Queen April Press: Penland Printmaking Residency

Penland School of Crafts is a jewel, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Penland offers classes in all the crafts, from printmaking and letterpress, to hot glass, weaving and clay. For the second time in my life (so far! I plan on going back many more times) I was lucky enough to have been awarded a 2 week printmaking residency. The first time I attended Penland was the summer after I graduated from college - my wonderful art professors at UCSB awarded me a memorial scholarship that was given to a printmaking student each year. I spent 2 weeks studying etching in the sticky heat, while Penland was in full summer swing, and I loved it! This time around, I applied on my own for the Winter Print Residency, where I would be in a class of 5 students, 1 master printer, and only 1 other class of 5 letterpress students would be on campus. It was a much different experience, but having 24 hour studio access while it was snowing outside, was the perfect combination! Below are some photos of the Penland campus, as well as some of my work from this past January.

The Sunrise - photo taken by my teacher, Bill Hall

My etched interpretation of the photo above - 1 plate pull - etching and rainbow roll

Rainbow roll used in the print above.

Bill and I working on my 6 run project! See below for finished product.

Oklahoma Burning. This past summer a friend and I road tripped from Boston to LA and made a brief stop in Oklahoma City. The above etching/linocut/aquatint is based on 2 photos I took. On the right is a statue of Jesus weeping across the street from the Ok City bombing memorial and on the right is the fiery sunset I captured while driving out of the city.

A very intense linoleum project! This stage of the carving was for my last of 5 runs through the press?

I was able to sneak in to the letterpress studio to work on a couple of projects as well - this reduction linocut was a labor of love! A photo of me walking towards the beach on Ocracoke Island in the outer banks of N. Carolina (another road trip stop).

This is a poem I wrote for my grandfather (Opa). The poem was letterpress printed on a very finicky machine with metal and wooden type and the apricot was carved in linoleum.