexpected mediums.
Despite feeling “terrified,” Ms. Kallop returned once again to physics, using gravity to make her reimagined, oversized pieces. After attempting to roll and drop items on to canvas (which failed), she ultimately fashioned a pendulum, bought large swaths of fabric, and spread out on the floor. Then she filled the pendulum with household bleach and let it swing.
“To my surprise and delight, it made perfect elliptical patterns on the fabric!” she said, flipping through slides of her work.
After graduate school, Ms. Kallop secured a studio whose compact size forced her to move away from extra-large paintings in favor of smaller ones. She also retired the bleach, now using less toxic materials like indigo and other natural dyes as well as oil and acrylic paint.
As for inspirations, she singled out the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), the Swiss painter Emma Kunz (1892-1963) and Agnes Pelton (1862-1944), an American, as well as other more recognizable names like Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986). “So many of these women were left out of the canon,” she pointed out. “It was white and male for so long.”
Throughout her distinguished career, Ms. Kallop has continued to paint full-time, sometimes pausing to pick up her kids from school, then returning to her studio. “My work is evolving,” she said, adding that she was in the midst of preparing for a new show.
Ms. Kallop has exhibited her work widely, in solo and group shows in the Northeast and across the country. Two of her stunning paintings are currently on display right here at Chapin, in the Ethel Grey Stringfellow Art Case in the School’s front hall.
One important question remained before the girls dashed off to their next activity: “Were you a Green or a Gold?”
“Green!” Ms. Kallop shouted.
The Dance Studio erupted with claps and cheers. Although the fellow Greens might have been a bit louder, all of the students, Golds included, readily applauded this terrific guest speaker who brought her passion for art, her tremendous talent and her enduring love of Chapin to our Class 7 students.
