My portfolios are above
About me
I first discovered monotype printmaking back in the year 2000, while I was recovering from a health crisis. I figured that since I was already depressed about nearly everything in my life, doing one new thing couldn’t possibly make it much worse. I had found a weekend intensive workshop at Mass Art in Boston and got in. I fell in love with the spontaneous process of working with monotypes and monoprints. After that weekend, I had found a new adventure.
To me, the best part of creating with anything new is the unknown journey and it’s mysterious destination.
Working at West Cove Studio
Monotype printmaking is a medium seemed to demand an impulsive action, and this matched my own hunger for losing control after so many years of illustration work, which plans out every aspect of the finished artwork. It also matched my personality which tends to be at it’s best when I am spontaneous, impulsive and obsessive with exploring new directions. I loved the use of colors, shapes and quickly cutting stencil shapes out when they push into my work. I often felt that they cut themselves out of the plastic sheets I used.
Our instructor was the great, she kept on saying to us “Don’t think! Just do it! Make ten prints in the next hour!” We would all groan and look at her like she was crazy. But, somehow, with someone saying that to us over and over again, we all did it. And we made good prints. When they were all up on the wall we were all happy about our work. What a great teaching it was, this was an experience of trusting the flow of creative energy using our experience as artists to push on through our fears and just create without fear.
Garden, Kathleen Thoma, monotype 12 x 24
My background as both a painter and a printmaker during my university studies provided the experience needed to just jump in and start creating. Certainly I don’t look back much, except to see how much my work has changed over the years and how many more ideas I still feel waiting inside of me. Until they are ready to come out, I trust the creative process to show me the way.
Back in that first workshop in Boston, I had no idea of where I was going with this new medium or how long I wanted to work with it. To me, the best part of creating with anything new is the unknown journey and it’s mysterious destination. And it never ends.
I use color to express moods and I am influenced by what I have seen on my morning walks or dreamt of the night before. My shapes are like thoughts and the colors are like emotions which overlap in a dance of layers during my creative play on the paper.
My primary medium is still monotype printmaking. But I also paint, collage and draw.
