Artists’ Statement:

Printmaking gave me a new appreciation for what artists call, “The Process.” Photogravure is an 18th Century method of printing photographs. It consists of exposing a negative image to a light-sensitive gelatin film, that is then adhered to a polished copper plate. It goes on to be etched in acid baths, cut down to size, beveled— all of that before the image is even printed. This process takes hours, taking a picture with my phones camera is infinitely simpler.

In 2012 I had just completed the edition of a four-color photogravure that took me 10 weeks to produce when a classmate in critique said, “I don’t understand why this couldn’t have just been a digital image.” The answer to me was so obvious— it’s the process. Digital images can’t compare to the unique beauty— the perfect imperfection— of a Photogravure, but the art of the piece was in the process it took to create it. The time I spent with it. That is as much a part of the story of the piece as it’s intended meaning. Of course, it could have been a digital image. But the title of the piece “Finding Repose” was about time spent with the Self, in solitude, witnessing ones own Being. How better to embody that piece than to spend countless hours with it in intimacy.