North Adams Open Studios -
2009 Open Studios Supporters
There are currently 81 artists registered!
Sandra Butler
- Artist Statement:
- Sandra Butler received her B.F.A. degree with a concentration in Printmaking from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1982 and her Masters degree from the Massachusetts College of Art in1997. She is a painter / printmaker affiliated with Abrazos Press in Somerville, MA and the Eclipse Mill Artists Association in North Adams, MA, where she has established a live/work studio space in a refurbished textile mill.
Ms. Butler is currently a member of the art faculty at Milton Academy. She also taught in the Art Education department at Massachusetts College of Art for several years. She received a Visual Artists Grant from the Somerville Arts Council as well as a Horizon Fund grant from the Park School, and has held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and at the Penland School in North Carolina. Exhibitions include a solo show at the Sandra & Philip Gordon Gallery, Boston Arts Academy, Boston, MA and inclusion in numerous juried group shows including the 50th Annual National Print Exhibition at the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton, N.J., the 29th Bradley National Print and Drawing Exhibition in Peoria, IL, The Cambridge Art Association’s National Prize show, The Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, CT and the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams, MA. Her work is in many private and public collections in the New England area including the Creative Arts Workshop, Nitromed Co. and Fidelity Investments.
- Biography:
- I make monotypes, which are considered by many to be the most painterly form of printmaking. I enjoy the process of applying ink to a plate in a fluid and spontaneous fashion, and the resulting dialogue that transpires between the medium and the images that surface interests me. I also enjoy the risk, and the reward, of investing myself fully in a printmaking endeavor that produces only “one” print, an act that seems antithetical to the inherent nature of the form; it’s rather like gambling, particularly when the stakes are high, and when taking the next step means either ruining the piece or resolving it.
In the past year and a half, I have been exploring improvisational woodcut techniques in my printmaking. Carving provides rich opportunities for investigating mark-making and textural elements. The repeatable nature of a woodblock allows for printing and layering in new ways. Recently, I have also been using my ink-stained mylar stencils, familiar shapes that I have used over the years in my monotypes, as collage elements in works that focus on balance and relationships.
My images are graphic representations of the kinds of experiences that have to do with journeys and processes. Unstructured, open-ended and responsive, they are the records of visual conversations that I have with myself – exchanges that are layered one upon another over the course of time. My sources of inspiration tend to be visual and musical lyricists such as Jennifer Bartlett, Elizabeth Murray, Henri Matisse, Thomas Nozkowski, Judy Pfaff, Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, and Coleman Hawkins. They, among others, have influenced the development of my own visual language.
- Artist Website:
- www.sandrabutler.com