Cathie Crawford
Convergence, 2022, reduction woodcut with pochoir, 22.5 x 18.5 inches.
“Why print one color at a time when you can print ten at once?”
Cathie Crawford is an artist living and working in Peoria, Illinois (USA). Her work is a confluence of luminous colors built with reduction woodcut and pochoir methods of printmaking. Visual qualities of Cathie’s abstract works include split-fount rolls and imagery of water. Cathie also makes monoprints. She is currently creating a non-objective reduction woodcut, 24 x 36 inch bleed print.
“Color is the most important element of my work.”
Summer Soleil, 2020, reduction woodcut with pochoir, 20 x 25 inches.
Are there specific associations towards color in your work?
Deeply enamored with the ever-changing hues of water, sky and land, I use color for its emotional impact. The beauty of water and the ever-changing colors of the landscape have been a constant source of inspiration throughout my 35+ year concentration on the color reduction woodcut. I have always been especially attracted to water, seeking it out for its restorative powers. Water represents a powerful life-giving force -- a source of replenishment, rejuvenation, or rebirth.
Many of my woodcuts involve a close-up view of a vibrantly colorful underwater or on-the-water world. My earliest childhood memories involve summers spent at the beach. I became a scuba diver in 1986 while in graduate school on my MFA, and I would rather be 30-60 feet under on a beautiful coral reef than almost anywhere else on earth. I have been teaching water aerobics since 2006. My husband and I have created three koi ponds at three different homes. We also love to sail.
I have been influenced by the Ukiyo-e Masters of 19th Century Japan, the Floating World of everyday life. I was especially influenced by the woodcuts of Hokusai and Hiroshige. I love the atmospheric quality of their color landscape prints. I also love the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler. My recent work has become more and more non-objective. This new direction is the converging of color, line, shape, and texture in an ambiguous space with whispers of landscape.
My color is influenced by all the great art I have observed during a lifetime of looking at great art all over the world. I have traveled extensively and lived overseas for six years in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Grenoble, France. I have always made visiting art museums and galleries a priority during my travels.
Anima Mundi (soul of the world), 2020, reduction woodcut with pochoir, 20 x 25 inches.
“...I would rather be 30-60 feet under on a beautiful coral reef than almost anywhere else on earth.”
How does the printmaking process itself relate to how you work with color?
I have been striving to pack as much color as possible in the fewest runs using blended or split font rolls of transparent inks on the brayer or litho roller. I love layering transparent inks in elaborate split fount rolls of many colors in multiple runs. While I work reductively in relief using mylar stencils for a given shape, I am building up layers of transparent color additively with each run to create my newest body of work, "Confluence of Color".
I have always been enamored with the ever-changing hues of the landscape and “rainbow rolls” seemed to be the best way to achieve these effects. Why print one color at a time when you can print ten at once? Almost every run through the press involves a blended roll. Often more than one is applied with more than one brayer and/or litho roller.
I work reductively from one piece of quarter inch plywood as my printing matrix. The first run is usually background color printed before I cut any wood. In every print, I layer multiple blended or split fount rolls of transparent ink in multiple runs. I love the unique color I achieve with several color inks blended on a brayer or large litho roller. I love the muted in-between colors achieved with this technique. I also use many Mylar stencils working “pochoir”. This allows me to extend the color possibilities of each reduction woodcut while working reductively within a given shape. I have been keeping a photo record of my process, run by run, for the past few years on my website under “How I Print”. My “sheltering in place” woodcut, Anima Mundi (soul of the world), is my best-documented image. It was completed in seven runs using Mylar stencils and blended rolls of several inks for each run. I ended up cutting very little wood.
“There are always surprises and you must learn to work with what evolves and be open to changing the plan or coming up with a new plan when things don’t work out as expected.”
Luna Sea, 2018, reduction woodcut, 24 x 36 inches.
How does color represent or support the mind space of your work?
Color is the most important element of my work and my recent work brings together color, line, shape and texture in an ambiguous space within a sublime landscape.
I have been striving to pack as much color as possible in the fewest runs thru the press using blended or split fount rolls of transparent inks. I have also been thinking a lot about climate change and our responsibility to the life of our planet. Convergence is a celebration of the life of our beautiful planet which deserves our awe and respect. My “sheltering in place” reduction woodcut, Anima Mundi, (soul of the world) was begun in March 2020 after Covid reached Illinois. I can’t help but think Mother Earth is getting even, with this pandemic, for all of humanity’s abuses.
Noumena and Luna Sea express my concern for our environmental crisis as it affects our oceans and waterways. Summer Soleil is, for me, the very essence of summer, my favorite season of the year. I used luminous pastels to capture the colors of sunlight on water as seen up close from a Hobie Cat. I had a very happy, productive summer despite the worldwide pandemic. Once Upon a Glacier… is a memorial to La Mer de Glace in Chamonix, France so my palette is more somber. In Namaste I attempt to use color to express the Divine within each of us. Namaste is a greeting which literally means the Divine in me bows to / acknowledges / greets the Divine in you.
Once Upon a Glacier…, 2021, reduction woodcut with pochoir, 22.5 x 18.5 inches.
If you could eat a color for dinner, what color would you choose and how would it taste?
I believe we should eat all the colors of the rainbow for a healthy diet. I love colorful fruits and vegetables.
Where do you reside between technical and intuitive in your work as an artist using color?
I am intuitive in my approach, but my prints are technically demanding to produce. My prints take several weeks or months to complete. Making color prints is a very slow process. I use oil-based ink which often takes a week or more to dry between runs. The printing of each run is usually an all-day affair.
In between each run, I cut some wood and or cut another mylar stencil and plan my next elaborate blended roll (sometimes printing more than one at a time with several brayers). Printmaking is also a creative process and I try to plan out how one blended roll will affect the previous one. There are always surprises and you must learn to work with what evolves and be open to changing the plan or coming up with a new plan when things don’t work out as expected.
Noumena, 2018, reduction woodcut with pochoir, 24 x 36 inches.