[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.