Printmaking And How I Fell In Love

I fell in love with printmaking when Stevie Black reintroduced me to it. I had tried before, but it wasn’t until we did a polystyrene printing workshop with Bonnie Mineo at the Museum School at DeCordova that I really got the bug. Wow, did that change my painting! The technique opened doors to me and soon I began printing with all sorts of things.

I printed some of Stevie’s old woodblock plates, and they became the wonderful base for many of the hybrids in the “Danger”, “Under the Microscope”, “Texas”and “Under the Surface” series, as well as other works. Soon I was experimenting with printing on stretched canvases - the beautiful ones with the double stretcher bars, gallery wrapped. Thos canvases are sweet things because they don’t warp and they look great hanging.

We did other printmaking workshops together and Tamar Etingen introduced me to gelatin printing - a gift from Stevie again - that showed me the amazing possibilities of this technique. Watch for more experiments with this medium. 

The more I printed, the more I wanted to combine it with my painting. These are my hybrids. Hybrids, like so many lovely flowers. I call them hybrids for the combined techniques and materials, and because, in some cases, they are a collaboration with Stevie Black. Like our 2010 Christmas cards (and for those who received them: weren’t they wonderful little gifts?).

Many of the pieces I am exhibiting at Rocky Neck until July 7 are completely painterly; you will also find many from the hybrid series I mention above; but wouldn’t you know, I just did another workshop. This time not just for a weekend, not a day, but a whole five days with Sigrid Olsen at the Montserrat College of Art. It made me fall in love with another printing technique I had rejected some time ago: stamping. Oh boy, there will be so much more to come from this. Check out what I’m up to and stay tuned...,