Arts Review

Jill Thrasher: A Studio Portrait

Slugfest Printmaking Workshop and Gallery, through Dec. 3

The visual experience of Jill Thrasher's work in "A Studio Portrait" offers an opportunity to explore all phases of printmaking. She has documented in prints the basics of the process and the special relationship forged between artists and place. In most instances, Thrasher is drawing directly onto the litho plate or cutting the design into the linoleum or wood block. She has chosen the Slugfest environs, from studio cats and gardens to the friendship of Slugfest founders Margaret Simpson and Tom Druecker, as her inspiration.

Litho Piece, 40 Prints keenly documents the dichotomy between the constant movement of the printmaker – cutting, graving, boring, gouging, scraping, and scratching – and the model's effort to remain still during prolonged poses. Litho and several other works illustrate the intense physical demands of printmaking. By referencing anatomy diagrams, Thrasher pulls the physicality of the process and the understanding of anatomy into a tight circle, with attention to drawing a constant demand.

The keen, fresh pleasure of cutting into a block of wood with a knife or graver to bring forth a composition of different levels, of heights and depths, and the ensuing intoxication of viewing the first print are evident in the nine prints that compose Vine. In the contrast between the darkened surface of the Clematis vine on the wood block, the lighter shade of the wood grain that creates the garden grid armature, and the placement of the model, Thrasher has captured the breathless suspense of awaiting the outcome of a first proof.

Thrasher's work can be seen during the East Austin Studio Tour, Nov. 19-20.