http://www.redsquirrelstudio.com
mary@redsquirrelstudio.com
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
My art reflects a continuing interest in ink and paper — both in relation to Asian-style sumi-e brush painting and to Western fine printmaking.
For centuries in Asia, brush painters created images of bamboo, plum blossoms, birds, sages, mountains, and other natural elements of their world. As is well known, this iconography was used not to make "art" in today’s sense but as recurring material for meditative practice and spiritual instruction (as well as for occasional political statements). But I have no interest in bamboo or other borrowings, and there is no comparable iconography suited to today's world. That is why I am working to discover a new iconography — elements of our era whose appearance, structure, meanings, and interrelationships embody key aspects of the modern outlook and gestalt.
One such aspect, surely, is science. My print series Meiosis makes use of cell division — a fundamental process in nature first discovered by science — as recurring material for brush paintings, monotypes, and etchings based on brush work or photos. Cell division is proceeding around us, and inside us, at a fantastic volume and pace with every breath we take. It is simple, clear, and beautiful. But it is also deeply complex and mysterious.
Cells in the source photos for Meiosis were specially stained by researchers to emphasize their fibrous internal structure, a surprising new discovery whose nature and functions have just begun to be elucidated.
BRIEF RESUME
Selected Exhibitions
- Arts of Brunswick Festival, December 2001, in Brunswick, Maine
- Rochester Academy of Medicine Invitational Art Show and Sale, April 2002,
in Rochester, New York - "Rochester Contemporary" Spring Auction, June 2002, in Rochester, New York
- Profile "Book Art: Artist to Artist", February 2003, in Crafts Report magazine
- Annual Prints, Drawing, Book Arts and Crafts Show, summer 2003,
at Turtle Gallery, Deer Isle, Maine - "In Small Print," annual show of Peregrine Press at Aucocisco Gallery
in Portland, ME, June 2004 - "Holiday Show," Artworks, December 2004, New Bedford, MA
- "The Art of the Print," annual show of Peregrine Press at the George Marshall Store Gallery,
York, ME, June 2005
Education
- Yale University, B.A. 1977
- Papermaking with Georgianna Kuhl, summer 1999, at Widgeon Cove Studio, Harpswell, Maine
- Accordion-fold books and paste-papering with Jan Owen, summer 2000,
at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine - PBI (Paper and Book Intensive), summer 2002, at Haystack, Deer Isle, Maine
- Papermaking Plants from Two Continents with Helen McPherson of Melbourne, Australia
- Traditional Japanese Sumi-e Painting with Keiji Shinohara of Wesleyan University, Connecticut
- Practical Uses for Japanese Papers with Betty Fiske of the Winterthur Museum, Delaware
- Chinese ink-brush painting with Xu Gan, winter 2001,
at Maine College of Art, Portland, Maine - Contemporary Printmaking Processes with Judy Allen, winter 2002,
at Maine College of Art, Portland, Maine - Liberating the Book: New Forms and Functions with Hedi Kyle, spring 2005,
at San Francisco Center for the Book - Binding and Protecting the Small Book with Pamela Barrios, spring 2005,
at San Francisco Center for the Book