Statement/CV
Artist Statement – 2009- Barbara Mason
As a visual artist I think non-objective work is always hard to evaluate. If you do not know the artist and the title of the work gives you no clue, all you can do is relate personally to the shapes, lines and colors. This is usually exactly what the artist wants you to do, as this type of work evokes an emotional response as well as a visual one.
Life as an artist is extremely challenging since the images all come from inside one’s own mind and rush to get out and be seen. The mess of discarded images in the studio attests to the fact that not every idea passes muster, just like in the rest of life. Artist’s never run out of ideas, maybe that is what makes us unique as a group and never bored. I tend to work in fits and starts, and do an awful lot of work in my head that never makes it to plate and paper.
The line quality of my work is minimalist, expressing delicate fragility that can exist in counterpoint to the strength of the solid shapes. I think color represents steadfastness for me. I tend to surround myself with warm colors with the occasional cool color playing off the warm.
This process of my work is Solarplate intaglio. The printmaking plate has a polymer photosensitive surface attached to a steel backing. I work on clear Mylar or acetate with crayon, ink and china marker pencils to get the image I want. Then the image is transferred to the plate using UV light (sunlight works) and eventually washed out in water. The plate is hardened in the sun and printed as a traditional etching plate; forcing the ink into the lines and recesses in the plate with a squeegee and wiping the surface clean. The plate is then printed on damp 100% cotton rag paper using an etching press. I have been using this non-toxic process exclusively since 2001 and teach classes in Solarplate etching and relief printmaking several times a year through Print Arts Northwest, a local non-profit printmaking organization. It is rare indeed to find a process that works so well and is so safe, no chemicals are ever needed except ink and even that can be water-soluble.
Barbara Mason/CV
Artist/Printmaker
Barbara Mason is an artist/printmaker working in her own printmaking studio in Aloha, 15 miles west of Portland, Oregon. A lifelong artist, she began studying printmaking in the early 80′s and was immediately enamored with the medium. Barbara made viscosity monotypes almost exclusively for 20 years until she discovered Solarplate etching. She has been an enthusiast of this process since 2001 and has taught the process in workshops since 2002.
Barbara is an arts advocate and active in the community. She has been a resource person for the Beaverton School District since 1976. Serving 8 years on the board of the Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Center for Graphic Arts at the Portland Art Museum, she was also a founding board member of the 12 year old Art in the Pearl, an outdoor community arts fair taking place on Labor Day Weekend. She has been on the board of Crow’s Shadow Institute of Art on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, is a past President of the Board of Print Arts Northwest the gallery and studio of the Northwest Print Council. She is the currently the education chair at Print Arts Northwest. She is past director and an active artist of Waterstone Gallery, an artist owned gallery, in Portland, OR. She currently serves on the board of the Washington County Arts, Heritage and Humanities Collation, which distributes money from the Oregon Cultural Trust to nonprofits in Washington County, OR. She is on the board of “The Right Brain Initiative”, a coalition of cultural organizations that are bringing art, music and drama back to local schools on a weekly basis.
Barbara spends many hours each year as a volunteer teaching printmaking in local schools for Print Arts Northwest. She also teaches classes at Atelier Meridian. Her enthusiasm for printmaking is translated into wonderful works by students ages 8-80 who thought they couldn’t draw and therefore couldn’t make art. They were mistaken, Barbara is sure anyone can make art and everyone should be doing so.
Barbara’s has shown her work nationally and internationally for the last 25 years, her works are in the collections of the Portland Art Museum, Intel Corporation, Crow’s Shadow Art Institute, the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, the New York Public Library Collection, the Halle Ford Museum, the National Museum of Kampala Uganda, the Applied Sciences University of Amman, Jordan, the Jordon Schnitzer Collection, the American Print Alliance Memorial Collection and numerous private individuals and corporations.
Education:
University of Washington
Oregon College of Arts and Crafts
Portland State University
Pacific Northwest College of Art
Marylhurst University
Printmaking workshops from: Lise Drost, Kim Fink, Myrna Burk, Jim Hibbard, Christy Wycoff, Tom Porchaska, Brian Shannon, Non Toxic Printmaking with Raymon Murilla and Dan Welden and traditional water-soluble woodblock with Graham Scholes, David Bull and Richard Steiner
Gallery Representation
Waterstone Gallery, Portland, Oregon
Print Arts Northwest, Portland, Oregon
Davidson Galleries, Seattle, WA
Cholke Fine Art, Rockford, IL
