Backstory

I was born in 1973 and grew up in Mill Valley, California. I’m a third generation artist with both parents* as well as grandparents**, being artists in many art forms. I thrashed about after high school, getting a certificate in cooking from the California Culinary Academy and working as a baker for a time, but I came to the conclusion that if I liked it or not, Art with a capital A was too important to be a hobby. So in the fall of 1995 I enrolled in the printmaking department of the San Francisco Art Institute. After three semesters there I transferred to the California College of Arts and Crafts, and graduated with a BFA in printmaking. Since then I  have tried to find a way to make art the core of my life. But life itself can greatly confuse the issue. I have done my best to find some balance where my art fits in with making a living, having a family, and just generally existing. As of yet I have not come to any concrete answers on how to do so. However, after receiving my teaching credential in Art from Sonoma State University in 2007, I found that working with students (specifically teens) comes close. In 2012 I started teaching art at Tam High School in my hometown of Mill Valley and have no current plans to stop. I live with my wife of over 20 years and son in Forest Knolls, California.

*Larry & Susan Gilmour 

** Leon Gilmour, Phyllis Gernes

Imagery & Ideas 

The work I create depicts abstracted landscapes (mostly). When exploring these landscapes, I do not use references beyond my own memory and occasionally a quick sketch in my notebook. I’m not interested in capturing images perfectly but as our memory does. Slightly fractured and disjointed. Focused on the shapes, colors, and textures that resonate most strongly with me. In trying to record these memories I find that I’m most drawn to transitions both in time (dawn, sunset, changing cloud forms) and space (land meeting water, land meeting sky, the change from textured marshland to the smooth water of a bay).

          I do not title my work on purpose. My hope is that a viewer will make a connection with their own memories in my work. If I was to title them, I would be removing this possibility 

Process & Materials 

Monotype is a printmaking technique that yields only one good impression each time a plate is prepared.  Since each is unique and hand executed, monotypes do not have multiple replications of the same image like most printmaking techniques. But because they are prints on paper, and in most cases pass through a printing press, they are considered printmaking media.

The way I go about creating a monotype is by applying an oil-based printers’ ink to a plexiglass plate, manipulating it with rollers, brushes, q-tips, and rags to create an image. Then the image is pressed onto a sheet of paper when passed through an etching press. I then add more ink to the plate and use the same piece of paper to add another layer. I will repeat this layering process anywhere from three to fifteen times. When complete, I have a one-of-a-kind print that is more akin to a painting than most other types of printmaking. Though there are a wide variety of processes and materials that can and are used to create monotypes, this approach and process is the one I have developed over the last twenty plus years.