H O L L Y C U S U M A N O
encaustic collage
Step into a world where forgotten faces find new life.
I’m an artist who works with vintage photographs—portraits of unknown people pulled from history’s discard pile. Through a process of wax collage, I transform these images into layered, textured artworks that explore memory, identity, and reinvention.
But the process doesn’t end there. Each subject is given a name, a backstory, and a second chance to be remembered. Some are eccentric, some tragic, some quietly heroic. Together, they form a cast of characters from an imagined past that feels hauntingly familiar.
Every piece is a blend of mystery, nostalgia, and narrative—where the lost become legendary.
About Encaustic Art
Not familiar to most people, encaustic art has actually been in use since the first century A.D. and some of these early artworks still survive.
Encaustic medium is made of beeswax and damar resin, a tree gum. Into the melted encaustic medium, pigments are added. For encaustic collage, clear encaustic medium is used to enclose layers of paper into the work. Once the final layer of wax is cured, the piece can be lightly buffed to a shine, using a soft cloth.
I use a pancake griddle to keep the wax melted while I work. Once on the Encausticbord™ backing, I use a torch, a paint gun, or an embossing gun to push the wax where I want it. To practice the many encaustic techniques, I recreate famous works of art. This challenge deepens my appreciation of the masters.
After creating the encaustic collages using vintage portraits of unknown people, I give them a name. I go with whatever initially strikes me because I know that it would be very easy to get lost in the possibilities.
Very rarely, the photograph I am using is marked with a name, if so, I stick with it. That is the case with Isabelle Urquhart, a late-Victorian era model, singer, and actress. But like all the others, her story is fictional.
My stories are super short and can be read in 90 seconds or less. Written in the literary genre called “Flash Fiction,” they may be best understood if read twice. So much information is conveyed in very few words and hopefully along with a sense of mood, place, and character. Some of my stories are moving and some are mysterious, others quizzical. I have compiled 12 of them into a book I call “The Backstory.”
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