While our gallery’s doors are closed temporarily due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, Catherine Couturier Gallery is pleased to announce a blog series entitled Safe in the Studio featuring a new gallery artist each week. Our artists will share behind-the-scenes information about specific pieces and offer insight into their artist practice. With each blog post, works will be highlighted and discounted 20% for one week following the post’s publishing date.
Last week, Catherine Couturier shared her response to the pandemic and chose three 20th century works to feature and discount. This week, the gallery is pleased to present the following post by gallery artist Rachel Phillips:
Hello! While we shelter in place I'm thrilled to bring it all back home and partner with Catherine Couturier Gallery to make a selection of works from Field Notes available through "Safe in the Studio."
Field Notes explores the idea of home as sanctuary within the natural world—a way of being that seems especially important right now. William Shakespeare said it best: “Make me a willow cabin at your gate, and call upon my soul within the house.”
Field Notes Origins
This work all began with a box of old envelopes I found in a shoebox in my grandparents’ attic. Around this time, I was making black and white botanical studies and learning a new transfer printing technique that allowed me to print on unconventional substrates. In one of those “Eureka!” moments I had the idea of constructing paper houses out of the family ephemera, photographing the houses in nature, then transfer-printing the images on old envelopes using my new technique—thus creating unique pieces marrying the physical form and content of the photograph.
Safer at Home: Printmaking
The shelter in place order arrived where we live in the San Francisco Bay Area on March 16th (my birthday!) but the fact is: I’ve always been a homebody. Further, since the printmaking process is a significant element of my work, my small home studio has always been where it’s at. One small catch is the isopropyl alcohol sanitizer I use in my transfer process has been totally sold out in stores and online. The bottle I have in the studio has about a half inch left in it and expired in 2018 so it’s definitely lost some oomph—I am rationing it down to the last few drops to keep making prints as long as I can (I am considering trying vodka or making my own still if the situation continues...stay tuned).
*UPDATE: After writing this I found a bottle of generic hand sanitizer at the grocery store for a cool $9.99. I’m poorer but back in business!
Here’s a quick little time lapse of the transfer printing I’ve been doing...
On Location... (actually no, still at home)
I once delighted in loading my paper houses and a camera into the car and roaming out to situate the houses in the landscape and photograph them. But these days, my garden will have to do.
This spring, I’ve been inspired to dust off my house forms and make some new pictures for Field Notes. As I began intuitively “clothing” the houses in different bits from postcards, envelopes, letters and stamps, I found my imagination roaming far afield: images of lunar craters or a ship on a distant horizon suddenly seemed just the thing to adorn a modest home form in.
I suppose it’s my subconscious reminding me that even as I am limited to wandering the plants and shadows right around my home, something for which I am unspeakably grateful, my imagination—and your imagination, too—can still range far and wide.
Safe at home, art can take us where we want to go.
Warmly, from afar, Rachel
To learn more about Rachel Phillips and see more of her work, please visit her Artist Page. To view Rachel Phillips's Field Notes series, please click here.
The following five pieces are available to purchase with a 20% discount for the next week. Please note that each piece is unique. The discount will no longer be applicable on orders made after Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 11:59PM.
Quincy, Mass, 2010
Transfer print to antique envelope
4 1/2 x 3 3/4" in 11 x 14" archival window mat
SOLD
In certain cases, a variant of the shown image might be available.
Please contact us for more information.
Green Gables, 2020
Transfer print to antique envelope
4 3/4 x 6" in 11 x 14" archival window mat
SOLD
In certain cases, a variant of the shown image might be available.
Please contact us for more information.
Madame/Monsieur, 2011
Transfer print to antique envelope
2 1/4 x 4 3/4" in 11 x 14" archival window mat
SOLD
In certain cases, a variant of the shown image might be available.
Please contact us for more information.
Farther Afield House, 2020
Transfer print to antique envelope
4 1/2 x 3 3/4" in 11x14" archival window mat
$600 ($750)
Yonder House, 2020
Transfer print to antique envelope
5 x 6 1/4" in 11 x 14" archival window mat
SOLD
In certain cases, a variant of the shown image might be available.
