Today we’d like to introduce you to Catherine Kernan.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
Directly after receiving my MFA in printmaking (UW/ Madison) I joined a four-woman printmaking cooperative, Artists Proof Studio, in Cambridge. Since then I have continuously owned open access print studios, currently Mixit Print Studio in Somerville, MA, founded in 1987.
The seed of my motivation was planted when I worked at Bob Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop in New York City, a legendary open access studio where artists from around the world connected and worked. The concept of community and sharing resources has motivated me ever since. Through our current studio, my two partners and I have been able to carry out that vision, making equipment and space available to artists, teaching less-toxic printmaking methods, encouraging younger artists in their work, and developing our own careers.
The context for our studio is an artist owned cooperative live / work building. This has extended the concept of a creative community to a life style that has contributed profoundly to raising our families, and surviving as artists.
Please tell us about your art.
The premise that human relationships with the earth are dynamic, mutable, interactive, and move in ever-evolving cycles of repetition and variation underlies most of my work. This attitude is also intrinsic to printmaking, processes that encompass the oppositional constructs of order and chaos, control and chance.
Long a maker of images based on observation, I have abandoned the depiction of a particular place, preferring to work in an abstract, improvisatory way, drawing on internalized experiences. In a painterly process of controlled accident, at the interface between printmaking and painting. Using woodblocks in unorthodox ways as a transfer tool, I build images layer by layer without predicting the outcome. No longer a purist, I exploit any available tool or means to transfer color and form to surface. Interruption and interference with the “perfect transfer” are integral to my process.
Growing up living around the world (Iran, Spain, Korea) with a forester as a father greatly influenced my perception of time, memory, space, and my relationship to the earth.
Do you have any advice for other artists? Any lessons you wished you learned earlier?
My advice has always been to never stop making art, and never wait for white lightening to strike. Being a self-employed artist requires twice the work and commitment as working for a paycheck.
After many years, I have incorporated chance, being entirely in the moment, and the letting go of control into my working approach. Fixing on an outcome is a set up for failure; letting the process evolve and the outcome surprise is a much more satisfying way to work.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My work can be seen on my website: catherinekernan.com. A resume of my career and gallery affiliations are also posted on my website.
The studio website is mixitprint.com. The services we offer and the workshops we schedule are posted on the studio website.
Contact Info:
- Address: 32 Clifton Street
Somerville MA 02144 - Website: catherinekernan.com
- Phone: 6179097107
- Email: catherinekernan@comcast.net
Image Credit:
Photos of artwork: Susan Byrne
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