Lesley Dill, 1996-1997

Lesley Dill
Peter Pettengill, printer
1996-1997

Workshop: March 31- April 3, 1997

Lesley Dill received a BA from Trinity College, a M.Ed. from Smith College (1974), and a MFA from the Maryland Institute of Art. Her work is represented in numerous public collections, including the Whitney Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She has received many grants and awards.

Dill works regularly in media as varied as sculpture, photography, printmaking, and performance, often melding several of these into multivalent interactive works of art. She uses the human form and its surrogates, such as articles of clothing, as vehicles to explore the interaction between the physical body and the soul. Often, her work uses poetry to reinforce the power of language in human existence.

Dill’s 1997 workshop was one of the most interactive. Students stamped, sewed, and stenciled prints to finish this complex edition. Dill, well known for her love of materials and collaborations, arrived for the workshop with a completed photogravure plate from one of her photographs, a box of rubber stamps, and many ideas. After attempting to print on a variety of surfaces, including fabric, she and Master Printer Peter Pettengill decided on a thin sheet of skin-like Gampi paper as the support, which would be stamped, sewn, and stenciled with a gold edge before being mounted on a thicker piece of Arches. The phrase “Beauty Crowds Me Till I Die,” is an excerpt from a poem by Emily Dickinson, “Part Five: The Single Hound XLIII.” This phrase is hand stamped on the prints.

Lesley Dill. American, 1950 –