Sally Frank is a printmaker and photographer who incorporates a variety of printmaking techniques from traditional etchings and woodcuts to more contemporary methods in her work. She also uses photography to collect and assemble a visual patchwork of impressions, experiences, and emotions.
Printmaking, she says,
applies to the forms of art in which the artist creates an image on one surface (also known as a plate) and transfers it to another – usually a sheet of paper – as opposed to most other art forms, which are direct processes. The plate the artist works on can be a smooth sheet of Plexiglas, or a piece of copper or wood that the artist has drawn into, carved, or in other ways manipulated to create an image. When ink is applied to the marks on that surface, paper can be placed overtop and the plate/paper combo rolled through a press. A print can then be lifted from the surface.
Printmaking is a process art form. The process can be as simple as painting on a sheet of Plexiglas or as complex as creating multiple plates with various images designed to overlap and interact with one another as they are printed layer upon layer.
The physicality of carving and manipulating a wooden or metal surface gives me the sense of building something. Seeing my image reveal itself slowly through the effort, I adjust my design and my goals for the outcome as I go. I never fully know what the result will be when I begin, but that element of surprise and discovery is a part of the process.
Sally Frank learned to make etchings and aquatints in college (she attended Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, MA, and earned a master’s degree in printmaking from C.W. Post College in New York). Her prints and drawings have been shown in galleries and exhibitions in New York, Connecticut, and Florida. Frank’s prints were included in the 2015 edition of Balanced Rock, The North Salem Review. Her work can be seen currently at the Handwright Gallery in New Canaan, CT, Olley Court in Ridgefield, CT, and the White Gallery in Lakeville, CT. Her studio is located in North Salem, New York.
Here are examples of her rich observations of nature.
Blue Magnolia, 2016
Linocut, 12×12
Crisscross, 2016
Dapples, 2014
Paper Lithograph, 34×25
Evening Woods, 2016
Highway Sky, 2016
Landscape, 2015
Past Woodcut, 41×44
Moon, 2016
Post Road, 2016
Prague Tree, 2016
Shag Bark Hickory, 2016
Stamford Shadows, 2016
Linocut, 9×12
Van Gogh Tree, 2016
Window Cross, 2016
Zebra Magnolia, 2016
Woodcut Proof, 36×36
Zebra Magnolia is Sally Frank’s latest carving.
The above image is the board in mid carving.It will be printed on a big press on October 8th at an event called “Big Ink” to be held at the Center for Contemporary printmaking in Norwalk, CT. Thirteen artists were selected based on their proposals to create large woodcuts. For more on the event, visit
http://www.bigink.org/mission.
You can see more of Sally Frank’s work on her website, http://www.sallyfrank.com.
Gorgeous work, thanks.