July 2019: Gail Owen & Maude May

Gail Owen is a NE Portland artist inspired by the flora/fauna found on her Concordia neighborhood walks. The artist turns flower motifs into interlocking pattern prints which are hand sewn together onto a larger piece of paper. Linoleum reduction prints are a multi-color print in which the separate colors are printed from the same block at different stages. The block is “reduced” by carving the areas which the artist wants to print the second color, and so forth. Reduction printing, as opposed to printing from multiple blocks, is that once the first color is printed, the linoleum block basically cut away. The workmanship and individual focus of these print ‘editions’ makes them each one-of-a-kind works of art. 

Maude May is a fiber artist who is focused on collage. “Compelled to tell visual stories, I combine fabric transfers (linen and cotton) of discarded snapshots and iPhone photos, creating both simple and complex collages which are hand and machine stitched. I strive to move the viewer towards discovering and honoring the mysteries of the people, items, places and more that were once deemed precious and now have been left behind.”I have been making art in one form or another since childhood–stitching pre-printed samplers, fabricating elaborate collaged drawings and designing tiny dresses for my troll dolls.