Woodcutting Across America

I did my first woodcut around 1990.  Not an assignment, and no training, just saw some in a book and assumed I could figure it out.  I did, but eventually I took some print classes at grad school and learned some important things.  And that class led to a graduate print program where I learned a whole lot more.  Since then my technical knowledge hasn't improved dramatically, but the two decades of art experience since school has taught me a lot.  By 1992 I was already starting to teach woodcut, starting with my college students as a graduate assistant in the print classes.  I have no idea how many people I have demonstrated woodcut technique to, but when you add up all the college classes I have taught, all the artist appearances, the workshops, it's got to be hundreds, if not over a thousand.  Most probably never thought about it again, but in some people the woodcut urge takes root and they continue.

The woman above, Mary, is a good example.  She had studied art in college (painting most likely) but had to give it up to raise a family.  A few years ago she decides to take my class in Belmar and completes a block.  Not a great work of art, but she liked the process enough to sign up for a second class series.  It was then that she found the place where the material, the process, and her ideas came together, and she became a woodcut artist.  She continues to take my class a few times per year, but she also studies woodcut in other places, and has shared tips and tricks with me.  (and she tells me some of my tricks and tips go the other way)  After reuniting with an old college friend at a 50 year reunion, she was off to the west coast to participate in a big print project.  I teach old school style woodcut, so she was well prepared when needed to hand rub a 12 foot print.  Below you can see one of the pieces she helped to pull.

I had nothing to do with the creation of that print out in Portland, but without a few years of my local class and of making dozens of her own prints, it seems unlikely that she would have been invited to be part of this project, or accepted an invitation.  And I did play at least a part in the making of Mary the woodcut artist.  Woodcuts are too much fun to keep only for oneself.