Sally Brophy ~ Provincetown White Line Prints

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery is proud to present the white line prints and oil monoprints by Sally Brophy, a Provincetown artist. You may view her current exhibition on the gallery website at http://www.lymaneyerart.com/. Sally Brophy grew up in Central Maine and was always involved in some type of artistic endeavor working mostly with acrylics and pen and ink throughout high school and college. "After graduating in 1982 from Curry College in Milton, MA with a B.A. in English, I moved to Laguna Beach, CA and began my career as a writer and graphic artist. I returned to Maine from 1986-1996 where I continued to do graphic design. During that time I studied ceramics at the Portland Pottery School for eight years. I moved to Boston in 1996 to work as Art Director for a group of parenting publications. While there I also took classes in woodworking and bookmaking. It wasn’t until moving to Provincetown six years ago that I finally discovered the art form that most appeals to me. After 20 years as a graphic artist, I was finding that computers were pushing my design work to be faster and faster, and more about technology than technique. As a result, I was especially drawn to printmaking – the slow, deliberate process of cutting wood to create a line, then gradually applying paint to board and paper to produce a print – brought me back to the roots of the creative process. I also like the connection I feel to Provincetown’s past artists through working on a technique that began here."

HISTORY OF THE WHITE LINE PRINT
This single block method of color printmaking originated in Provincetown in 1915, a year after a group of American printmakers abroad, responding to an impending war, packed their bags and headed to this artist’s colony at the tip of Cape Cod. The group, whose members had been studying in Paris, were drawn together by friendship and mutual interest in the woodcut medium. Ethel Mars, Maud Squire, Ada Gilmore and Mildred McMillen were joined by Juliette Nichols and B.J.O. Nordfeldt, forming a group called the “Provincetown Printmakers.” Blanche Lazzell, who also had studied for a time in Paris, joined them later that year. The Provincetown Print combines all the colors on one block of wood, differing in this way from the Japanese and German methods of color printmaking which called for one block of wood per color. This new technique simplified the process by having the entire design cut on one block. The V-shaped cuts separate each color and, in printing, leave a white line that emphasizes the design. The method appears deceptively simple, requiring only a block of wood, a cutting knife, and a large spoon. The artist applies watercolor to small sections of the block and hand prints each section by rubbing the paper against the wood with the back of a spoon. While a block can be re-used to create another print, each print will always be unique due to the hands-on technique and the nature of watercolor. Probably the most well-known artist of this medium, Blanche Lazzell, was inspired by the Cubist principles she studied in France and the colors of the Fauvists artists she knew in Provincetown. In 1930 she wrote, “Originality, simplicity, freedom of expression, and above all sincerity, with a clean-cut block, are characteristics of a good woodblock print.” The process of white-line printmaking has been passed down by individuals through generations. I began studying the method four years ago with Kathi Smith, who learned it from her grandmother, Ferol Sibley Warthen. was a well established artist who spent 37 summers in Provincetown. She learned the technique from Blanche Lazzell, who learned it from Oliver Chaffee, who in turn learned it from his wife Ada Gilmore, one of the six original printmakers to begin this Provincetown tradition.