Susan Shatter, 1989-1990

Susan Shatter
Maurice Sanchez, printer
1989-1990

Workshop: March 6-10, 1989

Susan Shatter studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture before earning a BFA from Pratt Institute and a MFA from Boston University. Her work has been widely exhibited and she has taught throughout the United States. Shatter is best known for her watercolors of elemental landscapes: deserts, canyons, volcanoes, and bodies of water. Sculpted and shaped by time, these landscapes speak both to the timelessness and the impermanence of the world around us. During her workshop, which was organized in collaboration with the Mt. Holyoke College Art Museum’s own print workshop series, the artist created four monochromatic landscapes. Although they depict very different places, they are united by their focus on the substance and structure of the sites they depict.

During this workshop, Master Printer Maurice Sanchez introduced Shatter to a new lithographic wash technique utilizing copier toner and alcohol that he had learned from the Russian émigré printer Nik Semenoff. This type of wash can be removed easily and also applied thinly in multiple coats, producing a reticulated pattern similar to layers of watercolor.

Susan Shatter. American, 1943 –