While at Frogman’s Print Workshop I was introduced to some new forms of experimentation. I took a week long workshop entitled “Monotype / Monoprint” lead by Delita Martin that introduced me to thinking through my work with more freedom and expression.
In undergrad, I spent a lot of time in the print studio, a place filled with order, fastidious note taking, repetition, and an enormous amount of trial and error. It was in that studio that I first recognized how art-making could transport you to another place where time stands still. Under the guidance of Tracy Otten, I desperately searched to find my voice in prints. I love process and I have a lot of patience, but I struggled with a lot of techniques. It wasn’t until she introduced me to woodcut that I felt like I had found something that I felt confident in the results I was creating. While working in prints, I was also spending a lot of time in sculpture and printmaking became my outlet for drawing and thinking through ideas.
While in graduate school, my primary focus was sculpture, but printmaking was a part of the way I processed ideas. Planning, layering, and being willing to fail leads me to some of my best ideas.
A few years ago Britta Urness introduced me to the wondrous world of collagraphs. Collagraphs begin with a piece of matteboard with edges beveled with sandpaper. The surface is created as you would a collage that is adhered with wood glue. Sealed with poly-acrylic, these plates are inked and wiped like an etching. They are no where near as durable as an etching, and they require a lot of experimentation as the collage surface can be a bit unpredictable.
When I went to Frogman’s, I brought with me a number of plates I had made, but not really done anything with, hoping that they may be able to be used as layers in some of my monoprints. A few days into the workshop, I had become a printing feen and I pulled two collagraph plates and began a series of prints to see what could happen. The result was “Open or Closed It Was the Same”.
