April 2017: Gail Owen & Anne Goodrich

Gail Owen is a hand pulled print artist specializing in linoleum reduction relief prints.  A reduction print is a multi-color print in which the separate colors are printed from the same block at different stages as it is cut away. Usually, the lightest color of the design is printed first, then the block is “reduced” by carving to the areas which the artist wants to print the second color from, and so forth. The disadvantage of reduction printing as opposed to printing from multiple blocks is that once the first color is printed, the matrix for it is destroyed in the creation of the printing block for the second color. It is impossible to undo mistakes. Gail’s large format prints are a melding of high-art and high-craft techniques.  Each consists of several individually hand-pulled prints stitched together into a large single panel. The workmanship and individual focus of these print ‘editions’ essentially makes them a one-of-a-kind works of art. Gail is inspired by wallpaper designs of William Morris.   

Anne Goodrich "Husk", ceramic Anne Goodrich’s ceramic work gives flesh and form to the “living phenomena that I wish to see more clearly. I ponder the organs inside my own body, curious forms swimming deep within the ocean, and microscopic bursts of pollen living in the air. My perception of such images seeps into my artwork and is relayed through the ambiguity of my forms.” The cone shape is often her starting point, or “blank page.”  Each piece begins with this simple, direct, geometric form.  However, the final incarnation of each is guided by all that is alive. Images of living things influence how she bends, stretches, coaxes and presents the clay. “I’m particularly fascinated by ordinary things that are simply out of reach or beyond my immediate gaze.” Some of the textures on her pieces were made with her showing partner Gail Owen’s spent printmaking plates.