My work, FREEDOM EMPRESS OVER BARREN GOLDEN COURTS, was featured in “New Impressions 2023” at Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, an annual exhibition of letterpress prints demonstrating innovation and experimentation in the field. You can view a virtual 360 version of the show here https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/11661937/new-impressions-2023
Here’s a bit about how this print series emerged:
FREEDOM EMPRESS OVER BARREN GOLDEN COURTS, 20 3/8 “ X 13”
This first print in the series began as I was putting away loads of wood type after a class demo. Jumbled letters on a galley almost spelled “Empress,” a word which immediately intrigued me. As I gathered more type, other words emerged until I had the phrase FREEDOM EMPRESS OVER BARREN GOLDEN COURTS. My found object/collage approach to writing has its origins in working with erasure poetry for many years. The printing process involved running pressure plates under each sheet to purposely disrupt the impression, and layering shifted transparent color runs across Thai Kozo paper. Back in my home studio, I cut some of the prints apart and layered them vertically to further disrupt and rebuild the text.
PURGE EMPIRES UNDER LIMINAL VIOLENT TWILIGHT 20 3/4” X 13”
The second print in the series took the language of the first and built upon it, again by reusing type that was already set. The phrase PURGE EMPIRES UNDER LIMINAL VIOLENT TWILIGHT emerged and I began printing on our Vandercook Universal I. The process involved running pressure plates under each sheet to purposely disrupt the impression, and layering shifted transparent color runs across Thai Kozo paper. Back in my home studio, I cut some of the prints apart and layered them horizontally to further disrupt and rebuild the text.
TWILIGHT FREEDOM 20 1/4” X 13”
The third print in the series takes impressions from the first two and layers them together. The type was printed on the Vandercook Universal I and the process involved running pressure plates under each sheet to purposely disrupt the impression, and layering shifted transparent color runs across Thai Kozo paper. Back in my home studio, I cut some of the prints apart and layered them together. I found it interesting to see how words like EMPRESS and EMPIRES had established visual and etymological resonance, but others like LIMINAL and BARREN were at first, dissonant, but quickly formed a new mental image. The tension between the two different texts forced into a single image forces the viewer to forge connections between the two original phrases.