Middlebury Iris

Not really a Middlebury Iris...

Wink

Well it's that time of year isn't it?

Claws

The Gift

The Gift is a print that I did right after completing the portfolio "Five Still Lifes" with Susan Goldman at Lilly Press and the momentum of the project carried over into this print. It was the end of the school year and Ginna was wrapping these gifts for Andrew's teachers and she always puts together an extra one just in case. So this gift came back in Andrew's backpack and it looked like an interesting subject. I really got into the way the light fell on the wrinkled and creased tissue paper. I never knew what underneath the tissue. It's still at the printshop at Pyramid- sitting on top of the aquatint box.

Glass Factory Road

The title for this etching comes from a road north of Utica, New York- in a town called Holland Patent. I chose it because the jagged angular patterns in the tree trunk and along the horizon (created by relief biting) started to look to me like broken glass. In fact, the whole image is somewhat fractured. I was always taking pictures of broken windows when I used to photograph old mills in Utica and I think those shapes crept into this landscapes. It's an odd association but I think it works.

This print was in a number of shows over the past 12 months including The Parkside National Small Print Exhibition in Wisconsin, The Guanlan International Prints Biennale in China, The Washington Printmakers Gallery National Small Works Show in DC and the Loyola National Works on Paper Exhibition in Chicago.

The Grotto

The Grotto is an overgrown ruin. it's just one of those imaginary places that has always been in my mind. A friend of mine in college was a huge jazz fan and he listened to Jazzbo Collins on WNEW in New York City. Jazzbo broadcasted in the middle of the night from a place he called The Purple Grotto- an imaginary cave that he described in vivid detail. With a piano playing in the backround, he would paint a picture of his surroundings, saying "The top of the Grotto is very dark purple, almost black. And then it gets progressively light as it goes down the side, into various shades of purple, mauve, magenta, taupe, and all those. And then if you look over to the left side you will see a mushroom patch growing there of the Purpulus grottus variety"...and so on. It was great radio- the theater of the mind.

I guess that's why I associate The word grotto with that kind of imaginary world so I thought it a fitting title for this print.