2025

Group Exhibition
Roaring Fork Printmaking

July 9 - August 16, 2025 at The Aspen Chapel Gallery in Aspen, CO

I was invited to participate in a group printmaking show by local woodblock printer (who mostly employs the reduction print method), Curt Carpenter. Other participating artists included Margaret DeKoven, Jim Harris, Sandra Johnson, Tammie Lane, Erin Morrison, Robin Sturgeon, Mindy Vernon, David Warner, Marcia Weese, and Lindsey Yeager.

I was honored to be included, but hadn’t played with printmaking for a while, so had to think about what I wanted to focus on, especially with 2025 being such a tumultuous year in the US with the new administration turning many lives upside down.

A few things came to mind as I sketched ideas including comments from a recent conference discussion on the origins and cultural importance of disco (yes, the dance and the history). The folks leading that discussion were from Denver’s “Rainbow Dome” (Rainbow Dome is a queer-centric hub, a community venue for roller skating, entertainment, and art) and they had us learn some disco moves there in the conference center for the first 15-20 minutes. It was a little out of our comfort zones to get silly among strangers, but the point was that dancing with people you don’t know for at least that amount of time begins to build trust between the participants.

Disco also had roots in a form of rebellion, finding places to meet with the queer community “underground” in ways that let you express yourself freely, despite what the law said about same-sex relationships and identities.

There is a long history of dance used by marginalized groups as a form of protest (great article here), so I decided to explore some of that in some imagery (and nods to the “danse macabre”, which is all about death as a universal, human experience).

So this series of prints is called “Dance Revolution”, celebrating dance movements as a physical expression of joy, and as an act of resistance. Dance has historically been used to fight oppression and lift the human spirit.

Images were referenced from photos of myself and friends dancing through all the change and enflamed times we live in. Each print is one of a kind and measures about 7x5 inches.