October 4, 2015

R/Evolution Print Exchange 2015: My First Print Exchange!

I participated in my first print exchange this year!  It was quite nerve racking, but fun and I'm glad I did it. The print exchange was hosted by Eidolon House.  The theme of the exchange was R/Evolution:  A play on the words revolution and evolution, revolution being a forced change, and evolution being a gradual change.  As participants we were asked to include artist statements with our prints as we were all strangers from all over the U.S.  We were also asked to do 11 editions, as 11 artists committed to participate.  My print is different as it involves two mediums, marbled paper which is basically mono-printing because every one is different, and a woodcut design I carved and printed over each marbled paper.  Here is my artist statement, which turned into a short essay.  And I thought I'd share some photos of my print.

R/Evolution being about the affects of forced change and evolving change over time and how these two kinds of changes affects my personal art, is really a metaphor for human existence in general.  Everyone has core characteristics, values, even moral codes they live by that send their life into a specific direction.  Whether these traits were given to you by your parents, you were born with them (it’s something about your unique personality), etc., everyone has them, and they’re usually general and noticeable by everyone around you.  These traits are easy to pick up on by just having one conversation with another.  They’re a sort of “Revolution” of administrative order, so to speak; a way for other humans to make sense of the people around them.  She is a woman, she is married, she is religious, she is a creative person, etc.  The dark arrows on this print represent these core traits that everyone one of us have, but underneath these administrative categories there is so much more to each of us individually.
The process of marbling paper is more fascinating to me than the actual finished product; that is not to say the finished product isn’t special.  Dropping paint on the size and watching the paint stretch and contort into different shapes is an “Evolutionary” change.  As I drip and splatter more paint onto the size the characteristics of all the paints bending and pushing against each other create a sort of winding road, a map in all different directions scattered with peeks and valleys.  Once you lay the paper down and pull up the print you uncover a miraculous and beautiful image.  Life experience does this same sort of “Evolutionary” change to us.  All of the hard, painful, happy, exhausting moments we deal with throughout our life time is stretching, bending, and molding our own human spirits, and when we pull back the curtains of self doubt and ridiculous expectations we give ourselves, we find someone beautiful, unique, and even miraculous! 











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