Molly Springfield on Gretchen Schermerhorn

In this post from The Studio Visit blog, Molly Springfield profiles Maryland artist Gretchen Schermerhorn. An excerpt:

“I spoke with Gretchen in her studio at Pyramid Atlantic, which she shares with Sabeth Jackson, who teaches relief printing there. That her job comes with an on-site studio, with easy access to the large, expensive equipment her own work requires, is certainly a perk, but it can sometimes be hard to maintain boundaries between her professional duties and her personal studio time.

‘Sometimes when I’m going to press or going to print, someone may stop me [to ask a technical question] and it’s hard to say, ‘I’m not working right now.’ And my hours aren’t always nine to five, Monday through Friday. So how do people know when I’m on or off? There’s been a joke that I need an apron that says, ‘Don’t talk to me.’

…Gretchen’s practice as a printmaker and hand papermaker is well situated within Snow’s third culture. The precise technical procedures both disciplines require can sometimes feel more like scientific experimentation than intuitive creation. Like a scientist, Gretchen begins with a hypothesis, but the resulting artwork is not always what she predicts. ‘From a very basic standpoint, I love challenge and I love surprise,’ she says. ‘And even if I think something is going to happen, there are other tiny factors that play into it. … [There] are tiny calculations that may give you an idea of what’s going to happen but once you pull those felts off the press bed and lift up and see your print it might be something different.’ ”

Click here to read the complete post. For more information on the artist, visit her website here.

Image in the post from Schermerhorn’s website.