Having worked for a while in lino and wood, I am beginning to make some progression, I think I could learn a lot more and need to read more to investigate how other artists create such detail whereas mine are more simple and much less advanced, so recently I have begun reading lots of books on techniques, and also came across a book that will perhaps change the way I work in future. My aim is to become an art therapist, therefore I am constantly reading up on art therapy and art psychotherapy and general psychology . Recently I found this book by Lucy Mueller White, who uses printmaking as a form of therapy. Seeing this book has made me think very strongly about how I want both my own practice to evolve but equally what will be of most value to me on the MFA, and I think my time will be best spent in the print department as I hope that by learning and hopefully perfecting a certain amount of skill myself in printing I might be able to come up with printing techniques that I could use in therapy, in future.
This book explains how print may have often been rejected in terms of therapy due to connotations of its expensive nature and the idea that a print studio would be needed, however she explains that print can be taken to outreach projects or to hospitals, schools and clinics and can be made possible for anyone, she also talks about the value of product, process and person, the way print can often become a group activity and the concept of editions and the multiple, it also outlines how making books of prints can be a way of binding together feelings, of containing which is an extremely important aspect of art therapy.
I have decided after reading this book not only to use print in my own work, but to keep a log of how I produce images and ways that prints might be hand done without presses, to experiment with mono prints, and collagraphs.
