The Art of Business
The Medium is the Message:
R&F Handmade Paints grinds into the future
Photos by Roy Gumpel

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To demonstrate the humble beginnings of R&F Handmade Paints, Richard Frumess points to a small stone grinder stored under a shelf in the firm's paint making room. "All of our business went through that hole," he laughs. Even now, the company, which specializes in the manufacture of encaustic paints and oil sticks, is not much more technologically advanced. A single electric mill sits in one side of the room, complete with metal hoses designed to bring hot water to continually heat the wax-based paint. "We have a very small setup," Frumess notes. "We only use this mill. Most companies that have a mill this size, it's their lab mill."

For Frumess and business partner Jim Haskin, size in not the major concern. With a daily output of 85 encaustic paint cakes and 300 oil sticks -- "almost a laughable amount," acknowledges Frumess - it's the quality of the product that matters.

Frumess started the company in Brooklyn in 1988 as an outgrowth of his own interest in painting with encaustics. He redeveloped formulas for the paint, which dates back to the Fifth Century B.C. and came into prominence in the First and Second Centuries A.D. when it was used by the Greeks for funerary portraits, eventually moving operations north in 1990, when Haskin joined him. In 1995, the company moved into its current Kingston location.

Because of the complexity required to work with the paint -- it must first be heated, then fused after use - a major portion of the business is dedicated to promoting the medium. "It's still very little known in the art world," Frumess admits. "We're not only one of the few companies in the world manufacturing it, we're also one of the only ones promoting it. There are things you can do with encaustics that you can't do with anything else." In addition to hosting bi-monthly exhibits of encaustic and oil stick work in the front room gallery, the company also sponsors workshops both in Kingston and throughout the country. The fourth Juried International Biennial of Encaustic Works will be held next year at the Dorsky Museum at SUNY-New Paltz.

"The purpose is to promote artists who are working with the medium, to explain what's being done with encaustics and what can be done with encaustics," Frumess explains. "It's a frontier medium, for as old as it is."

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Haskin, who left a career as an IBM computer programmer to become an artist, agrees. "It is something new. It's an exciting medium," he says. "It's great for artists who have never played with that kind of stuff to be able to expand what they're doing."

Though holding workshops and generating interest in both the encaustics and the oil sticks isn't entirely altruistic (according to Frumess, a solid percentage of the company's sales are direct to artists, and he estimates that more than 300 attend workshops a year), there is a sense of devotion to the product. All of the company's seven full-time employees are artists, and they are quick to share insights among themselves and with their consumers. "We have become a clearinghouse for techniques," Frumess points out. "We all feel like we are collaborating with the artists who use our paints. That personal touch we have, within the shop and outside of it, that attitude is to us what business definitely can be. It doesn't have to be corporate. In a sense, we fly in the face of that."

Within that, there is still the tension between being an artist and selling to artists. As Haskin points out, the prices of the paints, which range from $8 to $14 for an oil stick (as compared to $8 to $25 for a traditional tube) and $11 to $25 for a cake of encaustic, with more volume than comparable paints, are "low priced on the high end." However, he adds, "artists don't see it that way. They see both as being expensive. So you're always fighting marketing trends. You're always feeling guilty."
Still, with new oil stick and encaustic colors about to be unveiled, an increase in programs and a new effort to reach out to universities, R&F Handmade Paints keeps growing. Just not too much. "With too much growth. We'll lose our focus," Frumess points out. "I'd like to expand the workshops, expand the schools, but I would hate to see it change too much. What's built us has been our grassroots promotions."

A show of Nash Hyon's encaustic paintings will be held at the Gallery at R&F, 506 Broadway in Kingston, from October 5 through November 30. The opening will be held on October 5 from 5 to 7 p.m., with an artist talk beginning at 5 p.m. For more information, call 331-3112.

--Mala Hoffman