is the culmination of my Printmaking II class in Fall 2013. As a final project, the professor gave each of us an envelope filled with (what she claimed) were random objects from around her home and studio. We were to use these objects as inspiration for a final series of several interconnected pieces.
My first stabs at the project were based off of a crab hexbug toy. Although I enjoyed tinkering with the possibilities stemming from a combination of the biological and mechanical, my first prints were depressingly literal. (I had begun with the intention of printing crab pieces and then constructing dozens of them, but ended up with one oversized and falling apart paper crab.) Instead, I needed a new direction that would force me into a more abstract mindset.
I went back to the--literal and figurative--drawing board. I took a closer look at the contents of my envelope and found a walnut that had been gnawed through by voles. The organic shapes of the extracted areas were particularly appealing, and I began drawing out some of their basic forms.
Inspired by artists such as Eva Hess, Brice Marden, Terry Winters, and Bill Jensen, I wanted to create pieces that were more figurative and form-focused instead of representational. I wanted to focus on overarching shapes instead of drawing purely what I saw. From these criteria, I decided that a limited color scheme of black, white, and red would work best.
One of my first projects in the class was a life size self-portrait, monotyped onto a window and then printed onto butcher paper. I had embroidered my circulatory system onto the portrait with red thread, designed to symbolize the Japanese legend of a red string that connects one to his or her fate. Inspired by that project and its symbol of interconnection, I brought back the thread.
Looking at my inspiration, I wanted to emphasize several elements: the interplay between hard and soft (with both the bodies and the geometric thread shapes compared to the more organic walnut), a sense of the tactile (using embossing and mixed media), and a progression meant to evoke the biological.
The embossed items were created by cutting layers out of stacked paper, then running those stacks through the press. The bodies were drypoint on acrylic combined with monotype.
