Follow Your Arts
"Once upon a matrix"
by Cathie Crawford
The beauty of water and the ever-changing colors of the landscape have been a constant source of inspiration throughout Cathie’s forty-year concentration on the reduction woodcut. Her recent work has been a gradual transformation to a more non-objective approach to the landscape. These woodcuts are a convergence of color, line, shape and texture in an ambiguous space with whispers of landscape. They are a celebration of the life of our beautiful planet, which deserves our awe and respect.
Alarmed by Climate Change, Cathie felt a responsibility to the life of our planet. Several of her recent prints express her concern for the environmental crisis as it affects our oceans and waterways. She is very worried about the impact of fossil fuels on the environment. The warming of our oceans will have a negative impact on all of us as well as future generations.
Cathie’s prints are known for their luminous color achieved by many runs through the press using blended rolls of transparent ink applied with brayers and mylar stencils to my printing matrix. She prints reductively from one piece of ¼” plywood as a printing matrix on handmade Japanese Kozo paper. She also uses mylar stencils to work reductively within one shape at a time to extend the color possibilities, printing ‘pochoir’. You may view how Cathie made each of these prints, run by run, on her website www.cathiecrawford.com under ‘How I Print’.
Gallery Hours:
Monday 9am – 5pm | Tuesday 9am – 1pm | Wednesday 9am – 3pm | Thursday 9am – 2pm | Friday 9am – 1pm | Saturday 10am – 2pm
Cathie Crawford
Photo by Craig Stocks for Playing in Peoria
Originally from New York City, Cathie Crawford has concentrated on the color reduction woodcut since earning an MFA in 1987 from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois where she currently resides.
Her work has been included in forty solo exhibitions, over a hundred juried national shows and thirty-five international juried exhibitions since completing a BFA from The Ohio State University in 1971. Crawford has received fifty-five awards, twelve since 2021. Her woodcuts have been exhibited in thirty-three states as well as Bulgaria, Cuba, France, Italy, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and the UK.
Crawford’s prints are included in private and corporate collections in ten countries including at the Print Center New York in New York City; The American University Museum, Washington DC; The Safeya Binzagr Darat in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; the Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba; the Newark Public Library in Newark, New Jersey and the Peoria Riverfront Museum in Peoria, IL. www.cathiecrawford.com
