Phyllis Sloane
In memorium: It is with sadness we note that artist Phillis Sloane passed away on May 26th 2009. A memorial exhibit Phyllis Sloane 1921–2009 selected work 1967–2007 was held at Argos Gallery and Eli Levin Studio in Canyon Road Santa Fe from 14th–30th August 2009.
Excerpt from Under New Mexico Skies Catalogue, April 2009
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, 1921, Phyllis Lester Sloane is the doyen of printmaking in the place she has made her own – Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was privileged to meet her there in her studio in late 2008 where she kindly allowed me to choose the work for this show. What an Aladdin's cave of treasures it turned out to be for a lover of beautiful works on paper! After an artmaking career spanning more than five decades her deep interest in making and enjoying her art is undiminished.
Best known, perhaps, for her figurative and still life works, James Mann, has written of her disarming guise of superficial order,
... endlessly destabilizing imperfection of such order: its inherent structural faults, which make the eventual destruction of that order inevitable. Within an art that at first glance seems to bestow and promote order: its inherent structural faults, which make the eventual destruction of that order inevitable. Within an art that at first glance seems to bestow and promote order, Sloane plants deeply mutant seeds of ultimately unavoidable disorder.
My overwhelming impression on meeting with Phyllis in late 2008 was her vibrant energy and fierce commitment to her life as an artist. She marks a deeply personal vision of times and places onto her plates, woodblocks and cork-cuts... Her press is her means to show emotion and technical virtuosity in equal measure. Looking at prints spanning 1959 to 2006 I could see how differences in pressure made a difference to ploughed soil, to marks of raindrops and countless other small, important details that make her prints legendary. I was smitten all over again by her landscapes; their subtly and their seeming simplicity underpinned by an irresistible, complex, love of place.
In his essay on the printmaking techniques of Phyllis Sloane, Robert Bell6 notes that she did not take up printmaking until she was in her 40s and then made up for lost time by creating over 300 original prints in the next forty years. And not just any old prints. Constantly creating and experimenting, her foundation training at Carnegie Mellon University in industrial design propelled Sloane to solve her technical problems with printing in highly original ways. She happily admitted that as she was not a trained print maker she didn't know the rules so she didn't see her works as failed when they went astray. Rather she saw them as "interesting". She said that she learned everything the hard way, but learn she did.
Sloane earned a reputation for fiercely independent print making, mastering intaglio printing using hard and soft ground etching, aquatint, mezzotint and drypoint. She also fell in love with the technique of silkscreen printing and quickly stamped her unique finesse on the medium. Bell describes how "her subtle, multilayered studies of figures and interiors are among the most beautiful and technically perfect of any artist in American silkscreen history".
Over the years, Sloane has innovated with her tools and techniques. Print makers have always used new materials as they emerged in the marketplace, but someone has to be the first one to be willing to experiment, put their work at risk, and try a new way to make a plate or use their ink. Sloane has more often than not been that printmaker in the past 40 years. There is a marvellous story, recounted by Robert Bell, 10 of how she began with linoleum in 195911 and looking to buy more at a floor covering store in Cleveland, she talked with a clerk who suggested instead using a Dutch-made cork sheet, usually used for bulletin boards. The rest, as they say, is history. Sloane's distinctive cork-cuts have entered into the print making lexicon along with high praise for her virtuosity with the technique.
Indeed, my own first encounter with the work of Phyllis Sloane was seeing some of her cork-cuts reproduced in the instruction slides of my high school fine art teacher. We were encouraged to consider cork as a material for prints and I recall my frustration with the tendency of the surface to flake off in my inexpert hands. Little could I have imagined then in Australia in 1970 that I would one day have the privilege of seeing the original prints in Sloane's studio, let alone present them in Australia.
Gracious as always, Phyllis wrote to me recently saying, " I love your announcement, (your) invitation to the New Mexico Show...I really regret that I cannot be there." But she will be here in spirit through the vibrancy and energy of her beautiful prints.
Cheryl Hannah
Braidwood, 2009
