Playing With Friends...

Been having some fun collaborating with a potter friend, Matt Wassenaar of Black Dog Pottery. He throws these amazing mugs and then I get to apply underglaze designs with brushes and my carved stamps. It has been ages since I worked on ceramics but I used to love hand building different things. I was never a great wheel thrower though, so this is a real treat!

 

 

Florida Welcomes You

Florida Welcomes You (detail) / Linocut and Graphite on Wood 

Created for FLA exhibit at MIZE GALLERY May 2021

In this piece I tried to capture the tropical shirts and vintage marketing flavors that were part of old Florida vacations… The famous citrus, pelicans, tropical plants, seashells, and alligators were all iconic symbols of this exotic get-away. I took my first Florida vacation as a kid with my mom in 1976. We went to Disney World, Busch Gardens and the Ringling Circus Museum but my favorite thing was the beach and collecting shells. Even as an adult Florida resident that natural magic never waned and I came to cherish the flora and fauna of Florida. The spontaneous graphite lines are in honor of the younger me that fell in love with the idea of Florida decades ago. For me they represent the underlying promise of fun in the sun that is part of the Florida lifestyle. They’re also intentionally made with pencil which is not as permanent as ink because the dream vacation is always temporary.

This piece was created by translating my original sketches into hand carved relief blocks, like large rubber stamps, that were then inked and printed carefully one at a time in layers onto the prepared wooden surface. This is a one-shot process, if you screw up you start over as there is no way to change things once the ink is on the wood. There were several layers involved—the background was white washed with gouache then the first layer of souvenir pennant shapes were printed in yellow and pastel sky blue. On top of that came the orange layer, then the dark blue layer, then the pencil lines added last. The blocks are printed with an archival dye ink that has a transparent quality that permits the layers of color to interact and change when combined.

 

April is National Poetry Month

 

In honor of National Poetry Month I created some postcards that I left in the Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood. It was my first Free Art Friday activity since moving to Minnesota and it was really fun. Nice that so many libraries are in my area, then I don't have to worry about work getting rained on or blowing away and becoming litter.  I'll be doing this again for sure!

Beyond Printmaking: So Many Bunnies

 

For spring I spent a few evenings sketching rabbits (one lives in my yard and I have been watching for its tracks in the snow all winter)

I carved and printed a few of my favorite bunny images from the sketch sessions and loved how they turned out. Black and white is crisp and lovely!

 I wanted to enhance the block prints with some pen and ink. Sometimes I miss being able to draw and be spontaneous -- printmaking can become repetitive and predictable and careful - so I started adding pen and ink to the prints.

  

 Then, because it is spring after all, I felt like there needed to be some color, something fresh! So out come the water colors...

My favorite results are the ones that combine a little bit of everything. And now I have more bunnies than I can count....

Send a little love... strange love

I've been having fun combining stamps and pen and ink to create some unusual postcards to send out for valentine's day...  of course I create a lot of more traditional hearts and flowers type cards to sell in my Etsy store but personally I rather go for the weirdos.... XO

 

Welcome Home

 

 

I've relocated to St. Paul, MN and am excited to resume work here in the north! 

I finally have my new studio set up and have been working on my first block prints as part of the "Relief Conspiracy" print exchange. Check out @reliefconspiracy on Instagram to see all 400+ participating artists!

30 New Best Friends

I participated in a 30 day art challenge that my good friend and fellow artist Calan Ree initiated on Instagram--she makes amazing ceramics and came up with the idea that for the month of April 2020 we would all make a new friend every day to keep us company during  the COVID19 isolation of staying home.
Here are a few of my linocut friends -- you can see all of them on my instagram profile @thecraftyhag
and while you're there do a search for the #30newbestfriends tag to see what everyone has made and continue to make in response to this pandemic crisis.