Pulse and Tremble

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This new piece was made for an invitational group show at Linda Matney Gallery in Williamsburg, Virginia. The show, called Matter, was put together by Elizabeth Mead, Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at William and Mary. The guidelines were the size (8 ½” x 11”) and a consideration of the use of color in one’s work. My friend and poet Kasey Jueds and I had hoped to work collaboratively but were unable to do so because of time and schedule constraints. In the end my piece, Second Skin/Pulse and Tremble, was a sort of collaboration with Kasey, as I used her poem “The Selkie from Shore” as a starting point. The text itself is an element of the piece, although not completely readable. As I copied the poem numerous times, the words began to murmur and hum in my mind while I worked on the piece (much as the hum of the bees in the poem!), thus weaving into and becoming part of the making. (I loved the good luck that there were bees busy coming and going in the flowers outside my studio window at the same time!) The piece is made from paper, ink, and oil stick on wooden panel. The show opens next Friday, September 19 at 5:30. Stop in if you are nearby!

Although it is not necessary to read the text of Kasey’s poem while viewing the piece, I can’t resist including her lovely poem here for your delight:

 

The Selkie from Shore

 

You will tell me what I long for is God.

But I say it is bees, their pulse and tremble

in flowers slackening toward summer’s end,

daylilies spreading rust under dusky oaks.

I say I want a garden for them,

so what is small might return

and be sufficient again. Not God, or sky

streaming light, cathedrals, a wish

I am not big enough to hold – not those

but the slightest tremor of air, and a humming

that has no need of me.

 

Kasey Jueds in Keeper

 

Foxgloves

 

Yesterday I finally printed an edition of my first broadside. I printed the edition of twelve prints by hand on my kitchen counter, and I am happy to say that all of the prints came out reasonably well. After mixing a color I liked with some older ink, I ended up ordering some new ink for the edition to ensure the same color intensity. So much for trying to use up supplies on hand! But, I am SO happy with the water-soluble relief ink that I got from Graphic Chemical – wonderful consistency and pigment rich! And the ink stayed open long enough to print the edition. It might even make a convert of me from oil-based inks.

 

Here is a picture of the prints drying on the dining room table.

 

See the previous post for more information on this broadside and the class I took in Charlottesville.

 

Can’t wait to start the next linocut!

BROADSIDES

 

For four Saturdays in March I traveled to Charlottesville for the afternoon for a class on printing broadsides (“Printmaking with Purpose”) at the Virginia Arts of the Book Center, a program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. The teacher for the class was Josef Beery, one of the founders of the VABC. You can read his excellent article on broadsides here. The VABC is a gem of a place with a spacious and seemingly well-equipped print room, a good size workroom, and some display space. Josef in his very kind and knowledgeable way managed to guide our small group – each of us with different backgounds, different levels of experience, and different sorts of projects – towards completing our chosen project. For this short course, the typesetting was done on the computer (as opposed to printing on letterpress) and the images cut into linoleum. The image above shows the cutting process on my unmounted linoleum plate. I am working on an image for the poem “Foxgloves” from Kasey Jueds‘ book Keeper (see earlier posts about Kasey’s book). Our class will meet again in May so we can trade our completed prints. Stay tuned for more images. And if you aren’t familiar with the Virginia Arts of the Books Center check it out and take a class. It is good to get out of town!