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WHY I LOVE PRINTMAKING, and HOW MY WORK IS DONE...
It was 1974 when I first tried my hand at printmaking. McCuskey’s Hill was a zinc-etched plate of my favorite place growing up in Illinois. My brother and I used to toboggan down this hill in the dead of winter until our hands and feet were numb from the bitter cold. This piece was submitted with others from my High School art days and won me an art scholarship to Bradley University.
Family and career took me on another path and school went by the
wayside for a few decades, although I remained in the art world as
an Art Director of Rotor & Wing Magazine and Art Director for Ad
Planner group at Multi-Ad Services, both in Peoria, Illinois. I did
not get back into printmaking until 1999, 25 years later, during my
BA degree program at Troy University in Alabama.
After being accepted into the Syracuse ISDP MA Illustration Program in 2002, I was refreshingly submerged in the creative world again. Knowing faculty guided me to focus on printmaking. Although I had started out in oils, acrylics, and even digital media, printmaking is my heart, soul, and spirit, and will remain an essential part of my life.
My work expresses an ongoing fascination with the beauty of wonderfully diverse cities and unique places. From New York City and the Hawaiian Islands to whimsical fairy tale places and fables retold, I have pulled prints of what I love best--structure and beauty, and fables retold. My work reflects an old-world flavor in a modern day setting. From concept to finished print, the creative process involves rediscovering line, texture, color, and composition. The irony lies in the fact that I create by destroying a plate. My artistic creations reflect my heart, soul, and spirit. HOW MY ART IS DONE… Step-By-Step
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I remember waiting with my mother at International Paper for my
father to finish his workday. It was the early 60’s and we had one
car. My brother and I would play on the outside steps, hanging on
the railing upside down and not realizing how long my mother would
have to linger at IP for Dad to finish his day at the presses. The
smell evidently was intoxicating because it took hold of me early on
and I had the printmaking fever from here on out. Later on in my
teens I would work for a year at that same plant standing at the
side of the press line sorting colorful labels as they came down the
never-ending line. To this day I fascinate over old labels, embossed
in gold, so rich in color and intricate lines on their antique ivory
backgrounds smelling of days gone by. My great childhood memories
are of black and white television, mostly G-rated songs, and of
simpler times when it was a safer world for kids, for all of us for
that matter. The uncomplicated Midwest—this is my background.
