A Taste of "Traces"

I have deep admiration for artists, who truly create in a way that I do not. Among the local artists I follow is Margot B. Myers, who sells her hand-printed and hand-dyed batik napkins, kitchen towels, table runners, tablecloths, and silk scarves at the Bellingham Farmers Market, and also on Etsy.

Today I saw a new work by Margo on a much larger scale -- "Traces," an installation of large woodcuts and footprints on cotton fabric, seen in its entirety here. Inspired by journeys and migration, the work includes representations of various tracks or traces of travel, such as footprints, wakes, trails, and roads. The project was funded by an Inside Out Award from Seattle Print Arts.

Margo explained that she used narrow pieces of plywood to carve a modular woodcut relief print inspired by aboriginal art paintings and sand drawings; paths created by people, game, and birds; images from space of ocean wakes from boat traffic; and cloud trails created by airplanes.

The golden tones in the fabric are inked shoe treads collected here in Bellingham by passersby who volunteered their feet to print a build-up of yellow, sepia, and ochre inks that Margo mixed on the spot. The woodcuts are layered over these inked shoe treads onto the fabric.

As is noticeable in the "seen in its entirety here" link above, the installation has a map-like feel. Margot notes that in her description of the work, "where the spaces between the fabric and the wood panels evoke longitudinal lines on a flattened world map..."

I'm in awe of Margo and other artists who are able to conceive a complex subject like this and bring their ideas to such beautiful and intriguing fruition!

(To see more photos of this work and how Margo made it, check out her photos here.)