Tracy Featherstone
Street Trash Drawing: Uturn Talk, 2020, @15"x20" (size variable - artist book), screenprint, woodcut, color pencil, graphite, collage, ink on folded paper.
“I think in layers that have the potential to interact.”
Tracy Featherstone is an artist living and working in Cincinnati, Ohio (USA). Her approach to color is unrepentant and she has a call-and-response approach to printmaking. Tracy’s experimental, tactile and boundary-less works are created with screenprint, relief and collagraph printing techniques. She also works with drawing, sculpture, ceramics and textiles. Currently, Tracy is creating paintings that want to be quilts on unstretched canvas, as well as a new series of multi-layered dimensional drawings and prints.
How does the printmaking process itself relate to how you work with color?
I love the surprise and layering that happens in printmaking. It becomes a conversation between you, the matrix, and the press.
What cultural aspects of color are built into your work?
Probably nature. There is no better teacher than nature.
Street Trash Drawing: A-Spot, 2020, 14 x 17 inches (size variable - artist book), screenprint, graphite, collage, color pencil, and monotype on folded paper.
Street Trash Drawing: Reverse Slide, 2020, 20 x20 inches, (size variable - artist book), screenprint, graphite, collage, charcoal, ink on folded paper.
Where do you reside between technical and intuitive in your work as an artist using color?
I have a strong color theory background. I am fascinated by it still to this day. One of my jobs as a graduate student was to perfectly match the ink samples for the BATs at Landfall Press when it was in Chicago. I used a draw down and a sample, then I had to perfectly match the colors and mix enough for the whole edition.
What can printmaking ink achieve regarding color in your work that no other material can?
The layering is key here. I know this happens in painting with a glazing technique, but I just think about color like a printmaker. I think in layers that have the potential to interact.
“... I just think about color like a printmaker.”
Street Trash Drawing: Uturn Talk, 2020, 15 x 20 inches (size variable - artist book), screenprint, woodcut, color pencil, graphite, collage, ink on folded paper.
Street Trash Drawing: Silver Lining, 2020, 17 x20 inches (size variable - artist book), screenprint, woodcut, color pencil, sharpie, graphite, collage, silver leaf, on folded paper.
What would your work be without color?
I think about that a lot! What kind of moves would I make without the immediate lushness of color combinations. I have been working on a provisional series of black and white monotypes for the means of sketching and expression.
What color do you wish you could buy? Why this color?
I buy very little colors. Only the basics. I like to mix my own. Thats where magic happens.
If you could eat a color for dinner, what color would you choose?
Eating colors is dangerous.
Street Trash Drawing: Hot, 2020, 12 x 22 inches (size variable- artist book), screenprint, color pencil, collage, on folded paper.
Videos depicting Tracy Featherstone’s
books in action can be found at this link.