Dinner with Bouquet

Dinner with Bouquet.
Triple Plate Etching, Relief Roll through Stencil. 
45.5cm x 45.5cm. 2014.

My new print is finished and I've started printing the edition. It is high time I got that done since we're moving from Minneapolis to Edmonton in two weeks and I need to start packing. This print is loosely connected to the previous one (Picking Apples) through the theme of 'Small Pleasures'. However, stylistically the pieces look very different I find and they will have to stand as individual pieces instead of as a series like I had initially planned. This is another triple plate print (since I started using three plates I have a hard time going back to working with only two plate and colours); there is a blue, a red, and a black plate. I apply the yellow with a stencil on the red plate; I tried wiping some of the yellow à la poupeé, but it oxidized right away and turned a muddy green so I decided to add all the yellow with the relief roll through a stencil onto the surface of the red plate to keep it nice a bright.
As you can see I had a lot of fun with the bouquet (I love picking wild flowers); the looser shadows I did as a sugar lift. I also loved putting in my favourite table cloth in this picture with a softground pattern of the weave. As you can see, we love good food and a little bit of beauty around us in our everyday lives. Enjoy!

I want to share some pictures about the process:




















Above: Detail of bouquet while stopping out during the etching process of the aquatints - a piece of patience.
Below: Printing of Dinner with Bouquet; blue plate and red plate with yellow stencil are printed - ready to run the print through the press with the key plate.

Apple Picking

Apple Picking. 
Triple-Plate Colour Etching.
45.5cm x 45.5cm. 2014.

It's time to post some new work. Apple season isn't quite upon us yet, but we have fond memories (and still some frozen apple cider) of last year's picking. We'll miss Minnesota's apple orchards! I love harvesting (anything) and having grown up without apple trees, (ok, ok, I had grapefruit, papaya, guavas, mangos,...but no apples), picking apples is still a bit of a novelty for me. Last year I canned some pie filling and cooked jars and jars of apple sauce, but mostly we made gallons of fresh cider.

I've had the printing plates for this piece finished for a while already, but, because of an upcoming show at Highpoint the presses have been busy and I decided to wait to print till things quieted down a little. I'm working on several new pieces for an exhibition I will have in November in Winnipeg together with my husband Terry. I decided to make a series of narrative work about things we enjoy together. The tentative title for the show is 'Small Pleasures' and will thematically connect his ceramic work and my new prints. Once again, I had a lot of fun working with soap ground to get more painterly effects in my work. I also enjoyed the colour range I got on my last print (Return) with three plates. Thanks to an effective registration system the registration of the plates is working pretty smoothly. I tried to work with a more simple composition without ups and downs and sideways, but I'm not sure yet if I love it. I took some artistic freedom with the cedar waxwings, which I saw up close for the first time last year. What beautiful birds! I think they would be more likely to eat frozen/soft apples and not fresh ones, but I saw them near this apple tree and couldn't resist putting them in. Well, that's it for today. I'll be back with more soon.

Canada House London

For some of you this may not be news, but I just got the official letter in the mail and I still want to post this: Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs has purchased two of my prints for the fine art collection at Canada House London. The two prints are Red River Trail and My Winnipeg IV. I am so excited! Just imagine my work has made it all the way to Trafalgar square (which I heard about for the first time in 1995 when I started to learn English with my Dad and British tapes).

Abbott Northwestern Hospital Exhibition

My work is currently on display at the Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. Several month ago I was asked to consider showing my work in one of the hallway galleries at the hospital as part of The Art of Healing Program through the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing. I decided to go for it, since I always like my work being part of people's lives and I often think there should be more artwork on walls in public spaces. I also agree with the general mission statement that art "can nourish the mind, body, and spirit, and it can support healing." The work will be up all summer through September. The exhibition is accessible during clinic open hours: Mo - Th 8am - 8:30pm, Fri 8am - 4pm. Location: lower level of the Wasie Building, 800 East 28th Street, Minneapolis. 

Directions: There are multiple ways to get to the hallway, but this is the one I know - Enter through main entrance of the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing at the corner of Chicago and 28th Str. Take the stairs or elevator to lower level. Walk through door closest to the stairs (it's a heavy one) and follow the tunnel, which is quite long, until you reach the hallway with my work on display. 

'Best in Show' Footprint International Winner

How very exciting! I just learned that I'm the winner of the 'Best in Show' award at the Footprint International Competition at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut. Two of my prints - Return and Waving Goodbye - were selected by Juror Elisabeth Hodermansky, Sutphin Family Senior Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, Photographs at the Yale University Art Gallery. To see all the winners, please go the website of the CCP.

Return

Return.
Triple-Plate Copper Etching, Chine-Collé. 
30cm x 30cm. 2014.

I've had this image in my head ever since my trip home to Paraguay last year. Yes, I still call Paraguay home (one of them at least). This was the first time I was staying in the house of my childhood again and I was surprised how much at home I still felt with my surroundings. One of my most cherished memories are the neon-green, cheerful and loving parakeets nibbling at the beautiful, hand-sized blossoms of the bottle tree at my aunt's place, my favourite holiday destination. Bottle trees absorb water into their soft wood (very important in an arid region) and store the moisture in their ever expanding trunks, which they then protect from animals with giant spikes, forming a protected sanctuary. We used to have a bottle tree in our yard under which we often played growing up. I'm not entirely sure what the image means, but in many ways the trip was about returning home and returning to the roots of my childhood (even if I had to leave again). This piece is an addition to my autobiographical series exploring imagery about home and belonging.
This was my first triple plate print (light red, green, and black). I had a lot of fun playing with the soap ground again creating a more lively, less flat background with a more washy look.

First Fridays Winnipeg

Miriam Rudolph.

First Fridays Winnipeg.

Double-Plate Colour Etching.

22 x 22 cm. 2014.

First Fridays Winnipeg commissioned me to do a small etching a while back as a fundraiser piece. When I still had my studio in Winnipeg's exchange district, I always participated in the First Fridays event, where all studio artists and galleries open their doors to the public on the first Friday of each month. For me this was a wonderful way to show my work and talk about my work in a casual manner to people interested in art. It's a great and fun event! Well, I chose a Friday night in Winnipeg as my motif for this piece. In fact, the building in the foreground on the right is the Silpit Building where I used to have my studio, with all the illuminated windows and artists either working or showing their work. Take a peek for yourself through the windows. Front left, set back a little, is the Merchants Building and behind it you can see the upper part of the gorgeous Electric Railway Chambers on Notre Dame. 

For this image I heavily borrowed composition and colours from an early piece of British printmaker Brenda Hartill, but I think I succeeded in making it my own by changing the format, using specific Winnipeg buildings and my own little vignettes behind the windows. I came across Brenda's work several years ago and was quite surprised how many similarities I found in our work (her London etchings at least). I greatly admire her prints!

My little print will be available soon through First Fridays in Winnipeg.