Blog

To me, the best part of creating with anything new is the unknown journey and it’s mysterious destination.

Print is ready to pull off the plate

Garden, Kathleen Thoma, monotype 12 x 24

In my blog, I share my recent work which has a been a return to the intersection of dreaming, nature, myth and the creative impulse. My background is varied. I was in publishing for many years, mostly as an illustrator. From 2004 to 2013, I was a founding member of West Cove Gallery and Studio in CT. This was a working printmaking co-operative, which meant that people would come by and watch us work. This was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed interactions with other artists and the public.

The details of all that are in my bio above, but people always ask how I started in monotypes to begin with. In university, I had printmaking studies, stone lithography, silk screen and relief. Mostly I painted and tried out a bunch of stuff, which is what you are supposed to do in school.

I first discovered monotype printmaking much later while living outside of Boston, MA. 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. I enjoy the process, the “not knowing” of what is going to happen next, yet trying to control the end result as much as I can. This medium is not for everyone, it will drive a “control-freak” personality insane. For me it is a medium which reflects our attempts to control our own lives. We can’t, so why not enjoy it, if we can?

 

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Recent Posts

LAPS Wild Life exhibit at Eagle Rock LA

Last of the Dryads, Kathleen Thoma, monotype

Last of the Dryads, Kathleen Thoma, monotype, linocut, 16×12 in

LAPS invites you to explore our virtual Wild Life exhibition, now showing at the Center of the Arts Eagle Rock, April 1st-May 20

The topic of the “Wild Life” exhibit, featuring the fine art printmaking of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society; is our destruction of  wild life on Earth. In honor of Earth Day, April 22, 23 in partnership with CLAW Los Angeles, the show seeks to promote awareness and action on behalf of our planet’s health in the future. The link is below to see all the exhibition/gallery at Eagle Rock.

https://www.laprintmakingsociety.org/wild-life-3d-gallery/

Los Angeles, a place more associated with freeways and traffic, is one of only two cities nationwide that is also home to big cats within city limits. Yet, we are also living in the time of the Anthropocene, the sixth mass extermination of life on earth. What can be done to protect what remains of our wild places and the wildlife the lives there? 

In recognition of Earth Day 2022, our artists are looking at a range of issues facing native wild life. The event on Earth Day is a Saturday, April 23rd, 2-5PM at the Center for the Arts Eagle Rock, 2225 Colorado Blvd. LA, CA 90041 

I include my contribution to the show above, “The Last of the Dryads”. If you learned any Greek mythology in school, you may remember learning about dryads. They were thought to be the spirits which lived within the trees, and kept them alive. My image above shows them not feeling so well these days, with the fires and destruction of our forests. Much of my recent work involves mythic, symbolic images that explore our changing climate as it affects our lives, and collective unconscious.

What is an Exquisite Corpse?

A tradition from the Surrealists continues in a recent exhibition with the Los Angeles Printmaking Society The Surrealists adapted a parlor game into a poetic way to create relationships using either images or texts, that might reveal the metaphysical and upend the rational. Key to the game was using creativity and chance to create something […]

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Printmaking and the Imaginal Realm

In this post I am sharing recent printmaking work inspired by personal explorations into what Carl Jung called the “imaginal realm”.  A very short story In 2009, before I moved away from the east coast, I viewed a show at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. The show featured “The Red Book” […]

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Photos from “ImMigration Project”

Photos from “ImMigration project 3” a collaborative traveling group exhibition showing at Self-Help Graphics and Art.   Showing : Saturday, January 11th to February 22nd, 2020  Opening Reception, January 11th, 7PM – 9PM I am showing a few shots from the opening night of “ImMigration Project” just to give some idea of how the show looks, […]

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Kali as a symbol of Climate Change

Art, Earth Day & Climate Change While creating an entry for the upcoming show; Sweet Earth/Bitter Earth at the Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, CA; the myth and stories of the Hindu Goddess Kali, jumped into my mind.  The theme this year is our relationship to the environment. And for me, that is the heartbreaking […]

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Dreaming, Spirit and the Creative Impulse

I thought that I would post some of my recent images, which continue my explorations into the intersection between dreaming, spirit and the creative impulse. “Evocation of Spring” begins with a memory and a dream. The dream involves the image of huge open book, which has forms within it that I am still learning how […]

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New series of Monotypes

  Meditations on Samsara is a series of monotypes based upon my practice of focus on one symbol in order to quiet the mind. This practice is the basis for this new series of works showing the slowly developing changes in the object of focus. This series of monotypes documents the many other images, which […]

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What have I been up to? Preparing for fall events…

The past few months I have been very busy working on new relief prints for some fall events. I will participate in the annual The Los Angeles Printmaking Society’s show “Give and Take”, which opens November 9, 2017 at the Angel City Brewery. This is part of an effort to raise funds for student scholarships […]

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Studio News-new work-LA Printers Fair

I’ve been very busy in my studio these past months, creating a series of new works for my portfolio-nature on my website. I have also been busy exhibiting in a few shows, and preparing for the 2016 LA Printers Fair, which is a blast. Last year I had so much fun seeing everyone else’s work […]

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The Many Levels of Creative Exploration & Expressive Arts

If anyone had asked me back in art school if creating art was a healing thing to do, I would have said “well, yeah, duh”, because making art was only thing keeping me sane for most of my life. Since childhood, art was my escape from family issues, and since I hated school, it was […]

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