IN THE BEGINNING, MEASURING THE WORLD

In the summer of 2016, I had the great pleasure of participating in a 3 week artist residency at Druckwerk Print Studios in Basel, Switzerland. When I attend residencies, I often like to give myself a technical skill to learn as a means to help direct my time during my stay. For my trip to Basel, I decided to focus on multiple plate printing. I taught myself how to properly register plates on the press bed so that I could print in different colors and textures to build up an image. During the residency I made 18 new etchings of various dimensions using a combination of Drypoint, Line Etching, and Aquatint techniques. Many of the final prints utilize multiple plate printing processes, and several were large bleed prints incorporating a sort of spontaneous ‘quilting’ approach of assembly on the press bed to create one print from many smaller pieces. The few weeks I spent in Basel felt like very focused play.