Iterations: Hands, Feet, Faces
March 12 – 28, 2021
Iterations: Hands, Feet, Faces is a solo exhibition featuring print-based work, etchings and mono-prints, on Japanese-style artist-made paper. Field works with the same etching plates over and over, experimenting with various ways of manipulating the prints which were created by running her garden gloves and her tai “chi shoes through the press. Mono-prints, by definition one-of-a-kind, feature faces drawn from around the world. Ultimately, the various bits and pieces come together in abstract collage. The prints push the imagery to the point where it begins to dissolve. Even so, it is always there.
About the Artist
In 1971, after completing an MA in Design at UC Berkeley, specializing in textiles, I moved to Canada. In the ’80s I began making Nepalese and Japanese style paper as a way to escape the loom’s constraints. In the ’90’s, I began printmaking with Susy Raxlen, a Montreal-trained printer. I made the plates; she did the actual printing. In 2008, I started printing myself working and leaning at Ground Zero Printmakers Society. I now have a press in my basement, printing unglued pieces of paper and adhering them to a base sheet of handmade paper in ways that interrupt the natural continuity of the image. Just as I left the rigidity of the loom, I have not followed the discipline of traditional printmaking. I have total respect for those who do, but that will never be me. I am the author of three books of poetry, an extended essay illustrated with my photos of the ways paper is used in Asia to connect with the gods, a book of garden letters, and a children’s book about a family in India who blockprint cloths for the worship of the Mother Goddess.
After thirty years on a farm in Cobble Hill, I now “farm” my Victoria backyard, sharing my space with vegetables, fruit, and a native plant corner.
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