The art of linocut

By Deborah McDermott
Gallery Moab Newsletter
August 2017 8/15/2017

"How the Geology of the Colorado Plateau and the Spirit of Everett Ruess Came to Influence my Art"

Now that I have your attention with that snappy title, the subject of my newsletter will be revealed. I came to Moab, Utah to be surrounded by earth colors and bare rocks. Having traveled in the area on and off since childhood, the topography of this place was planted in my visual memory. In the past, my work has assimilated the colors and forms of the different places I've lived, so I knew that the landscape out my windows would influence the work I would produce.

Now, how does the Spirit of Everett Ruess come into play? Everett was a young man (with a modern-day cult following), who came from a comfortable life in California in the 1930's to have adventures, by himself, wandering on a shoestring in the Sierras and later the wild, dry, plateaus and canyons of Utah. He was a romantic young man, also artistic, who packed watercolors, drawing tools, small wood blocks, gouging tools, and writing journals into the satchels carried by his burrows. He sent descriptive letters to his family along the way, and wrote poems and journal entries about what he was experiencing, which were later compiled in a book called The Vagabond for Beauty, published in 1980. Everett mysteriously disappeared at age 20, last seen in Escalante, Utah.

As he wandered, Everett cut relief images on the wood blocks, and I'm not sure how he managed it, inked and printed the images. As a printmaker, I've admired Everett's spare but elegant, black and white design. I've also made enough relief prints of my own to know the challenge involved in reducing an image to black and white. In the relief printmaking process, lines and shapes are removed,

Everett Ruess and his burrow. from the Ruess family archive.

or left intact, from a smooth, flat wood or linoleum-like surface using gouging tools. When the block is inked with a brayer (roller), the removed areas remain white, but areas left intact are black. The process requires clarity of execution and inventive mark-making. In the case of wood blocks there is added skill involved in cutting with, and across the grain. The origins of relief printmaking have been traced to ancient Chinese culture where blocks of wood were carved with designs used to print on fabric. In the 1500s in Europe woodblock prints were used in books as illustrations.

These reproduced Evertt Ruess prints are sold, among other items, such as t-shirts, postcards, caps, and gifts, on a everettruess.net website

Sand Spirits by Deborah McDermott

So, on my own adventure, I moved alone to Moab with art supplies, including linoleum, ink, and paper. I consciously let the land work its magic on me, and was attracted immediately to the sculptural rock forms I saw on my hikes in the red rocks south of town: monoliths, crevices, layers, and prominences. I took photographs to make drawings from, and back in (the comfort of) my studio I began to turn these drawings into black and white relief prints. The prints I have at Gallery Moab are a result of this process.

The photo, the drawing, the plate, and the print

"Sand Spirits."

The spirit of Everett Ruess lives on through his prints and the landscape he wandered in, and in the work of artists who have seen both, including me. He wrote, "I have seen almost more beauty than I can bear." His landscape prints depict the landscape's grandeur. I offer the viewer a slice of a bigger picture that feels too big to depict in a 4x6" format. "Beauty" to me includes the amazing, bizarre, humorous, mysterious, and evocative.

"Fortress" By Deborah McDermott

The difference between an original Print and a Reproduction Print:

Rise Above it by Deborah McDermott

An original print is an impression taken from an inked block or plate that the artist has gouged, etched, or worked in a variety of ways to contain an image. To transfer the image to paper, it may be hand-burnished, or put through a press. It is signed, numbered, and usually printed in an edition, except for a monotype print which is one-of-a-kind. The prints in an edition are all inked separately and printed individually by the printmaker. A print is not a reproduction of another artwork. It is an affordable work of art prized and collected for its own special visual qualities.

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