Diane Fine and I have known each other for eighteen years. We first met when I was a taking her Introduction to Printmaking class at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh. That was the first of about eight or nine printmaking courses I completed. I went on to earn my MFA at the University of Wisconsin in 2006, eighteen years after Diane earned her MFA at the same institution.

We have had residencies together, first, in 2006, at Venice Printmaking International Studio in Italy and later, in 2014, at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. But, it wasn’t until the summers of 2014 and 2015 that we actually began our first collaborative venture. We held our printing sessions in the studio at SUNY Plattsburgh, which was a return to my roots (my hometown) and, for both of us, a return to the origins of a unique and nurturing relationship that has moved from teacher/student to colleagues to collaborators.

Riffing is a series of thirty 11 x 11 inch relief prints created from one or both of two linoleum blocks that we each had a hand in carving. There are thirty prints in the series. There could be sixty…ninety---the simple building blocks are there. Ink color, stencils, ghosts, printing order = an infinite number of possibilities.