"The Only Rule is Work " - Corita

One of my all time favorite artists, Sister Corita Kent (1918-1986) made up this list of rules for the art college in which she worked. No. 7 is the best rule ever... it's my mantra!

'Admired by Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller and Saul Bass, Sister Corita was one of the most innovative and unusual pop artists of the 1960s, battling the political and religious establishments, revolutionizing graphic design and encouraging the creativity of thousands of people - all while living and practicing as a Catholic nun in California.

Mixing advertising slogans and poetry in her prints and commandeering nuns and students to help make ambitions installations, processions and banners, Sister Corita's work is now recognized as some of the most striking - and joyful- American art of the 60s. But, at the end of the decade and at the height of her fame and prodigious work rate, she let the convent where she had spent her adult life. ' - (Julie Ault.)

**From the book, Come Alive! The Spirited Art of Sister Corita by Julie Ault. Published by Four Corners Books, 2006.

Sabra Field

Fields and Mountains

Dandelion Galaxies

Windows of Light on the Snow

Deer in the Orchard

"The pastoral image... is a model for man to shape his environment with care, to make the natural world more beautiful, more whole. ...The pastoral image poses an answer to the question, 'How are we to live with our planet?' " - Sabra Field

Her prints hang in imposing corporate boardrooms and in rustic New England fishing camps. Her 1991 Vermont Bicentennial commemorative stamp depicting yellow farm fields, a red barn and blue mountains quickly became of the the USPS's best selling issues, with more than 60 million copies purchased. Sabra Field is that rare contemporary artist whose work has found a large falling well outside the traditional realm of collectors and art experts. At her home and studio set in the Vermont countryside, she meticulously carves and hand-inks the wood blocks with which she creates her magical prints, one color at a time. (Tom Slayton)

** From the book, Sabra Field - The Art of Place. by Tom Slayton. University press of New England.

A Short Lesson in Japanese Woodcutting Tools...

No. 1 is the Hangito tool, the most useful and important tool in woodblock printmaking. (also called the kiridashi. It is capable of cutting intricate, flowing lines that are at the heart of Japanese printmaking. All the outlines in the print are carved with this knife. No. 3 is the Komasuki tool or round gouge. It has a semi-circular tip used for clearing away wood around the areas carved in outlines using the hangito.

No. 2 is the Aisuki - a flat-bladed chisel. It's used for 'cleaning up' carved areas so they're not so jagged. No. 4 is the Sankakuto - a V-shaped gouge. It's a Western influenced cutting tool and was not originally used by Japanese ukiyo-e carvers. *

top left - made with the sankakuto tool top right- made with the hangito tool

bottom left - made with komasuki tool bottom right - made with aisuki tool

Here's the print of the woodcut above.


The following are some prints by Antonio Frasconi **- a renowned Western printmaker... these are woodblock prints - although I'm not sure if they are printed in the traditional Japanese method.

* from the book, Japanese Woodblock Printmaking by Rebecca Salter

**Images from the book, At Christmas Time by Valerie Worth and Antonio Frasconi.

Andy Warhol

Marilyn. 1967. Screenprint on paper. 36 x 36 in. Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.

Andy Warhol: Born Pittsburgh, PA. Died: NYC, 1987. American painter, printmaker, sculptor, draughtsman, film-maker and writer, one of the most famous and controversial artists of the 20th century. During the 1950s he was enormously successful as a commercial artist in NY. In 1960 he began making pictures based on mass-produced images like ads, comics and in 1962 of Campbell's soup cans. They were shown that year with sensational success and he soon became the best known figure in American Pop art. He then embarked on a lengthy series of pictures of Marilyn, Monroe, Elvis Presley, Liz Taylor and other celebrities. There was also a car crash series - whatever the subject matter, he often mode use of rows of repeated images.

The screen printing process that he favored allowed infinite replication and he was opposed to the idea of a work of art as a piece of craftsmanship, handmade and expressing the personality of the artist: 'I want everybody to think alike. I think everybody should be a machine.' In keeping with this outlook he used clippings of 'dehumanized' illustrations from the mass media as his sources, turned out his works like a manufacturer, and called his studio 'The Factory.' In 1965, he began making more films and managed the musical group, the Velvet Underground. In 1968, Warhol was shot by a bit-part player in one of this films - Valerie Solanes - an incident that added to his legendary status. He recovered and began doing portraits for the rich and famous. He died of a routine gall-bladder operation - because of volume overload. His fortune was estimated at $100,000,000, most of which went to create an arts charity, the Andy Warhol Foundation. In 1994 a museum dedicated to his work opened his home town of Pittsburgh. (Ian Chilvers)

Antonio Frasconi

Argentine-born American printmaker. Born to Italian parents in 1919. He apprenticed with a printer when he was 12 years old, already a lover of art making. He experimented with woodblock printmaking in the 1940s. In 1945, Antonio moved to the USA to study with the art student's league and social research in NYC. By the 1950s he had gained recognition for his printmaking and had become prominent and successful. He has been a teacher in many universities and has done a lot of art work for advertising, Christmas cards and even a postage stamp. He lives and works in Connecticut.

(Images from the book, At Christmas Time 1992, poetry by Valerie Worth and art by Antonio Frasconi. Harper Collins.)