Debra Olin, Somerville, Mass. :: Printmaker

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I am a printmaker, combining monoprint, drypoint, stencils and collage to make both two and three dimensional works on and with paper and fabric. Elements are arranged on an inked plexi glass plate and run through a press. During the art making process there are three components that I try to balance and connect; the aesthetic, the technical and the conceptual. In addition to these elements there is a collaboration with the press. There is always an element of surprise with the monoprint process, due to its indirect nature. I am most intrigued with texture and layering imagery to reveal or obscure certain areas of the composition.

The images below represent a selection of my monoprints, woodcuts, collages and constructions. Please contact me if you would like to visit my studio to see a wider range of available artwork.

DEBRA OLIN, EVERY PROTECTION
Exploring Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Jewish Pale of Settlement

The Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge Street, New York, NY

October 14, 2021 – April 24, 2022

In large format monoprint collages and a site-specific installation, Debra Olin explores an important stage in the lives of Jewish women in the Russian Pale of Settlement. Drawing on the 1912–1914 ethnographic questionnaire produced by S. An-sky (The Jewish Ethnographic Program) to document every stage of Jewish life from before birth to after death, Olin focuses on the 283 questions relating to pregnancy and childbirth. Olin’s iconography highlights superstitions, precautions and religious practices that can be translated, recognized and appreciated by people from every culture. Her installation “From the Oral Torah”, created for the Eldridge Street Synagogue’s Women’s Balcony, hangs from its celestial ceiling. Women’s robes with feet dangling and questions draped over their shoulders, span the divide between the everyday and the sacred. For what could be at once so commonplace and so miraculous as conception and giving birth?

In the fall of 2008, I read Professor Nathaniel Deutsch’s article entitled, “A Total Account, S. An-sky and the Jewish Ethnographic Program” in Pakn Treger, the magazine of the National Yiddish Book Center. The article examines a questionnaire that An-sky had created to gather information on the lives of the Jews living in the Russian Pale of Settlement in 1914. I was immediately captivated by the project and contacted Deutsch in search of more of these questions which covered every aspect of life from birth to death and beyond. My particular interest was in those questions concerning pregnancy and childbirth. There are superstitions and precautions taken in every society to guard the pregnant woman and the newborn. An-sky’s research included 283 queries on this topic alone. Some of them contained provocative phrasing such as “Is there a belief that one must not place a child in front of a mirror until he gets his first teeth?” An-sky’s questionnaire reveals a familiarity and breadth of knowledge which charged my imagination and inspired me to create this body of work called “Every Protection”. In 2011, I was invited by Professor Deutsch to show this series at the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

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This project has been supported by a grant from the Artists’ Resource Trust, a fund of Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation.

Nightbloom

In 2015, I was invited by Lyell Castonguay, director of BIG INK, www.bigink.org, to carve a large woodcut. I carved Rooting, a 72 x 36" block and I was hooked on woodcuts!

These prints are involved with the body and its connection to nature. After visiting countless botanical gardens and dealing with a loved one’s battle with cancer, I began to notice similarities between plant forms and the human body’s organs and skeletal structure. I am exploring the relationship between these forms, integrating the figure into trees and botanical settings. Restructuring the human interior I substitute and embellish forms from the natural world. We see today how intertwined we are with the planet, how all our decisions – from how we grow food to how we utilize our resources has an impact on our health and the future.

This series starts with the woodcut, then takes it’s matrix to reconfigure the image through monoprint and collage.

Coming from a background in sculpture, manipulating materials to be used as stencils or plates in my experimental prints has been a natural extension to my art making exploration. In “Free Falling”, I have used my body as the matrix in creating my printing plate. After wrapping myself in plastic and rolling in glue, I laid down on a piece of foam core. This produced a body print that was then sprinkled with carborundum (a fine sandlike grit). I love the physicality of the process and the clumsy collaboration with my body and the resulting form. Brushing the finished print in oil gives the paper a transparency for viewing on both sides. Coating the paper used to cover the boat armature with wax and crumbling/smoothing adds another dimension of texture.

“Free Falling” is part of a series exploring the possible competing forces of independence and safety. There is a vulnerability weaved together with a desire to soar and a fear of the unknown.

installation photographed at the Boston Public Library, Copley Sq., photo credit: Bill Kipp

I am interested in making connections between disparate cultures. Using the Yiddish language, literature, and folklore as a springboard, I have found commonalities between Eastern European Jews, Ancient Egyptians and Chinese Healers. From the first handprints, to alphabet and language, ideas about death and higher powers, healing the body, and games and rituals, civilizations that had no communication with each other, came up with similar explorations and solutions to life’s challenges.

My most recent work, "Cosmic Inclusion" is an installation consisting of thirty-two 39"h x 20"w monoprints (with collage, drypoint, stitching), attached to hinged panels 92" high by 24’ long, although by changing the configuration the dimensions can vary. The idea of this format is to give the impression of a giant accordion book. I am using the figure as a conduit, with energy passing through from heaven to earth and threading through from culture to culture. The figure, an adaptation from the acupuncture chart, is used as a universal symbol of (wo)mankind.

These large prints (40" x 80" range) combine the figures from "Cosmic Inclusion" with the flight of the birds. The golem is often represented as a heavy figure made of clay. Here it represents an unrealized dream of flight. Some of the images include writing from Di Vinci's notebook. "Tether" with rocks attached to the wrists and feet show the impossibility of upward movement.

I use clothing as a metaphor for the body. A slip represents vulnerability while a coat signifies shelter. This work deals with healing: healing the world and healing the body. "The Crossroads" and "The Balance" are from my "Rock, Paper, Scissors Series". Since adult attempts toward peace aren’t working, this children’s game for resolving conflicts seemed like a possible alternative. "Cupping #1", "Cupping #3", and "X-ray" have to do with healing the body. In these prints, I am also concerned with making connections between disparate cultures; in this case, the Chinese and Eastern European Jews. Who knew?

These garments, printed on muslin and canvas, are constructed versions of my 2-D prints. Combining the garment metaphor as shelter or safety with the imagery of birds to represent freedom, I am exploring an interest in the power of oppositional forces.

Birds have captivated our imagination since the beginning of time. Depicted in petroglyphs, on ancient coins, and in hieroglyphics, they have woven their magic into the folklore and superstitions of every culture.

The birds in "Glikl 1 & 2" refer to a Yiddish poem found in the writings of Glikl of Hamlen. This poem was translated by Michael Wex and written into a song by Adrienne Cooper. "Crane Dance" and "Stork and Crane" connects to our story telling/ nursery rhyming relationship with birds.