Girl On A Hill

Well. It's yet another return to the studio. A welcome, welcoming occassion! Prints were stacked almost as high as me in the drying rack, so I dug mine out. I tried my hand at color today, after some discussion at the round table about digital prints versus 'prints', which got me thinking. Is it the image? Is it the embossing, the imprint, the clarity of line, the freeness of expression? Are all of the above necessary to make a print? What makes one a printmaker?
I find it interesting that photopolymer allows for photographic quality 'prints' (through the press). One can take any digital image and create a plate that can then be used to generate 'prints'; and in so doing one is called a printmaker.
But what if one swings the other way, like I do? Today, I made a series of monoprints that found there way into my computer and used in this image which I then printed, through my Epson.

A New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!
The Holiday season has kept me away from the studio, except for the wonderful gathering we had. Party! It was a hard hug to give to Oliver, though, as he moves on to become a master printer out in Colorado. I do wish him well and feel so fortunate to have met him and worked together at ZeaMays.
I've started the new year with a bang, grrlware.com! It's my new business, an ecommerce venture. It's great how things roll together and combine to find you doing something you've long thought about but haven't implemented. My idea is to create a life style that supports me creatively, spiritually and financially. I do believe it's coming together even if it's little piece by little piece.

Show Some Love

Well. This was the addition to the ghosts I made way back when. The lone figure now has a huge red heart. Somehow it feels more hopeful and more fitting to show, now that holidays are upon us.
There is something in the giving, when it matches the one receiving in a moment of honest appreciation. Here is such a giver, heart held out bigger than life.
Yours for the taking.
May you be seen as you are and learn to give it away.
No fear.

Transformation

Today it snowed. A soft wet blanket that held me indoors until I ventured out to the grocery store. I decided not to make the long trip to the studio. Yet the accident lingers and I am not ready to drive as I would have before. Instead, I pulled out my prints from yesterday to find that I did not exaggerate much. Surely, they are prints to walk away from, but I wanted to hold them up, or at least elements of them, to view. If you look in you can see the netting I referred to and the brayer's path. I like the texture it makes in the ground. I am enjoying mixing media. My digital photo library has become a palette, as have my prints. The distance from photo to print to image shifts. Here a portion of a print is combined with a photo and computer drawing. This process makes sense to me. I am learning to trust my gut and willing to not know where I am going.

Entrance

Today was a day of lessons. Anger and frustration spurred me on, shame surrounded me. In the midst of people, it was mine and I almost suffocated in it. Such is my bad temper.
I had left my house unhappy, delayed, to arrive at the studio convinced there was no longer time to make anything. But then words from a recent book spoke to me and said go into it anyway. I pulled out ink and decided color was what I was going to lay down and work with and I was immediately daunted, tongue tied and confused. I hated what I was doing. Instead of wiping my plate clean I printed it anyway as an unsuspecting onlooker looked on. I didn't know what I was doing, only that I was doing it. I couldn't answer why one might use dry paper, I only knew to use wet because I used wet paper the last time. And there it was, the kind of print everybody wants to walk away from, completely repugnant with little redeeming qualities. I made this as Diane and the unsuspecting visitor looked on. I stood there staring into the print,evidence that I had nothing to offer, and all should move away from me. And they did, as I continued to work, slowly finding little things I liked in the midst of ruin. The texture of netting and bubble wrap, brayers of ink. I was working large for me, half a sheet, and struggling to allow myself to keep making pitiful art, to explore without triumph. This was instructive and my silent victory: I stayed the course and in keeping on I was no longer on the same road. That's how I got to this locked door, which pleases me.

The Little Things

The night before open studios I created this business card, artist card to give away to anyone interested. I was quite pleased with myself. I printed out a lot of them and people took them.

At What Cost?

I'm not so disturbed by driving anymore, though snow has fallen and the roads are icy. It seems like so long ago returning from the hospital to the frenzy of open studios.
I stumbled into an edition of this image which compelled me to join the frenzied and display my prints underneath borrowed plastic. Somehow the oversized sheath made this image seem far more compelling. That one could no longer reach out and pick it up with bare hands led to an air of preciousness that in the end confounded me to doubt. What was this print worth?
At once I wanted it to be worth hundreds,thousands, appreciated by many. I wanted you to look into it as I did when I pulled paper from collograph and see where the ink held or to admire the off cut of the plate. I wanted you to feel your sense of self in the world, stark, muted and alive, a reflection of nameless form. In the end I asked Caitlin, who gave it the generous price of $80.
I was curious what it would be like to put my work out for sale. It's nerve wracking and boring sitting behind a table of your artwork with people strolling by mostly disinterested, every now and again stopping to look a little closer. It's loud and spastic with more than 10 conversations going on simultaneously. It's exciting and gratifying as someone stops and leans into the image. It is a challenge to open up to every passerby.
So I sat knitting. Many asked me what I was making and I replied, " A pink tube." before fleeing my station as artist to go explore other work, eat old fashioned cookies and decide that my time was better served at home cooking for the wounded and that my prints needed to be available to the masses. $25 anyone?

In The World

I drove last night through rainy streets among the busy people moving fast and stopping short. It was a long ride to the studio, full of residual fear that is continually banking itself inside me since the accident. My daughter says I shouldn't be so paranoid, tells me to relax.
When I walked into the studio I felt like this print. The studio seemed large, so much space and I could not focus. There was a long moment of entering as if I did not belong or more like this was not my dream I was dreaming. I had greeted Stephanie and hugged Oliver and plopped my stuff on a table. A gesture that has come to signify I am here to work. So I reoriented myself as I searched for these prints, some of my first ghosts, as they're called. I found my supply tub and pulled out my new cans of ink.
And I began, again.