[0:00] (wood scraping) [0:02] (upbeat music) [0:03] - I grew up in Northern Lower Michigan, [0:05] quite literally in the woods. [0:06] Some of my earliest memories are, like, [0:08] going out and hunting under logs for salamanders [0:11] and you know, looking at mushrooms and hiding under trees [0:14] and calling them forts and that sort of thing. [0:16] Hi, I'm Emily Gray Koehler. [0:18] I'm a printmaker, [0:19] and I have my studio in Northeast Minneapolis, [0:21] and I'm putting on a show at the Confluence Gallery. [0:23] The show is called "Under the Canopy." [0:25] All of the work deals with imagery, [0:27] experiences, and things I've observed in the woods. [0:31] Trees and woodlands have always been [0:33] really significant to me in my work. [0:35] And having visited the Wildlife Refuge, [0:38] I was always struck by the trees. [0:40] And also, like, as you get down into the River Valley, [0:42] you know, there's these monsters that are growing down there [0:45] and it seemed as though it was an appropriate theme [0:47] for the Wildlife Refuge and for the Confluence Gallery. [0:50] I really wanted to capture the experience [0:53] of being in the woods, [0:54] both that intimate moment where you spot [0:57] that cool, tiny little thing, [0:59] like a leaf or something really interesting [1:01] that's really tiny and petite. [1:04] And then also that experience of just being in the woods [1:07] and sort of bathing in it, as they say. [1:10] (wood scraping) [1:12] Printmaking involves a lot of different processes. [1:14] It's an umbrella for many different forms of art making. [1:18] Most of my work is reduction woodcut, [1:21] which you see a work in progress here. [1:24] And reduction woodcut is the creation of a print on paper [1:29] from a carved block that is successively carved [1:32] through multiple layers of carving and printing [1:35] in order to create a finished image. [1:36] So you'll have multiple layers of color, [1:38] and that's how you get that vibrancy. [1:41] And as you can imagine, woodcut is not terribly forgiving. [1:44] If I were to carve away, [1:47] let's say for example, I carved straight into that, [1:50] the trunk of this tree, [1:52] I would need to figure something out. [1:54] To a degree, you can fill it, [1:55] but it doesn't ever really print really well. [1:57] So the best thing is [1:58] to just be really good at carving. (laughs) [2:02] A lot of the time is also waiting. [2:04] But I usually have several pieces [2:06] underway at any given time. [2:08] So while I'm waiting for one to dry, I'm carving another, [2:12] or I'm working on drawing another or printing another. [2:16] So we're gonna be printing the first layer of this block. [2:19] So everything you see that's sort of that wood tone [2:21] is where I've carved, [2:23] and that is going to stay the color of the paper, [2:25] which is white. (roller scraping) [2:28] And I need to re-ink the block between each printing. [2:34] But this first charging layer [2:39] will sort of get the block primed. [2:41] So this first layer, [2:43] I don't have to worry so much about registration, [2:45] I just kind of have to generally hit [2:47] the middle of the paper. [2:48] But as you can imagine, subsequent layers [2:50] have to be registered, as we say in printmaking [2:54] or laid perfectly, lined up perfectly, [2:57] on top of the previous print. [2:58] Otherwise, you'll wind up with that odd [3:00] sort of double view that you get sometimes, [3:02] if you've seen a magazine [3:03] that didn't quite get printed right. [3:05] Once we've pulled the print, [3:06] it goes into its very own little shelf [3:12] for the next week or two, to dry. [3:15] Now I'll work on printing all the rest, [3:18] about 24 sheets of paper. [3:21] And then we'll wait. [3:22] So my show is in the dead of winter, [3:24] and although there's some fantastic things [3:26] to see out in the woods in the middle of winter, [3:28] there's a lot of work in my show [3:30] that's also going to be from other seasons. [3:32] So if you want to kind of warm up [3:33] and think about those growing things, [3:36] walk through my show, check it out, [3:38] see what you might see under the snow outside.