I've been carving printing blocks since I was a kid, when I started with wood. I went on to linoleum blocks because they're way easier. I love the way the blocks look as much as I do the prints! My older prints were mostly sacred art and nature art. That's still true to some extent, but I've expanded into some lighter subject matter.

About 15 years ago I started selling my prints mostly as art cards. I think block printing is a great way to create affordable original art. Since I hand color my prints, every one is unique, some quite drastically so. Each print is hand made, unlike most art prints you'll find on Etsy. To see my block printing process in its many fun steps, visit my blog at ravenlightarts.weebly.com.

After a printmaking hiatus while I got a few academic degrees I'm back at it! Another thing I love about block printing is that it's spatially very economical; I have never had a lot of room to work at my arts. As a matter of fact, I use my kitchen table for both printmaking and sewing- and serving meals to guests, of course!

Recently I added a fun dimension to my printmaking when I started my Patch Prints. I use tea stained, repurposed cotton sheeting to make small prints that I can attach to cards or cloth. They are painted,while my regular card prints are colored with pencils. The prints can be removed from the cards and attached to hats, jackets, pants, wherever!Up here in Iron County, Michigan are some of the greatest thrift stores ever! I started sewing my patches onto high quality, natural fiber neckties and scarves that I discover on my thrift store treasure hunts, and offering them in my shop.

Thrift stores are where a lot of my bags start, for sure.My bags are a celebration of irregularity. Sometimes this is due to my using repurposed fabric that was once an item of clothing. But more than that, making these bags is an expression of triumph over my society’s excessive use of measurement, which becomes a problem when we're busy measuring ourselves. I measure as little as possible, which seems horribly inefficient. If I’m not sure how big to cut a piece, I just make it at least as big as it needs to be, then trim later on.

Actually, since each bag is entirely new and different, no patterns or plans, my way is actually more efficient, since plans and patterns would have to be made anew each time I made a bag. Plans and patterns are a trap in a way, since once you spend the time making the plan, it seems a shame not to use it again! Since it could be. My block prints are my art of repetition, where I create a way to reproduce, and then slightly enhance the print’s preordained pattern.

I also make my bags and other fabric creations with honor for mistakes. Typically in sewing that means the need to rip out a seam and do it over again, to resew a button, or to cut a piece out again. I have learned that this is part of the process of a life, and so in the making of a bag I have also learned not to resist these mistakes. I used to react with frustration at these events, but then I adopted a Taoist stance; the bag was being created in the way that we all are created. There are fits and starts, adjustments to make, backsliding and confrontations and bad timing and unconscious moments and all. Why would I want to create a bag that doesn’t honor that truth?

I realize that for many folks, such matters as my intentions while I cut and sew seem not to matter in a purchase. But I want to communicate them, also as a counter to my society’s excessive focus on product while we ignore the process, ignore how the thing came into being, how it got to the purchaser’s hands.

A lot of my bags are fancier inside than outside. I think a lot of people are that way, too, or maybe everyone is.