When Susan Moffett, professor of fine arts, isn’t in the classroom teaching printmaking or drawing, she is working on her own projects.
One of her recent projects, “Vincent Visits Newgrange,” is featured in a Mid-America Print Council exhibition.
The exhibit is showing at the Kenneth P. McCutchan Art Center at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville, Ind. from now to Oct. 30.
Moffett first got her inspiration for her woodcut print while on sabbatical in Ireland in April 2007. Her visit to Newgrange, a sacred burial ground just north of Dublin, was her main inspiration.
Newgrange is famous for its tall stones which are featured in Moffett’s piece.
She said that she wanted to draw the stones low on the horizon line so she could concentrate on the sky.
The Irish landscape, culture and people also inspired her to do the woodcut.
“The people were delightful and hospitable,” Moffett said.
Moffett said the sky in her piece looked “turban and expressive” and that it reminded her of Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “The Starry Night.” She named it “Vincent Visits Newgrange” because she thought that it was what Van Gogh would’ve seen if he went to Newgrange.
To get her final piece, Moffett starts with a piece of Japanese plywood called Shima.
She coats the wood with linseed oil, which she said helps prime the wood so it will be ready for the ink. She then lets the wood sit for four or five days so the oil has enough time to soak into the wood. Finally, she lightly sands the wood.
After the wood is prepared, Moffett uses knives, gouges and other tools to cut away what she doesn’t want to be printed.
She then uses a hand roller to rub ink onto the woodcut and transfers the image onto paper using her own press.
“The wood is my matrix,” Moffett said.
She is essentially making a template so she can make multiple prints. This is a similar process that is used to make stamps and linoleum prints.
Moffett’s print was chosen among several competing pieces. Members of the Mid-America Print Council sent in three entries and a juror was picked to select the pieces that are in the exhibit.
The Mid-America Print Council is an organization that promotes awareness and appreciation of the art of making original prints, books, handmade paper and drawings. Moffett said she was happy that one was accepted.
Although printmaking is a difficult art form, Moffett still finds passion in it.
“The physical act of cutting into the wood is satisfying,” she said.
Moffett said printmaking is all about making marks.
She said that an artist has to think about the marks that they want to make and how it’s going to show up on the paper after it’s inked.
Moffett uses different types of tools depending on the type of mark she wants to make. Moffett is currently working on another woodcut print.
For this print, she is using driftwood that she got from Jekyll Island in Georgia.
By AMANDA FRENCH
Staff Writer
aafrench@ius.edu