Middle Seat (mulberry chine colle)

Description

Tags: abstract, mark, archive, printmaking, drypoint, etching, intaglio, cartography, community, memory, observation

Lauren C. Steinert received a Master of Fine Art in Printmaking from the University of Arizona. She received her Bachelor of Science and Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Printmaking and Glass-working along with Bachelor degrees in Environmental Science and German. She worked as the Printmaking Technician as well as the Relief Printmaking Instructor for the University of Arizona throughout her time as a graduate student. Steinert is currently the Printmaking Instructor for Pima Community College, a Glassblowing Instructor/Assistant at the Sonoran Glass School, and she works as an Artist Assistant.

I believe objects hold memory more distinctly than people do. Spending immersive time with different objects around my home, studio, and the communal spaces I occupy, I attempt to visually translate the stories people have left behind by laboriously tracing the overlapping, historic marks built up on the surface of work tables, stools, and tools. By recording these impressions, I am able to document the space’s history. Excavation of nicks, scratches, gouges, and stains reveals events and sequences that have been overlooked and forgotten, evoking the memory of the hundreds of people who have used these surfaces. Through tracing, I uncover the presence others have left behind and consider the accrued time and moments these objects have witnessed. This series of prints originate in the communal printmaking lab at the University of Arizona. The translated marks are presented in order to question notions of what is ephemeral or everlasting.