Artist shares techniques, inspirations
Opening with a picture of a fabric painting she made in the third grade for her mother using wax paper and stencils, Karen Kunc, Cather professor of arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln spoke to USU students about her techniques. Kunc spoke about her color woodcut paintings and prints and, regarding their creation, said, “Considering that this wood was once alive and I am carving into it and it’s kind of fighting back against me, I feel spontaneous and gutsy. It seems I am a cutter, not a carver. That implies so much more refinement to the treatment of the wood.”
When cutting, Kunc said she uses her own open-minded technique called the reduction wood block method. She said it’s the process of reducing the surface area available for printing
“The block becomes destroyed as you go,” she said. “What’s left is what gets printed on.
“It destroys the block. I think that’s the scary part. It’s the suicide method. There is no going back, you are always moving forward.” Part of the woodcut-printing process requires Kunc to use an etching press. She presses the paper to the wood, and the ink then transfers to the paper. She then explained how she has to peel that sheet of paper off. “I still get a little charge every time I peel that paper off,” she said. “As artists, we have to give ourselves a reward because of what we work with. It’s a sense of magic and revelation that the process is working.”
Kunc showed images of her paintings and woodcuts. She said she generates ideas with her thumbnail sketches and looks for the graphic impact in the sketches and how strong they could be. She said she uses color “to capture the graphic punch.”
Kunc said she likes to use geometry in her art, and all of her geometry is man-made.
“I don’t use rulers,” she said. “It’s not perfect. It’s not exact straight edges.”
Along with her sketches, she said textile arts and patterns are great sources of inspiration to her. Patterns work in a certain way to connect space and create continuity, she said. She said her own work has these patterns, whether through her choice of color or the way she makes cuts in a piece of wood. She said she likes to let the shapes and designs play off of each other.
She likes to play with the empty space, she said, whether it’s when she hangs a piece of art without a frame on a white wall to allow the painting to continue with the wall or when she is painting on paper. She said she doesn’t like to cover up all of the paper. Paper has content and quality she said and its blankness contributes to how her paintings look. Kunc said she also collaborates imagery with print. Carefully selecting poetry, she said she couples it with her art to “make something better than the solo.”
When naming her creations, she said trying to find the right word is a lot of “word work.”
“I am not a poet,” she said. “I do not write poetry, but I do write quite a bit because I am always working on my titles.” Kunc said she is influenced by her husband, who is a glass blower in a rural town in Nebraska, where they live together. She said she is impacted by his all of his beautiful pieces.
Even though she and her husband are individual artists continually creating art, Kunc said their relationship functions really well and has for 30 years probably because they “never critique each other’s work. We only support each others work.” To see Kunc’s work, go to www.karenkunc.com.-n.drue.t@aggiemail.usu.edu