Susan Lowdermilk ~ Eugene, Oregon

Power Play
By Susan Lowdermilk
Eugene, Oregon: Susan Lowdermilk, 2002. Edition of 35.

4 x 4” closed, six panel Jacob's ladder. Printed from woodcuts in black and grey. Protective slip on open ended wrapper. Images of rock, paper, and scissors appear in each panel with the background carved to imitate wood grain. Signed and numbered in white ink on the black painted inside of the slip-on wrapper.

Susan Lowdermilk: "Through my creative practice as a printmaker and a book artist, I represent inanimate objects and abstract marks as visual metaphors or allegories. I explore tenuous qualities of human interaction, struggles and experience. I explore the use of simple, forms such as 'X' and 'O,' symbolic for 'hugs and kisses' or 'tic-tac-toe.' I'm informed by familiar leisure games like 'Rock, Paper, Scissors,' to reference interpersonal communication."

Vicky Stewart: "This has been one of our favorites to show elementary school age children when showing artists' books. They love to watch the pages unfold and the hear the clapping sound as the pages hit each other. And, of course, they are all familiar with playing rock, paper, scissors."
$200

Dreams
Text by Emily Bronte
By Susan Lowdermilk
Eugene, Oregon: Susan Lowdermilk, 2005. Edition of 15.

12.75 (high) x 52" (wide) unscrolled; 4.25 x 15.75" (in box). Multiple block woodcut on Masa Asian paper. Constructed in a scroll with PVC pipe ends. Housed in Stonehenge black paper pillow box . Printed on a Takach etching press.

A quote from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte:
I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
$500

memento mori
Text by William Shakespeare
By Susan Lowdermilk
Eugene, Oregon: Susan Lowdermilk, 2005. Edition of 12.

12.75 x 4.6"; eight panels. Printed on Stonehenge paper. An Indonesian palm leaf style construction with sewn thread binding. Black corrugated paper covers.

Quote from Shakespeare's "As You Like It" -

        It is ten o'clock:
                 Thus may we see
        how the world wags:
        'Tis but an hour ago,
                 since it was Nine;
                 and after an hour more,
        'twill be Eleven:
                 And so,
        from hour to hour,
                 we ripe and ripe,
        And then,
                 from hour to hour,
        we rot and rot,
                 And thereby
        hangs a Tale.

$400

All My Relations
By Susan Lowdermilk
Eugene, Oregon: Susan Lowdermilk, 1993. Edition of 25.

38 cm; 13 leaves. Accordion bound between paper-covered boards. Housed in a box covered with a rich, brown brocade.

The family photo album has been taken to a new level. Woodcuts from photos and tintypes of the artist's ancestors and other images-a pocket watch, a locket-evoke the passage of time. We sit looking back with the artist recalling our own family figures and family legends- "Most faces I don't recognize, but I can see the present in the past." The background of each spread, printed with a wallpaper-like pattern, suggests that we are walking through the doorways of memory into many rooms.
$600

Click image for more