Coaxing a breathtaking product from a grueling process will win you extra points in this competition. That’s one reason why we’re so dazzled by Marie Yoho Dorsey’s embroidered direct gravure prints. To create the vivid blue landscapes that serve as a background for delicate embroidery in purple and rose, Dorsey first paints a mountain range onto a waxy sheet of mylar. Then, with the assistance of Bleu Acier’s master printer Erika Greenberg-Schneider, she turns the painting into an edition of direct gravure prints on fragile rice paper. Adding the finishing touches of sewn figures in the prints’ foregrounds, Dorsey keeps one foot in traditional Japanese practices learned from her mother (and study abroad) and one foot in her own refreshingly contemporary vision.
Bleu Acier, 109 W. Columbus Drive, Tampa, 813-272-9746, bleuacier.com.
This article appears in Sep 12-18, 2007.