Original, Print, and What’s in Between

There are nine prints in the shop now, in the corner where the metal gives way to paper. Before one of them comes home with you, I’d like to be plain about what it is. I like being plain about these things.

What a print is, and what it isn’t

Every one of them began as a painting I made. That painting is the original — one piece of work, made once, by hand.

A print is a reproduction of that painting on fine art paper. It is not the painting itself, and it is not one of a kind. I say so plainly for the same reason my stones say "believed to be" when that is the honest description: I would rather you knew exactly what you were getting.

My jewellery is one-of-one — there is only ever one of each piece, and I hold to that. The prints are the deliberate exception, and they are the exception on purpose. A painting takes its own long while to make, and a print is how one painting gets to live in more than one home. They are small, too — sized to frame for a shelf or a gallery wall. And if you ever find yourself wondering about one of the originals, write and ask me.

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Nine prints, six ways of painting

Here is the part that is hard to see from a shop page: the nine are not one technique done nine times.

Start with the five that have been in the corner a while. Two began as mixed-media paintings — "American White Pelican," bold form and soft texture, and "Winter Jays," crisp blues against soft snow-light. "Blue Jay" began as a watercolour, the same crisp blues with softer edges. "Iris" is a coloured-pencil piece, soft and detailed. "Chance Encounter" is a print of an oil painting, rich and painterly.

Four more have just gone up. "Sunrise" began as a pastel. "Sentinel" as a watercolour crayon. "Stillness" and "Before the storm" both as mixed media. I will let those four speak for themselves.

That is six different media across nine prints. They do not behave the same way under the hand, and they do not sit the same way on a wall. Each print’s own page tells you which it is. If you know my shop for the jewellery and not the paper, I have written about that side of things properly.

Matting, a frame, or both

Something has changed in that corner: you no longer have to take a print bare.

Each one can be had on its own, or with matting, or with a frame, or with matting and a frame together. I wanted that offered on all nine rather than on a few, so the choice is the same whichever one catches you.

Looking after it

Short, and honest. Keep it out of direct sunlight — that is what protects the colours — and handle it by the edges. If you have chosen the print on its own, frame it behind glass.

Where to find them

The artwork has its own corner of the shop now: nine small pieces, every one of them from a painting out of my own hands. If you would like somewhere to begin, begin with the pelican — there is a true story behind that one, and I have already told it.

— Geneen. Derwent, Alberta