About Gail Owen
One of my earliest memories is proclaiming myself to be an artist. I’ve seen myself that way ever since. As an adult, I’ve tinkered with multiple mediums, including casting glass and torching beads, illustrating and woodcarving.
My day job and career was in product support and logistics for a large manufacturing corporation until 2014. When that career paused, I pledged to stick with one medium and focus on creating a body of work. I decided to do a deep dive exploration of printmaking and I realized that I could apply everything I had learned about manufacturing a widget, to printmaking.
Creating large works on a small press became an interesting engineering problem; the solution was to create repeating patterns and then sew them together into a single large format piece. My goal is to create work that can be reproduced as wallpaper or fabrics, bringing beauty to objects that people use and enjoy everyday.
My work represents American ingenuity:
if I need a tool, I make it.
The Studio
I work in my home studio in Portland, Oregon, utilizing 19th Century techniques and tools.
Tools of the Trade
I print on paper with small tabletop etching presses,
Gamblin Relief Ink (the best ink in the world, made in Portland, Oregon), Speed Ball brayers and carving gouges, Battleship Linoleum, and a homemade awl used to poke holes for sewing prints together.
How I Work
“Being a small-batch printmaker, I get to do everything. My day can include planning designs, carving linoleum, inking and printing, poking holes, sewing prints together, or working directly with the public at events to sell original artworks.”
From Fine Art to Wallpaper
II’ve always been a multimedia maker and illustrator. In 2014, I moved to Portland, Oregon and took what I thought was a small break from corporate work to make things. I pulled out my Jack Richeson & Co. etching press and filled my days with learning reduction printmaking. I enjoy printmaking because of the complexity of the medium: it encompasses several elements, including engineering, design, illustration, carving, ink, and a simple press creating original small-batch printed products.
As a printmaker with a very small press, reduction printmaking was the perfect approach. The first design challenge was how to make large format prints from a small press bed with a 9”x11” tolerance, but I soon realized that carving out a repeating floral pattern on a single plate was the natural solution. In design school, we studied the rule of thirds, so I figured if the design worked well for the eyes on one block, the patterns should look good as a larger matrix.
The next challenge was how to make the small format prints look good as a larger matrix. The winning solution was to sew the multiple matrix of prints together onto a larger piece of paper with matching colored thread.
The final step was working with
Snow B. Designs to convert these patterns into a digital format and partnering with
Manolo Walls in Portland, Oregon, to transform my work into high quality wallpaper.