Awakening (from Dormancy) by Kristin Alley Carver

Artist: Kristin Alley Carver
Title: Awakening (from Dormancy)
Material: Linocut on Kozoshi Paper

About the artwork: This past year has been a sort of awakening for me and my art making. For many many years, my tools have sat quietly in dark boxes collecting dust, dull and cold. Sporadic opportunities awakened a desire to open my boxes and sharpen my tools. I began to have in hand or always with me, a sketchbook waiting for a restful moment. The pictures in my mind, finally working themselves out on paper, encouraging me to commit them to permanence by carving into blank linoleum. Terror slowly reduced to courage, breaking the smooth surface.

Dormancy is widely recognized behavioral state of plants that involves inactivity . A period of rest crucial to survival. Foliage growth may be limited and even drop off, but the roots will continue to grow and thrive. Plants breakdown and reuse proteins to ready them for the burst of growth they experience in the Spring . If a plant does not go dormant or have a time of rest, it may not have the resources to grow, bloom and reproduce in the Spring .

(Dormancy Sources: www.wikipedia.com; www.gardeningknowhow.com; www.smartgardenguide.com)

About the artist: Kristin Carver is a resident of Northern Utah and graduate of Utah State University with an emphasis in Printmaking. Since graduation, she has spent many years teaching Special Education, raising her four children and making art in the moments between. Her work is an attempt at recording thoughts, ideas, impressions and visual beauty that bring her to a state of awe. Experimenting with color, texture, altering layering of plates and key image is what keeps her late in the studio. She has designed covers for two books of poetry; The Marriage of the Moon and the Field, and The Ache and the Wing, both by Sunni Wilkinson as well as showing in the Emmisoure Gallery.