Mare Blocker – Istoriato Maiolics: Cadmus and Harmonia plate | Mister Man
Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College’s 112th Annual Exhibition
Back to Front: Artists’ Books by Women
Mare Blocker, Istoriato Maiolica : Cadmus and Harmonia plate, M Kimberly Press: 2001, cloth-covered printed clamshell box; Majolica/Maiolica hand-painted ceramic plate; book is a round, case-bound concertina, with printed Iris covers; multiple color linoleum blocks and type printed on Magnani Pescia, 10 ¾ x 10 ¾ x 2 ½ in.; plate: 10 in. dia.; book: 9 ½ x 9 ¼ in. Courtesy of Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Cynthia Sears Collection
Istoriato is an Italian narrative style of pottery decoration that uses the pottery body solely as support for a purely pictorial effect. Originating about 1500 in Faenza, Italy, paintings comparable in seriousness to Italian Renaissance easel paintings were applied to Maiolica ware. Biblical, historical, and mythological scenes are executed with a realism (including the use of perspective) quite unlike any previous pottery decoration. During her Sally R. Bishop residency at the Center, Mare Blocker explored how the design of this pottery changed with the invention of the printing press. Multiple color linoeleum blocks and type were printed on Magnani Pescia. Produced at the Center for Book Arts, each boxed set also includes a unique plate decorated in the style of Maiolica pottery.
Mare Blocker, Mister Man, M Kimberly Press: 1995, tiny book miniature in mini-accordion format, 1 ⅝ x 2 ⅝ x ¾ in. Courtesy of Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Cynthia Sears Collection
BIOGRAPHY
Seattle native, Mare Blocker has been making limited edition and unique books since 1979 and established the MKimberly Press in 1984 when she bought her first Vandercook 219. Her work can be found in over 85 public collections and museums including the Museum of Women in the Arts, The Victoria and Albert, The University of Washington Special Collections, and The Library of Congress. Mare is the President of the Book Arts Guild, a regional organization for book artists and enthusiasts, and currently serves as the Treasurer of the College Book Arts Association.
Mare grew up in the Space Needle’s shadow in the Fun Forest, a clear early influence, where her artist grandfather sold his screen printed ephemeral works and paintings. Her first job, at five, was painting trees in her grandfather’s landscapes. She had a little bed under the platform of the Bubbleator where she napped in the afternoons, while “working” in her grandparents’ shop. She’s had a lot of adventures, coached a swim team and owned a biker bar in Arizona, ran a small rural library in a log cabin in the mountains of Idaho, and now she’s back in Seattle, living in her childhood home, and teaching at Pacific Lutheran University. She adores dalmatians, is learning to play the ukulele and maintains a huge garden, inherited from her father, with her husband Buzz White.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a storyteller. My love of text, image, ink, paper, cloth, thread has drawn me to this form. I am enchanted with the relative ease of multiples, the ephemeral quality of printed matter and the potential for viewer participation and interaction with the storyteller that the touch of a book invites. For the artist, work is an event of confession, an act of avowal. The knives used in carving, the bones used to fold the paper, the lead type or block pressing into the paper’s surface, the needle and thread piercing and joining, the lines drawn, and the hand, the valuable hand, these are the things I believe in. These are the tools I use to follow my curiosity and tell my stories.