StrataTella, Calving, and GlaceWaves are 30”x42” reduction woodcut prints. These large scale prints were pressed from hand carved pine and hand pressed in a three & four-color process. Each print was uniquely designed to incorporate the pine blocks naturally occurring knots and was carved along the wood-grain to allow the texture to speak through, forming a relationship between the matrix natural makeup and the icescape composition.
for more information about glacier ice, check out one of my favorite fact checking sites https://nsidc.org.
Glace Waves (30”x42”) is a four-color reduction woodcut exploring the textural and tonal varieties of glacier ice. The reduction process in this giant block print employs the matrix to visually speak via woodgrain and symbolically represent the many ways nature records and reports earth’s history. Giant icebergs once belonging to Iceland’s Breidamerkurjokull glacier float along the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, gradually melting to become one with the sea. The ice melts from the bottom into the lagoon’s lake, making them top-heavy and literally flipping themselves over. As icebergs melt, flip, and rotate they also morph into unexpected shapes. The colors and textures of all this frozen water are not only beautiful but have meaning. They tell a story of climate. The different ratios of oxygen trapped in the ice explain how fast the water froze and how compressed the hydrogen was compared to oxygen. The whiter the ice, the more oxygen is present. I studied the white, blue, and green variations. Light bouncing between glaciers, the sky, and reflecting from the lagoon creating visually mesmerizing effects of color.
‘StrataTella’ is a three-color reduction woodcut that centers on the horizontal layers of glacial elements melting into the sea.
The melt travels downward carving crevices into solid ice. As it re-freezes the melted carved area solidifies. This process creates a varied zigzag checkered pattern. Melting ice has created a deep cavern and its depth is portrayed through dark layers of ink against white speckled droplets of melted ice water. Layers of deposited ice and sediment seem to slowly collapse. In the distance, the landscape once covered by glacial ice reveals sediment layers deposited by drifting ice. Sky, land, ice, and sea collectively stack themselves into a relationship of color, pattern, formation, and causality.
‘Calving’ is a four-color reduction woodcut named after the event where glacial mass crashes into seawater, calving.
The composition is on a tilted axis altering the perspective of the viewer, with a shifting narrative of shape and color.
Positive and negative spaces collaborate to create ice, waves, and swells from a calving event- leaving behind its former landmass in the distance.