Monday's Cutting

Description

Artist Statement: As a linocut printmaker I am essentially self-taught. Like any other grade school pupil who carved designs on their Pink Pearl eraser, I figured I had the gist of relief printing, so when given the opportunity to take a printmaking survey course I studied silkscreen and intaglio processes. I loved etching, but without further access to a press my practice went no further than the end of the semester. Fifteen years later, when I wanted to take up printmaking again, I still didn?t have access to a press (or to landlords who appreciated nitric acid baths in the tub). Relief printing seemed a good choice, since I knew I could start with a spoon and my kitchen table. My process hasn?t changed much since. These days I use a baren and a spoon. My homemade registration jig has evolved and my prints dry, not on the floor, but on a 1x2-and-clothespin apparatus suspended by clothesline and plant hooks. Not fancy, but wholly functional. I am notorious for starting complex reduction prints with nothing more than a vague plan. I have an idea of what I will carve first, and what I will carve last, but in between? It?s pretty much up for grabs. There is a certain amount of risk and tension working this way, but for me it?s more interesting to have the process unfold as it will. I think best when my tools are moving. As for inspiration, I find it in the natural world. Most of my images are of flora and fauna I see near home, but a few come from outdoor experiences in other places. They express no deep social outrage, no personal angst, no cultural agenda. Except, perhaps, that of witness to the natural grace of living things.