Printmaking Residency Concluded, Summer Classes Ahead

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"...the artist's primary relationship is with the tools and techniques of the trade. But that relationship, which some view as an escape from the pressures of daily life, has its own daunting challenges."

- Jed Perl, Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts, 2022 (p. 73).

Learning by Doing

Print Wall, Studio 224, 2022.

Earlier this month saw the conclusion of my printmaking artist residency at Port Washington's Studio 224, a period in which I learned a lot by doing a lot. Printmaking is not so direct as drawing, or even painting, so there are considerable mechanical nuances to learn in order to make full use of the medium's pictorial potential.

Drypoint's irregular and assertive burred line presented itself as a means to explore forest floor grotesques: those natural forms distorted, strange, and at times downright unsettling.
My typically sensitive touch with favored mediums conté, pencil, and silverpoint wasn't suited to motifs such as the tortured tree at left; the tools and techniques of drypoint intaglio compelled me to interpret this previously unconsidered subject matter.

April saw the conclusion of my Artist Residency in Motherhood. I started several paintings - completing one - and exhumed and resolved one dormant painting (detail right). Most of all I learned of the need to up my skill set if I am to craft these invented figurative landscapes as well as I would wish.

Summer Classes

This spring I'm teaching a MIAD Plein Air County Parks class, and there are many summer classes coming up in July! Check out my website or that of the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts to learn more.

Woodlands - Solo Exhibition | Gallery 224, Port Washington | September 2022

Forest Floor - Solo Exhibition | Grove Gallery, Milwaukee | September 2022

Beth Stoddard, Vernal Pool under Verdure, oil on panel, 10"x8", 2021.

Thank you for reading and looking.
It's finally spring, and it's nearly summer!
Until next time,
Beth

Copyright © 2022 Beth Stoddard, painter. All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
3341 S 54th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53219

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Beth Stoddard, painter · 3341 S 54th St. · Milwaukee, WI 53219 · USA