About Me
The Artist
When asked how long I’ve been making prints, I stumble. The easiest answer is since I was thirteen, when a family friend invited me to her print studio. It was certainly from that experience that I fell in love with printmaking, but that doesn’t completely answer the question. Even as a baby, I was fascinated by the impression my hands made in wet beach sand, the intricate lines that appeared when I pressed a paint covered thumb onto paper. In my earliest art classes, I scratched images into foam plates and printed them like stamps. How long have I been making prints? Well, forever… that is to say, from my earliest memories.
In every print ever made, there is a history of process, a story told through impression. The grain of the wood or the bevel of the copper translate into paper something of their essence where wood becomes image, metal becomes paper, stone becomes print. It is in this transmutation of properties that my love of printmaking lies. Just as the mechanisms of printmaking guide my hand, my heart is inspired by the wonder of cycles and processes in nature. The marrying of these two passions has informed my art as I seek to explore the intersection of humanity and nature in a world where nothing is untouched by humankind.
Emily Gray Koehler's Curriculum Vitae (CV)
The Gardener
The last of the snow has melted, but the tree buds are still holding tight. The birds have been singing since the sun came back to us, but only the bravest of the plants are waking from their slumber. The light shining boldly through leafless trees beckons a spiral of chartreuse to push forth through the soil. Tight fisted at first, the fern frond grows into the light until it unfurls its buttressed leaves to the sky.
I have been dormant too, squirreled away in my studio all winter. I made art of course just as the maples made sugars, but I was only half awake. Now the soil is soft again, alive with activity. The pepper, tomato and herb seedlings that kept me company while I worked are ready to meet the sun. Soon the bees and butterflies will emerge, the spiders will hunt, the worms will wriggle and I will spread my branches for it is spring and I am reborn.