Lucky winners

Following my participation in the annual Art-A-Whirl event in northeast Minneapolis last weekend, I feel as though I am a lucky winner to have had that opportunity to show and sell my work. What fun! Thank you if you stopped by to visit, and if you purchased some of my note cards or provided me with your email address for a drawing to win one of my prints.

The small slips of paper with contact information were put in a basket and tossed around. My friend and fellow exhibitor, Kim Gordon, closed her eyes and plucked one of the slips from the mound of papers. The lucky winner of that drawing was Al, who lives in south Minneapolis and was also my art teacher at Minneapolis Central High School a mere few decades ago. Al was among the friends, students, neighbors, and colleagues who received my emailed notice about events and classes that you can also view on the “About” page here.

What’s especially meaningful about Al winning the print is that I learned about printmaking from him. He also introduced my classmates and me to calligraphy with a C-series broad-edge Speedball pen nib. The first print I ever made was a linoleum cut. The material was a flat rectangle of green linoleum with a burlap back. We used Speedball cutting tools to incise the design in the linoleum, cutting the pattern into the soft surface. Tissue paper was glued to heavy paper, the linoleum was coated with black printmaking ink, and a print was made. You can see that aged, yellowed print below. Even long ago I was interested in recording the beauty of plants.