Grabbed
by
printmaking
Astoria artist Kirsten Horning practices her
art at Clatsop Community College
K
Kirsten Horning mixes ink to create
a lavender color, applies it to a sheet of
Plexiglas, and uses a roller to apply an
even coating to the plastic. She walks
across the Clatsop Community College
printmaking room to a light box, where
she uses a cotton swab to carefully re-
move ink where there will be highlights
in the final print. Her face wears a look of
concentration.
She walks over to a large floor-mount-
ed press and carefully places paper and
the finished Plexiglas plate on the bed of
the press, covers it with a pad, and adjusts
the pressure the roller will apply to the
print and plate.
“I had taken drawing and watercolor
classes,” she says, “and acrylic painting
classes. Then I took printmaking here at
CCC, with Royal Nebeker, and something
about the whole process of printmaking
really grabbed me.”
That was more than 15 years ago, and
Horning has been taking classes ever
since. She spends a lot of time at the
college not just because she uses the art
department’s press, but also because her
Submitted photo
“Coral Sky,” a woodblock print by
Kirsten Horning.
10 | March 5, 2015 | coastweekend.com
day job is as the distance education coor-
dinator for the school. She’s the resource
person for all online students.
Horning turns the flywheel in the cen-
ter of the press, which turns the roller,
which presses paper and plate together.
“That didn’t feel right,” she says. “Not
enough pressure.” She tightens the pres-
sure adjustment and repeats the process.
That feels right, so she carefully lifts the
print away from the plate.
The print Horning is making today is
a collagraph, a technique that is unusu-
al for her. A rigid plate, in this instance
the Plexiglas, is used to transfer an im-
age from plate to paper. Different kinds
of plates or materials on the plate produce
different textures, and many effects are
possible. Horning had painted a “goopy
sand of acrylic medium and silicon car-
bide” onto her plate to create a raised,
slightly textured surface.
Horning has also done etchings and
monotypes, but her favorite technique is
woodblock printing. Invented in China about
2,000 years ago, this is the earliest printmak-
ing technique. The woodblock is carved as
Photo by Dwight Caswell
Kirsten Horning inks a sheet of Plexiglas, getting it ready for the Clatsop Community College printmaking press.
a relief pattern, with “white” areas cut away
from the smooth wood surface; the image
prints in reverse. For color printing, multiple
blocks are used, each carved differently, one
for each color, and overprinting of blocks
may produce new colors.
Horning says that the subjects that ap-
peal to her are the natural world, plants
and animals, but, “I’d like to do more
landscapes and portraiture in the future.”
With her husband, Tom, she is building
a home studio and office that will enable
her to devote more time to her art, and she
hopes to be “full time, sometime.” It is
difficult, she says, “to get a body of recent
work together for a gallery show when
you’re working full time.”
Horning is a member of the North
Coast Printmakers Collective, a group of
about 15 printmakers, all of whom took
courses from Nebeker (“I am so grateful
that I had the opportunity to take classes
from Royal,” says Horning). She exhibits
with the group (the next show will be in
Submitted photo
“Raptor,” by Kirsten Horning.
December at the Seaside Public Library)
and at CCC student shows. She will also
be showing at Cannon Beach Gallery this
summer, with two other printmakers.
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Story by DWIGHT CASWELL