relief prints

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Cottonwood Snowfence, 16 x 20, 2006
Doll's Eyes, 16 x 20, 2006
Pyramid Point, Sleeping Bear, 16 x 20, 2006
Dune Overlook, Sleeping Bear, 16 x 20, 2006
Fishing Boat, Glen Arbor, 16 x 20, 2006
Maple Forest, Empire, 16 x 20, 2006
Right There, 16 x 20, 2006
Thorsen Granary, Sleeping Bear, 16 x 20, 2006

This work came from an artist’s residency in a place very close to my heart, Glen Arbor. The Glen Arbor Art Association gave me two weeks in Glen Arbor, Glen Haven, Leeland, Empire, and of course… Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. I grew up in Michigan. This residency brought me back to my childhood. It also produced an installation at Art Center South Florida in the 800 Building’s Large Window Gallery and the 2006 Florida Artist Book Prize for “Right There.” This spot continues to generate images in my head, looking for a space to hold them.

All prints from this series are 16 inches x 20 inches, black on Japanese paper, in an edition of 20.

Can’t See It From My House, an artist’s book

Can’t See It From My House     artist’s book/ title page    9” x 12” x .5”        2008

Can’t See It From My House was created from woodcut prints, photographs, and other ephemera gathered between 2005-2007 in Miami and Coconut Grove, Florida. It is a story of one neighborhood being replaced by another, although it is far from being a completed story. The story will continue to be told by the City of Miami for years to come.
The cover is blind embossed Murillo, with Foldovers and Tackets. Paste papers front and back are real estate listings, laminated in Mulberry paper, as are the end sheets. The book block consist of seven folded sheets, twelve by eighteen inches, of Hannemuhle German Etching paper. It is sewn together with a kettle stitch and bound to the cover with a Complex Multi Quire binding.
The images are inkjet photographs, mixed media drawing, and five woodcut prints (reduced and recreated with polymer plates as relief prints with the Vandercook 4 proof letterpress at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, Florida). Can’t See It From My House is an edition of twenty with five artist’s proofs.

Conversation, an artist’s book by Tom Virgin and Kari Snyder

Conversation    artist’s book/ title page    6.5” x 9” x .5”    2008

This book was born of a profound respect of the printmaking skills of Ms. Kari Snyder. A Florida Individual Artist Grant Winner, Kari’s intaglio prints of indigenous plants, birds, reptiles and other wildlife compelled me to ask her to collaborate on a book project.

Conversation was letterpress printed from linoleum plates, half from Snyder and half from Virgin. It has sixteen pages bound with a complex quire binding.  The cover is laminated paper with Thai Banana on the outside and Japanese Katazome paper on the inside. Each artist contributed five plates and hand colored the Rives Tan paper pages. Conversation is an edition of 20 books. “Conversation” was printed at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida with special technical assistance from Seth Thompson.

Process: DC Art Press Folio, 2010

This work is a portfolio that came from a collaboration with Leon Loughridge of DC Art Press. After flying into Denver on the way to an earlier residency at the Ucross Foundation, I saw one of his books at the Denver Public Library’s Artist’s Book Collection. Not only was the work exquisite, but the book included a fine explanation of reduction woodcut printing.I met Leon in Denver after several attempts, returning through Denver from an artist’s residency at Jentel in Banner, Wyoming.

Leon publishes an annual portfolio of prints, print processes, and other work that includes an image by another artist. I am honored to have been 2010’s contributor to “Process: DC Print Folio.” For this publication which was entirely printed on the letterpress at DC Press in Denver, Colorado, I contributed an essay on the topic of process and a 5 inch x 7 inch multiple color print printed on Kitikata paper for the edition of 30 folios. My print was printed at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.

Mountain Tops, an artist’s book

Mountain Tops             45 in x 11 in x 3 in (open)               2011
“Mountain Tops” is an accordion fold structure made from powdercoated watercut aluminum, rivets, aluminum mounted C-prints covered in plexiglass, dye on linen, canvas, and teak dowel. The font used for the haiku is Regallo Aplaya from T.26.
This book has two C-prints mounted under plexi on aluminum, one drawing and one print cut from aluminum plate, two panels of words (a haiku written by the artist), and a canvas carrying sling. The book is created in response to an artist’s residency at Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, Oregon during the summer of  2007. This book received an honorable mention in the 2010 Florida Artist Book Prize at the Bienes Museum of the Modern Book. It is an homage to Jim Findlay who helped me gain access to mountain tops with his support.