I am a Seattle-based (potato) printmaker with a refrigerator drawer full of oddly shaped hunks of russet potato. I use our dining room table as my “studio,” setting up most Saturday mornings and taking it all apart again most Sunday evenings. If there’s a pressing need to access the table Saturday night, say for dinner, or more likely, a game of Scrabble, everything can be piled up to one side. It’s all pretty casual and in keeping with my desire not to take myself, or my art, too seriously.
That said, my art making is one of the things that keeps me sane and helps me balance out my day job as a clinical psychologist and researcher in the public sector. In that part of my life everything I do takes months, if not years to finish, and it is all highly collaborative. I love that work, but I really appreciate being able to see a print through in a matter of weeks and to be completely responsible for the whole thing.
As is probably apparent from the dining room table = studio admission above, my family has been unwavering in their support of my art. I am beyond grateful that my partner has not only been emotionally encouraging but has also afforded me the time to print. She is also tolerant when I’m somewhat checked out because I’m mentally trying to work out a piece, grumpy because a piece isn’t coming together as I’d envisioned, or a little too pleased with myself when, as we say, I’ve “got my mojo back” and we can both tell that a piece is strong.
When I’m not printing or writing grants, I’m usually cooking, taking long walks (with and without dogs), playing Scrabble, or writing to presidents.