At an early age, Alice Carpenter’s exposure to art was limited to locally made quilts, art sold at county fairs and the surrounding beauty of nature. Growing up in a small Appalachian Ohio town, the idea of a professional artist was foreign to her.
“From my earliest age, I delighted in drawing and coloring. And I must have impressed others with my enthusiasm, because throughout grade school and high school, I was the go-to person to create special art projects and athletic banners,” Carpenter says.
Throughout high school, Carpenter amazed her classmates and mentors with her artwork, but she didn’t see herself as an artist.
“Though my high school art teacher encouraged me to apply to the Cleveland School of Art (now the Cleveland Institute of Art), the concept of artist was too foreign so I chose to pursue a degree in art education instead. Teaching art, I understood,” Carpenter says.
It wasn’t until almost two decades after college that Carpenter found her true calling as an artist.
“Graduating into a dismal job market for teachers, I ended up working in a number of jobs, none related to art. It was not until approximately 16 years after graduating from college that I found art again at our local Columbus Whetstone Rec Center,” Carpenter says.
While signing her kids up for summer classes, Carpenter decided to sign up for an art class at the Whetstone Community Center, and it was there that she finally saw herself as an artist.
“It was in this small rec center class and it was through the generous encouragement of my instructor that I first started seeing myself as an artist,” Carpenter says.
After those first formative weeks in her local rec center art class, Carpenter began to see art as a huge part of her life. From then on she enrolled in the Columbus College of Art and Design as well as the Cultural Arts Center.
“I find magic in certain elements that keep reappearing in my work; all phases of the moon, water, stars, sailboats, and the image of two structures in an isolated landscape." - Alex Carpenter
There was no looking back at this point for Carpenter and she dove in to watercolors as her focus. It wasn’t until she accidentally tried new relief inks for linoleum block prints that she made the shift to monotypes.
“In 2014, my work took a major shift from colorful watercolors to extremely limited palette monotypes,” Carpenter says. “The inks worked poorly for the lino prints, but made wonderful monotypes.”
Creating a monotype falls somewhere between painting and printmaking. “It is a one-of-a-kind transfer of an inked or painted image from a non-porous surface to paper. Carpenter begins by covering the surface with relief inks and an image is developed by removing portions of the ink with brush, rags and/or palette knife.
Carpenter has a distinct technique with making monotypes. She does this to ensure that her images are unique as well as smaller in size.
“Normally a monotype is created by laying paper over the inked image, and transferring it from plate to paper with hand pressure or through a press,” Carpenter says. “My process is different in that I use a brayer (roller) as part of the transfer process. I roll my brayer over the inked image and then roll my brayer, which now holds the inked image, onto paper.”
With the appearance of black and white photographs, Carpenter’s art includes many repetitive elements such as the phases of the moon, water and stars. Her work is influenced by her childhood in her Appalachian hometown and the surrounding natural beauty of nature. In fact, Carpenter says, she finds magic in these elements.
“My monotypes remind me of old black and white photographs,” she says. “I find magic in certain elements that keep reappearing in my work; all phases of the moon, water, stars, sailboats, and the image of two structures in an isolated landscape"
Over the past six years, Carpenter has continued to grow as an artist and has been honored to be selected as a Greater Columbus Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship Finalist. She owes most of her success and support to the Columbus arts community which encouraged and inspired her to become an artist.
If not for the Whetstone Rec Center, Carpenter may never have discovered her passion and calling to become an artist. Carpenter encourages others to find our true passion in whatever they may do.
“Each year I look forward to exploring new ways to challenge myself and to improve my work. Always forward,” Carpenter says.
Marissa Smithinsky is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
