The Printmaker's Studio, Part 1

My educational background was Art History and Studio Art with a focus on Printmaking. For years (over a decade!) after college, I didn't do any printmaking. I didn't have the money to rent a studio, a space in my home to create a proper, and didn't make the time. 

My husband, Ethan, has always been rooting for me to get back into it. The first (and only) print I did while still living in New York was an abstract view looking down the bike path of the Manhattan Bridge. This was his commute every day for the thirteen years he lived in Brooklyn. He used it for the cover of a chapbook he wrote called Cadence. 

It wasn't until when we bought our first home in Charleston in 2015 that I finally add a little area of the guest bedroom to call my studio. We got me a little 12 x 24 Blick press, and I started doing little things here and there. But, again I wasn't really doing much. It was with Ethan being a poet and involved in the poetry scene of Charleston that the majority of my printmaking was focused on broadsides for visiting poets for the Poetry Society of South Carolina.

But there was always this frustration in not having a proper studio space. I could call it an excuse, but it really was inconvenient to have to work in a room that was primarily a guest bedroom. It didn't feel like a studio. So, I didn't feel like an artist. 

Well, I finally got the studio of my dreams. But, you'll have to keep reading in Part 2 to find out exactly what that means...