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Sketchbook: Katherine Case

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- My name's Katherine Case, and I make limited edition linoleum cut prints and I print them on an antique letter press. You carve the linoleum with carving tools that are the same tools as you use for a wood cut print. You carve a separate block for each color of each print. And so, for my multi-color prints, I'll carve five or six different blocks. And then I print them separately in the letter press, I'll say, first put in the block for the blue sky, and print that on 100 sheets of paper. Take it out, clean the press, put the block in for the green, and then print that on top of the blue. And then I'll layer each color on top of each other in the letter press. You have to plan well in advance where every color is gonna be in the print, and what are all the detail's gonna be on the different colors. So, it's not intuitive or expressionistic, but it's very project-based. So, it takes a really long time, but then when you're done, you have an entire edition of the prints. You have to have your vision of how you really want it to be, and then work towards that, but then also, the end product is never exactly like that beginning vision either, so you have to have flexibility along the way of the process. Since I moved to Reno, and I started Meridian Press, I've been going really deep into my subject matter. I do all the birds, animals and landscapes in the Sierra Nevada. And it's been amazing to learn all the different bird species. I try to only do birds that I see in person somewhere in the Sierra Nevada. I also have a series that I do of lakes and landscapes up in the Sierra Nevada. In addition to my print making, I'm also a poet. My poetry is more about personal experience than my art is. My art is very much about nature and the environment, and my poetry is more about my experience as a human on Earth. For example, I wrote a series of poems about moving into this house and living in the Great Basin, and having kids and stuff like that. I remember always writing poetry, and drawing, and making art. I've always tried to, as much as I can, hold on to both things.