 |
About MP | What's New | InPrint Newsletter | Resources
|
|
|
|
Home |
 |
|
Search |
|
|
Contact Us |
| |
|
InPrint Article
Read this article, or see other newsletter articles. March, 2002  My father once told me that attending college was a privilege and it would be an honor to be the first in his family to ever have a child attend a university - BUT that person better learn a skill of some kind to bring in a paycheck. In my blue-collar Irish home, art was nice but it was considered the pastime for the wealthier classes. So while browsing through a course catalog at the University of Maryland in College Park thirty years ago, I came upon courses in radio/tv/film. Here was my career. A combination of expressing my artistic side with learning the skills of operating television cameras, sound and editing equipment.
 After graduating with a mountain of college loans, the highest paying job appealed to me. Any thought of an artistic career was put on hold while I made corporate videos and slide shows for twenty years for such companies like IBM and GTE. One day, I found myself trying to use magic markers to color a black and white photograph. A few weeks later, the art classes at night began.
My work varied as I learned about oils, acrylics, watercolor, collage and then printmaking. The winter 2001 edition of Watercolor magazine featured some of my work, and several collages made it into exhibits at the National Arts Club in New York. Then a friend gave me a catalog of workshops from Pyramid Atlantic.
It was no surprise that with my video and film background, I would find printmaking rewarding and fascinating. For the first time I felt that I could freeze a moment and really take the viewer on an adventure through that one picture.  I rarely do editions and prefer making monoprints. Photographic printing methods interest me and I've done work with silicon plates and the Image-On product. I like experimenting with different inks and will introduce other media to a piece after the initial printing. My work has grown more complex and my latest prints have the density of several film stills, layered together. I am now trying to do three-dimensional work using printmaking techniques along with found objects on canvas.
Several years ago I received a Masters in Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University. The love of learning and reading has brought many different themes to my artwork. The meanings of myth and the repetition of issues regarding human nature throughout history have also captured my attention. Although I mainly work in the abstract, I will still sometimes use photographic images to anchor a piece to reality.
The Foundry Gallery, a co-op of artists in Washington, D.C., exhibits some of my work locally and I still exhibit in shows nationally. One newspaper critic said that "Gravely likes to surprise you with the unexpected, what she did last week is different this week." This is an accurate description. My work will grow in various directions and may it be said that Gravely didn't have one set style - and that is her flair. |
Site hosting and maintenance courtesy of
NorseCode