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The germ of the idea for a particular print develops over many months or sometimes years. Images from reading, dreams, relationships, pictures, plants and animals will gather and cluster until a beginning form for the print emerges. The main image grows and changes, often in surprising ways, during the long process of working on the plate, which may be several months. Only some time after a print is finished do I come to understand intuitively more about its origins and implications. After ten years of painting and then working with woodcuts, I was drawn to the medium of etching because I liked the possibilities for direct drawing, intricate detail, textures and patterns, contrasts and subtleties of tone. In etching there is great flexibility in reworking an area, in refinements and enriching images. I use various aquatints and softgrounds, draw through hard ground and etch the zinc plates with nitric acid. The prints are hand-pulled on a manually turned press. Making edition prints has allowed me to exhibit my work widely in juried shows. In the sixties I first saw the intricate drawings and prints of Leonard Baskin and have for years been fascinated by them. I've been deeply moved also by the work of Käthe Kollwitz, the haunting textured sculptures of Georges Jeanclos, the hidden figures in Pavel Tchelitchev's Hide and Seek, the mysterious people in Odd Nerdrum's paintings, the strange surprises and details in the work of Alfredo Castaneda, and the organic forms in the sculptures of Louise Bourgeois. My early work often dealt with religious concerns, while my work since the late seventies has been influenced by feminist thought. I've always loved working with the figure: the complexity and grace in anatomy, the variety of movement, shape and expression in eyes, faces, hands. The life-drawing group is a weekly necessity. Recurring themes in my prints include the placing of numerous figures within a larger form, half-seen figures, feminist interpretations of religious traditions, myths and legends, and expressing the sacred nature of ordinary experience. Metaphor and symbolism intrigue me: the prints explore ambiguity, mystery, the complication of inner space.
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