Please contact us for more information.
Did your favorite sell before you had a chance to buy it? View more works from the series here, or contact us with any questions!
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While our gallery’s doors are closed temporarily due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, Catherine Couturier Gallery is pleased to announce a blog series entitled Safe in the Studio featuring a new gallery artist each week. Our artists will share behind-the-scenes information about specific pieces and offer insight into their artist practice. With each blog post, works will be highlighted and discounted 20% for one week following the post’s publishing date.
Last week, Catherine Couturier shared her response to the pandemic and chose three 20th century works to feature and discount. This week, the gallery is pleased to present the following post by gallery artist Rachel Phillips:
Hello! While we shelter in place I'm thrilled to bring it all back home and partner with Catherine Couturier Gallery to make a selection of works from Field Notes available through "Safe in the Studio."
Field Notes explores the idea of home as sanctuary within the natural world—a way of being that seems especially important right now. William Shakespeare said it best: “Make me a willow cabin at your gate, and call upon my soul within the house.”
Field Notes Origins
This work all began with a box of old envelopes I found in a shoebox in my grandparents’ attic. Around this time, I was making black and white botanical studies and learning a new transfer printing technique that allowed me to print on unconventional substrates. In one of those “Eureka!” moments I had the idea of constructing paper houses out of the family ephemera, photographing the houses in nature, then transfer-printing the images on old envelopes using my new technique—thus creating unique pieces marrying the physical form and content of the photograph.
| |
|
Safer at Home: Printmaking
The shelter in place order arrived where we live in the San Francisco Bay Area on March 16th (my birthday!) but the fact is: I’ve always been a homebody. Further, since the printmaking process is a significant element of my work, my small home studio has always been where it’s at. One small catch is the isopropyl alcohol sanitizer I use in my transfer process has been totally sold out in stores and online. The bottle I have in the studio has about a half inch left in it and expired in 2018 so it’s definitely lost some oomph—I am rationing it down to the last few drops to keep making prints as long as I can (I am considering trying vodka or making my own still if the situation continues...stay tuned).
*UPDATE: After writing this I found a bottle of generic hand sanitizer at the grocery store for a cool $9.99. I’m poorer but back in business!
Here’s a quick little time lapse of the transfer printing I’ve been doing...
On Location... (actually no, still at home)
I once delighted in loading my paper houses and a camera into the car and roaming out to situate the houses in the landscape and photograph them. But these days, my garden will have to do.
| |
|
This spring, I’ve been inspired to dust off my house forms and make some new pictures for Field Notes. As I began intuitively “clothing” the houses in different bits from postcards, envelopes, letters and stamps, I found my imagination roaming far afield: images of lunar craters or a ship on a distant horizon suddenly seemed just the thing to adorn a modest home form in.
| |
|
I suppose it’s my subconscious reminding me that even as I am limited to wandering the plants and shadows right around my home, something for which I am unspeakably grateful, my imagination—and your imagination, too—can still range far and wide.
Safe at home, art can take us where we want to go.
Warmly, from afar, Rachel
To learn more about Rachel Phillips and see more of her work, please visit her Artist Page. To view Rachel Phillips's Field Notes series, please click here.
The following five pieces are available to purchase with a 20% discount for the next week. Please note that each piece is unique. The discount will no longer be applicable on orders made after Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 11:59PM.
SOLD
In certain cases, a variant of the shown image might be available.
Please contact us for more information.
Please contact us for more information.
Madame/Monsieur, 2011
Transfer print to antique envelope
2 1/4 x 4 3/4" in 11 x 14" archival window mat
SOLD
In certain cases, a variant of the shown image might be available.
Please contact us for more information.
In certain cases, a variant of the shown image might be available.
Please contact us for more information.
Did your favorite sell before you had a chance to buy it? View more works from the series here, or contact us with any questions!
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