Lesley Dill, 2017-2018

Smith College Print Workshop with Lesley Dill and Maurice Sanchez: Maurice and Lesley discuss the first trial proofs of her eight-color lithograph, titled “Jonathan Edwards.”
Lesley Dill and students working on satellite print project
Satellite Print Project: Lesley (in orange) instructs visiting art students from Amherst College in hand stamping and stitching lithographs from two special satellite editions, one featuring Anne Hutchinson and the other Jonathan Edwards. Hutchinson (1591-1643) was a noted Massachusetts Bay Puritan Spiritual Advisor while Edwards (1703-1758) is widely regarded as one of America’s most important and original philosophical theologians. Both had close connections with Northampton, Massachusetts.
Workshop participants stenciling and stitching on prints
Satellite Print Project: Visiting participants and students stencil words and apply stitching to a special series of small prints under Lesley’s guidance in the Harnish Graphics studio. The 120 small lithographs were printed by Smith College Professor Emeritus Dwight Pogue and Visual Arts Technical Specialist Liz Bannish prior to the Workshop. Associate Professor of Art Lindsey Clark Ryan organized Smith students and participants to work with Lesley on the progressive stages of each print. Lesley signed the prints and gave one to each of the volunteer students and participants.

Lesley Dill

Maurice Sanchez, printer

2017-2018

Workshop: October 17-19, 2018

The Smith College Print Workshop is pleased to announce the publication of a new lithograph by Lesley Dill.  Jonathan Edwards (2019) published in association with Derriere L’ Etoile Studios, New York, is an 8-color lithograph on Sekishu paper with hand-sewn elements.  This new print draws upon Dill’s recent body of work focusing on what she calls “New England settler obsessions with divinity and deviltry, of fears of the ‘wilderness’ both inside and outside.”

These new works turn toward history and some of the distinctive American voices to emerge during the first centuries of Anglo occupation.  Continuing Dill’s interest in the intersection of language and spirituality, these works feature the words of the colonial spiritual leader Anne Hutchinson and the influential Northampton-based theologian and preacher Jonathan Edwards, among others.  Both these leaders used words to inspire their followers to connect with the divine.

Dill’s new prints features an image of Edwards with flames emerging from his head surrounded by his words: “From childhood I had a variety of concerns about my soul/An inward sweet delight/I had great and violent inward struggles/O Sinner, held over the pit of Hell as one holds a spider.  Light sizzles around me.”

Lesley Dill, "Jonathan Edwards", 2019
Lithograph printed in eight colors with hand sewing
on Sekishu white and natural paper
Sheet/image: 19 ¼” x 25 ½”