I’m now over nine months into my McKnight Fellowship in Printmaking, administered by Highpoint Center For Printmaking. I’ve been busy. This year long fellowship comes with various kinds of support and resources, and has allowed me to practice art making as close to full time as I’d like–a real gift. It culminates with an exhibition in March, with my fellow cohort Fidencio Fifield-Perez.
During my fellowship I’ve pursued a completely new exploration of concept, technique, and methodology, compared to what I have previously concentrated on for over a decade. I’ve been working with loss, grief, the ephemeral, and a deep longing for the past, which are themes sometimes experienced in Motherhood. It began with an artist book, 7 Seconds, that I printed and made imagery for while a Grand Marais Art Colony Juried Artist in Residence in 2020. Starting the book was a process of healing and processing a loss I had suffered a year before. Over the next two to three years, I slowly bound the book, ultimately completing it in 2023.
Since receiving the McKnight Artist & Culture Bearer Fellowship in Printmaking, I have been working on some paper sculptures and a collagraphic series incorporating text from 7 Seconds. Using garments once worn by my young children, I have transformed them into collagraphs and explored several ways of creating prints from them. Some exist as embossments, others inked and printed. Chine-collé and embroidery are used for other elements in the print: mimicking fabric, text on tags, or small garment details. The transformation of the garment to a printing matrix is a paradox, destroying the garment in the process but creating something new, a remnant of what was there. This currently untitled series presents a reflection of loss and grief: of hopes of having a child, of a child since grown, and the loss of a child.
grace sippy | VISUAL ARTIST 