#starpointe studio

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Brrrrrrr! Too Cold to Go to Work Today.

It is currently -4F, with potential -30 windchills here in Milwaukee today. So, Special Collections, the UWM Libraries, and 95% of UWM Campus will be closed today, January 21, 2025, because of extreme temperature conditions. We're just hunkering down in our cozy little cottages for the day, and hopefully we'll see y'all tomorrow.

These color wood engravings are by Kentucky wood engraver Joanne Price as illustrations for Sena Jeter Naslund’s winter story, When Children Ruled the World: A Christmas Story, handprinted and published in Monterey, Kentucky by Larkspur Press in an edition of 42 copies in 2021.

View more of our posts on the work of Joanne Price and her Starpointe Studio.

View more posts with wood engravings!

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

From initial engraving to first proof to final print with supporting color blocks -- another successful wood engraving from our friend, Kentucky wood engraver and book artist Joanne Price @starpointestudio. Hot off the press! Lovely composition, nice color, and lots of dynamism. Great work, Joanne!

See more work at her Starpointe Studio homepage.

View more posts with work by Joanne Price.

View more posts with wood engravings!

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

JOANNE PRICE

On this first Wood Engraving Wednesday in November, we mark the day with this wood engraving by Kentucky artist and engraver Joanne Price from the 2020 calendar of the Wood Engravers’ Network (WEN). Price is the founder of Starpointe Studio, specializing in printmaking and book arts in rural Kentucky. Price has been President of the Wood Engravers’ Network and is an elected member of Britain's Society of Wood Engravers. About her work, Price writes:

My ideas and images are interpreted through the bold but delicate marks of wood engraving. Wood engraving’s intimate scale and slow pace provide a welcome respite from our cyber-fast world. It is charmingly mysterious and feeds my need for quiet concentration and hands-on creative productivity. My ideas emerge from folk/fairy tales, everyday life, and nature, and are often explored through series. 

Price maintains a particular interest in the environment and the natural world:

Wood engraving’s historic use in science and literature provides a natural vehicle for these ideas. Utilizing micro and macro perspectives I strive to connect art and science in a way that I hope pushes past mere illustration.

Our copy of the calendar is a donation of WEN member and Wisconsin resident Tony Drehfal.

View more posts with work by Joanne Price.

View more posts from the 2020 WEN Calendar.

View more posts with wood engravings!

-- MAX, Head, Special Collections

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

This lovely title just walked in the door a couple of days ago, our latest acquisition: novelist and Kentucky Poet Laureate, 2005-06, Sena Jeter Naslund’s winter story, When Children Ruled the World: A Christmas Story, about of a little girl named Una who wakes up in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky before there were any adults in the world. It was handprinted and published in late 2021 by Larkspur Press in Monterey, Kentucky, and illustrated with exquisite black and white and two-color wood engravings by the estimable Kentucky wood engraver Joanne Price.

Our copy is one of 42 printed on Zekall paper, quarter-bound with papers marbled by Debbie Shannon, and signed by the author and artist. There is also a separate run of 500 copies with original black and white wood engravings by Price printed on Mohawk Superfine (only $32! More than worth the price!). Today we are focusing on Price’s engravings, but the letterpress printing in handset Cloister Lightface, designed by Milwaukee-born Morris Fuller Benton, on a Chandler & Price hand press is equally exquisite. The entire edition was printed and handbound by writer Nana Lampton, press apprentice Leslie Shane, and Larkspur Press proprietor Gray Zeitz.

View more of our posts on the work of Joanne Price and her Starpointe Studio.

View more posts with wood engravings!

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A New Year’s Caturday

On this first #Caturday of the year, we thought we’d share the progress being made on this lovely wood engraving of a cozy kitty resting comfortably in a warm library while a bear lurks outside the window. The engraving is for a bookplate being worked on by our friend, Kentucky wood engraver Joanne Price at her Starpointe Studio. You, too, can follow her progress @starpointestudio.

As our followers know, we do love a good wood engraving. Joanne began this engraving sometime in October, and as of the end of December she was still working on it! That’s the thing we love about wood engravers: they have the patience of a saint. 

So, in this new year, let’s take a breath and do our best to emulate the mindfulness of the wood engraver.

Happy New Year!

View more posts on the work of Joanne Price and her Starpointe Studio.

View more posts with wood engravings!

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Wood Engraving Wednesday, Part 2

Here’s the latest wood engraving by our friend Joanne Price at Starpointe Studio in Kentucky. The firefly has a special significance to us here in Milwaukee County, as the name of one of our western cities, Wauwatosa, is derived from the Potawatomi word for firefly, waawaatesi. Although ostensibly named after Potawatomi Chief Wauwataesie, knowing the lay of the land there, we can just imagine early Anishinaabe peoples living and working here as they traveled through the ocean of fireflies in this area of the Menomonee River Valley. What else would one name this place but waawaatesi? 

If you like this print, it is now available at the Starpointe Studio shop. Also, we highly recommend following Starpointe’s Tumblr blog @starpointestudio.

View more posts with wood engravings!

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

In the past couple of months, we’ve really been digging following our friend, Kentucky wood engraver and printer Joanne Price’s progress on a series of wood engravings she has been working on for an upcoming Larkspur Press edition of When Children Ruled the World by Sena Jeter Naslund. About her work on these engravings Price writes, “I must remind myself not to rush. Engraving is best done with a calm heart and quiet mind.” The Zen of wood engraving!

You, too, can follow her progress @starpointestudio, or by virtually visiting her workshop, Starpointe Studio.

View more posts on the work of Joanne Price and her Starpointe Studio.

View more posts with wood engravings!

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

On this Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we present a couple of wood engravings in progress by Kentucky relief printer, wood engraver, and illustrator Joanne Price. We’ve compiled these images from four posts Price made this month and late last month on her Tumblr blog @starpointestudio.

The top three images are progressions for a wood engraving to illustrate Barbara Kingsolver’s poem “Love Poem, With Birds” to be printed as a broadside by Deborah Kessler at her October Press in Lexington. In her posts, Price made these remarks about her work on the engraving: 

A peek at progress on the @barbara.kingsolver #woodengraving These warblers are so fun to engrave!

So excited about this new project . . . .

The smell of ink and victory — the most satisfying way to finish this illustration for “Love Poem, With Birds”. . . .

The last image is of the progress being made on a new wood engraving: “A refreshing recent commission for author and poet, #TimothyKleiser — a love poem for his lucky wife on their anniversary!” This engraving embodies the serenity that we hope we will be feeling on the day after Thanksgiving.

View more posts on the work of Joanne Price and her Starpointe Studio.

View more posts with wood engravings!