Beth Emmott | artist

Documentation

March 13th, 2023

This has been a very difficult time personally and I haven’t been in my studio for a while. In one month, I both broke my tibia and worst on March 4th lost my brother, Senter, to cancer.

I still haven’t been able to work but have started to document some smaller work I’ve done this past year in a small sketchbook. Mostly mark making, collage, and simple printing, resulting in mixed media books and other explorations. Some of this work was done in courses lead by Lorna Crane and by Sally Tyrie through Fiber Arts Take Two. Revisiting work is calming, a chance to slow down and think about my direction – how will this work influence future projects. I still have a ways to go with this documentation but here are some results to date. It’s a work in progress.

Image of Mark Making Book Image of Marks on Fabric
Mark Making Explorations: 1. Mark Making Book, 2. Painted Fabric Samples

Image of Print-Incoming Tide Image of Marks and Prints
1. Print: Incoming Tide, 2. Small collage using various types of simple printing

Image of Nature Studies Image of deconstructed explorations
1. Prints, acetate images and machine stitches, from a series of 14, 2. More explorations, didn’t go with these

Image of Artist Book-Closed Image of Artist Book-Open
Three earlier fabric books, combined together with a leather cover. I’m still working on the cover.

Reveal and Conceal

February 24th, 2023

Very happy my project was featured on the cover of the Fiber Arts/taketwo “Reveal and Conceal” exhibition online catalog. Titled “Forest Floor”, this piece consisted of a monoprint cover tied with handspun wool. Inside is a semitransparent page with a collagraph print on dyed teabag paper. Concealed under this page is a small print from acetate which is revealed when open. It is one of a series of eight.

Image of Forest Floor Project
“Reveal and Conceal” exhibition catalog cover

Taking a Break

January 29th, 2023

As a break from my current printing project, I’ve working with some of my photographs. Such a break allows me to step back and bring new insight to my original work.

Two of these images result from a trip to Odessa, an historic village in Delaware, while the third is from a trip to Maine just before the pandemic began. With the Odessa images I was exploring my experience of its autumn quietness and historic background.

The Maine photograph captures the vividness of the evening light. We were driving back to our vacation cabin after a busy day and it took my breath away.

Image of a marsh
“Odessa Marsh”

Image of a Barn Latch
“Odessa Barn Hinge”

Image of evening light
“Evening Light”

Acetate Printing

December 29th, 2022

I’ve been exploring using images printed on acetate with a solvent to print the image on paper – by hand, no press. A bit tricky, need a light touch and some luck so the solvent doesn’t smear yet the image does transfer. Here are a couple of my first images that I’m happy with – after lots of unsuccessful tests. Now to register an image on the paper and create a clean print – while keeping a light touch etc…

Image of an acetate transfer
“In Coming Tide”

Image of an acetate transfer
“Debris”

Layers

December 6th, 2022

My second course was with Sally Tyrie. She focused on developing a body of work with a single theme. Here is one of my series. The base layer is mono printed on paper with acetate layers on top. I digitally printed the acetate with my photographs I had manipulated in Photoshop. The final layer is machine stitched to add texture and to hold it together. The concept for this group was taken from walks at both the Jersey Shore and the Wissahickon Creek. This was very fun!

Image of group of layered work
“Mixed Media Layering”

Three Books

December 3rd, 2022

Treated myself to two courses through “Fiber Arts | take two” recently. The first with Lorna Crane (I’ve shown work from her course in previous posts), and the second with Sally Tyrie. Both were very fun, intense and a lot of work. Lorna’s was about mark making on paper and fabric and developing work from it and Sally’s about research through photographing and drawing, abstracting imagery, exploring with a lot of hand printmaking. Both pushed one out of their comfort zone.

This post is about three books, which were developed from one of Lorna’s projects. They include hand dyed and hand painted fabric and paper, ink, leather, beads, machine and hand stitching, as well as objects such as the stone, bits of shell, and feathers. I wanted a bit of a story with mine. The first, titled “Beginning”, is mainly black, white and brown, the second titled “Water” added color and the third, “Earth” added three dimensional objects. I may combine them into one larger book.

Image of Book Beginning
“Beginning”

Image of Book Water
“Water”