9x9: Prints from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Creative Fellowships January 23 to February 29, 2004 Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums 9x9: Prints from the Mid Atlantic Art Foundation’s Creative Fellowships features the work of nine artists who participated in the Creative Fellowships Program in Printmaking of the Mid Atlantic Art Foundation. Nine host organizations were invited to form a collaborative partnership with the Foundation to select an artist from its member states to receive a fellowship. The selected artists received a stipend, materials allowance, and subsidized housing and travel for their printmaking project. The host facility provided technical support and expertise in producing the new works. The artists had access to space, equipment and technical support, and uninterrupted studio time to create new works of art which are presented in this exhibition. In the spring of 2003, the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums, and the printmaking program of the Department of Art and Art History, University of Richmond, acted as a host organization and selected Ann Rentschler, an artist from Baltimore, Maryland, to receive the MAAF Creative Fellowship in Printmaking.
Assisted by students and faculty from the University, Rentschler created a series of etchings that work both as independent pieces and in combination with each other. The prints are based on “cat’s tail” drawings that act as paths and labyrinths when combined together. Rentschler’s focus on the act of drawing in her other work was used in these prints to investigate basic components of straight vertical and horizontal lines and curly marks and strokes in the compositions. Rentschler graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in 1986, and from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, with an M.F.A. in 1994. She was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in Works on Paper by the Maryland Arts Council in 2002. The other eight hosts for the fellowships were Artists Image Resource, Pittsburgh; Brandywine Graphic Workshop, Philadelphia; Pyramid Atlantic, Riverdale, Maryland; The Print Center, Philadelphia; Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, New Brunswick, New Jersey; The Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York; West Virginia University, College of Creative Arts, Morgantown; and Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York. In addition to Ann Rentschler, the participating artists are La Vaughn Belle (St. Croix, Virgin Islands), Chakaia Booker (New York), Claudia Giannini (Morgantown, West Virginia), Michael Iacovone (Washington, DC), Anne Iott (Virginia Beach), Kenneth Jones (Newark, Delaware), Ayanah Moor (Pittsburgh), and Jon Rappleye (Jersey City, New Jersey). Printmaking techniques represented in the exhibition include lithography, intaglio, and screenprinting, as well as artists’ books, and two- and three-dimensional assemblages. Following its initial venue at the Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums, the exhibition will travel to several other of the MAAF host organizations