Etchings by Meghan Brady and Karen Gelardi
In 2011, WINGATE STUDIO published Constructions, a collaborative print project consisting of two etchings— one by me and one by Meghan Brady. Constructions, explored our ongoing visual dialog and was funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. We worked side by side to produce the etchings. Both images are distinct formal explorations of geometric forms. I created a black and white fabric of interwoven sugarlift aquatint lines along with softground, drawing triangular objects interspersed with areas of intense color. Meghan also began with the triangle as a basic form. Her print uses softground and overlaid aquatint planes to allow interaction between colors printed from different plates.
For additional information and to purchase prints from the edition,
please contact Wingate Studio at wingates@worldpath.net
(603) 239-8223
BLUE TUMBLER, Meghan Brady, 2010.
Soft Ground Etching and Aquatint. 22 1⁄2" x 23 1/8", Edition of 20.
SACO BOG, Karen Gelardi, 2010.
Soft ground etching, Sugar Lift, and Aquatint. 22 1⁄2" x 23 1/8", Edition of 20.
Below is part of a conversation with Meghan about out ideas on collaboration and the prints created at Wingate Studio.
Meghan Brady and Karen Gelardi are artist friends who have collaborated on several projects, including a two-person show at Coleman Burke Gallery in New York in 2010.
MB: How did you arrive at ‘Saco Bog’?
KG: Well, my nature studies evolved into a fascination with resilient systems and visual strategies that relate to adaptation. I found that repeated modular forms that are similar, but not precisely the same, are really adaptable. With ‘Saco Bog’ I have used this approach, repeating triangular forms and populating areas with groupings of colored shapes. The title comes from the Saco Heath Preserve in southern Maine where I had been going for walks. The ecosystem there has adapted to the acidity of its two ponds and there are visual clues in the landscape to the various strategies of the species that
survive there.
KG: Can you tell me about your starting point for ‘Blue Tumbler’? How did it evolve through the printmaking process?
MB: I consistently work on drawings in my studio, no matter what other projects I’ve got going on. ‘Blue Tumbler’ is based on a collaged drawing that I brought to Wingate with me as a source from which to work while away from the studio. The drawing was begun as an ink and acrylic painting and then I later collaged elements over it. comes out of some paintings that I made for our show in NYC earlier in the year.
TUMBLER, collage by Meghan Brady, 2010.
KG: Oh yeah, I can totally see that. I started from collages too. They were built from cut up photocopies of a line drawing, various gouache paintings, and tape. So the collage was more like an object made up of pieces. The etching is more unified. The black lines that form the triangular shapes were painted using sugar lift ground, then etched and printed in black. Two additional plates were aquatinted to fill in the shapes and the use of tape-like orange rectangles reference a history of the collaged patching system in the original collage.
KG: Oh yeah, I can totally see that. I started from collages too. They were built from cut up photocopies of a line drawing, various gouache paintings, and tape. So the collage was more like an object made up of pieces. The etching is more unified. The black lines that form the triangular shapes were painted using sugar lift ground, then etched and printed in black. Two additional plates were aquatinted to fill in the shapes and the use of tape-like orange rectangles reference a history of the collaged patching system in the original collage.
TRIANGLE CONSTRUCITON NO. 2, Karen Gelardi, 2007
MB: Tell me about collaboration and why you consider this project collaborative.
KG: I see collaboration as teaming up to achieve shared goals where the collaborators are able to arrive at something deeper together than they would by tackling the shared goals separately. I think it can be loose or formal and not always mean that the identities of the collaborators are blurred, although that can certainly happen. I see it as working together— and in our case, working alongside each other.
When we first learned of each other’s work, we could see that there were areas of overlap in our visual instincts and processes and that we had a lot of the same questions. In preparing for our show at Coleman Burke, it was really exciting to approach the show collaboratively—sharing resources, ideas, inspiration and energy—while building two separate bodies of work. It was a natural progression to work on the ’zine, mixing our collage material, and now this set of prints which came out of our conversations about printmaking, collage and your history of working with Wingate.
There is something about the nature of collaborating that seems to really relate to both of our work processes and our interest in collage and recursion. Where a process of mirroring results in all sorts of cool stuff.
CONSTRUCTIONS ZINE, Meghan Brady + Karen Gelardi, 2010
MB: Yeah, I agree. I thought making that ’zine with you before our show in NYC was pretty pivotal. We had spent the months leading up to the ‘zine and show visiting one another’s studios and hashing issues we were having with our work. When we finally just rolled up our sleeves and made that little book of drawings it felt like we were using a different part of our brains. We were just doing what we do best— thinking and responding visually to one another on this level. While our prints are not quite in this vein, I see elements of our shared language in both the etchings. It’s exciting to me that it’s not something really obvious and that might take us some time to process the continued exchanged.
And one other thing about collaboration: print shops are collaborative places. You know, you work in your studio by yourself and then, in a print shop, you interact with people and they work with you towards a shared goal. It can be hard at first but you adjust. Then it’s such fun and such a gift.
Karen Gelardi and Peter Pettengill at Wingate Studio, 2010
How would you describe the areas where our work overlaps? What do you see as our common questions?
KG: I think we both generate drawings with the intent of using them as components to construct subsequent works. And then re-drawing these works. And then making paintings from those drawings— adding and subtracting the components, reinventing them or seeing the forms in different ways as the parts move around. That repetition of form and the process. I think your work become compact and layered with a back and forth of resting and movement. Mine seem to expand outwardly with a flatter space that is somehow confusing even though it is simple.
MB: Yeah, I think you’re right about how we both use the drawing and drawing components for very different outcomes. I think you move more freely between drawing and sculpture, while I definitely tend to keep things 2D. But we overlap in our approach, which is often pretty intuitive and, well, messy.
Blue Tumbler and Tumbler Collage are ©2010 Meghan Brady
