PORT TOWNSEND — Printmaker Phil Carrico and woodworker Martha Collins are the Port Townsend Gallery’s featured artists of the month for October.
The show, “Against the Grain: Creation Through Destruction,” will be at the gallery, 715 Water St. in Port Townsend. It is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week, or by appointment.
While most artists add layer upon layer to build their work, both Collins and Carrico go the other direction, turning timber, filleting flitches and gouging grain, all in an effort to release artwork trapped in the medium.
Delicately layered hardwoods give Collins’ work a distinct hue and a defined grain. Her miniature bowls are reminiscent of hand-crafted woven baskets with as many as 13 different wood species combined to create intricate geometric patterns.
Her wooden earrings have a Frank Lloyd Write sensibility, with ebony, chatke viga, purpleheart and dyed maple veneer standing in for his stained glass.
Collins won Best Artist New to the Show in 2019 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show. She has participated in the prestigious Smithsonian Craft Show, and her work is now part of the permanent Bresler collection.
Like Collins, Carrico’s deconstruction of linoleum and Baltic birch allows for the creation of vibrant and evocative multi-impression woodcut prints. Master of Fine Arts prepared at the University of Alaska, Carrico spent most of his life honing his skills at printmaking while teaching art to the next generation.
Every step of the printmaking process is final unto itself as, once the block is inked, all impressions of that layer must be made on all the prints in the series. Then, after cleaning the block, the next layer is revealed by Carrico, carefully carving out only that which should remain of the impressed color.
That happens for as many as 16 color impressions.
For both Collins and Carrico, there is no undo. Because of their destructive processes, every attack on the medium is final.
For more information, call 360-379-8110 or visit www.porttownsendgallery.com.
