Carol Taylor   Etchings & Collage

Carol Taylor has been working as a printmaker for over 50 years.  She earned her bachelor’s degree in Art Education from Southern Connecticut State University, and subsequently taught art for three years in the Avon, CT school system.  After receiving her graduate degree from Central Connecticut State University she began to work full time on printmaking.  She has exhibited her work in numerous shows and galleries across New England and Florida, and has won many awards. She now splits her time between homes in Aurora, Colorado, and St Pete Beach, Florida.

Carol works with two coordinated techniques.  The first and more traditional of her works is the timeless etching or intaglio print.  The etching/intaglio process involves drawing a design on a metal plate which has been coated with an acid resistant material called “ground”.  After the drawing is finished, the plate is immersed in an acid bath and  is etched wherever metal has been exposed.  The ground is then removed, and ink is rubbed into the etched lines, hand-printed, dried, and hand-colored with watercolors.  Each of Carol’s etchings is printed in limited editions of one hundred.

The second and more abstract of Carol’s techniques is the collage.   The collage pieces incorporate portions of her etchings, various special papers, metallic threads, cords, sheet music, and even beads.  The collages will often include parts of two or three of her etchings, cut into pieces.  They are then sewn back together, using decorative zig-zag stitching, to create one unique work of art, that in some instances is more reminiscent of a quilt than of a print or collage.  They are all one-of-a-kind pieces.

“Nature has always been an inspiration - the delicate shapes of flower petals, the bare branches of winter trees.  I use zig-zag stitches to invoke the feel and flow of wind in the trees, or movement in the leaves.  Sometimes a color, a rustle of sounds, a leaf, even a scrap of paper will inspire me to create a new world of trees and landscape abstracted into shapes but still invoking the feeling of nature around us.”

Carlton Taylor   Photographs

Once Carlton retired in 2005, he was able to devote considerably more time to his photography.   What had been an occasional diversion and part time hobby became a calling.  Recognition came quickly.  Carlton’s work has been accepted into a number of juried shows (winning numerous awards) and is now in many private collections.  He exhibited at outdoor shows with his wife for many years in New England before recently moving to Florida.

 The focus of Carlton’s camera over the years has been quite varied, dictated more by the opportunity to take pictures than by a specific theme or subject.  Vacations were usually taken with camera in hand, walks through the “back forty” provided many opportunities, and trips to Maine were a veritable feast.  Opportunities for quick shots have come while walking around towns and cities. 

Not missing the olden days of working with chemicals and paper in the darkroom, Carlton has embraced the digital age.  The convenience of working on prints on the computer, and the ability to print them with today’s advanced inkjet printers, is fantastic.  The possibilities are endless, although Carlton is not one to do much manipulation.  He is perhaps just doing more easily what master photographers had done for years as they fine tuned prints from their negatives.

 A “new” print might be one that came from a negative taken twenty years ago.  To photograph is to capture a perhaps unique and fleeting image that is somehow special in the photographer’s eyes.  To print that image, share it, and have it appreciated by the viewer is the ultimate reward.  Echoing a comment about artists from the New Zealand Prayer Book:  May you, through my work, “see creation afresh”!