Carol MacDonald, printmaker
drawing tools
inks and thread

Statement

In my work I tug at the threads of our shared humanity, addressing issues of community, life, transition, process and communication. Working in a variety of printmaking techniques, I create an evocative visual vocabulary, making images that support our wellbeing. I think of my work as metaphorically biographical. By taking the issues and concerns that confront me in my personal life as a woman, mother, artist, and citizen, I seek to give visual form that speak to the universal condition of living in these times and the issues and experiences that connect us.

Printmaking is an inherently repetitious process involving the inking of plates, placing the inked plate on the press bed, placing the paper on the plate, covering with blankets and rolling the bed through the press. With monoprint I build up layers of imagery by printing multiple times on the same paper. I often use the “ghost”, which is the ink left on the plate after printing, to create textures and veils. The transfer of imagery from plate to paper is challenging to control and requires a certain level of letting go for the imagery to emerge. Many of my images are worked into with drawing, cutting away or stitching.

Bio

Carol MacDonald is a printmaker, teacher and community arts organizer. Recent exhibitions include: 11th International Print Biennial, Douro Valley, Portugal; 22nd Mini Print International, Ithaca, NY; Mending Fences, Rokeby Museum, Ferrisburg, VT; Hindsight 20/20, Kent Museum, Calais, VT; One-of-a-Kind, Bancroft Gallery, Cohasset, MA; Wilson Museum, SVAC, Manchester, VT; Washington Printmakers Gallery, Silver Springs, MD; Galerie Maison Kasini, Montreal, Quebec; BCA Firehouse Gallery, Burlington, VT. Her knit based artwork has been featured at Vogue Knitting: LIVE in NYC, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle. She has been an artist fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her work is in many private, corporate and museum collections.

Résumé (PDF)

GALLERY REPRESENTATION

Frog Hollow Gallery 85 Church St., Burlington, VT 05401
Millers Thumb Gallery 14 Breezy Ave., Greensboro, VT 05841
Artisans Hand Gallery 89 Main St, Montpelier, VT 05602
Artisans’ Gallery 20 Bridge St, Waitsfield, VT 05673
Art on Main 25 Main St, Bristol, VT05443
Northeast Kingdom Artisans Guild 430 Railroad St, St. Johnsbury, VT 05819

Member of:
Southern Vermont Art Center – Artist Member
Monotype Guild of New England

PUBLICATIONS

Mending Fences book cover

Mending Fences: The Culture of Repair in Art & History
Catalogue for Rokeby Exhibition
By Ric Kasini Kadour and Carol MacDonald

The book came out of the exhibition, “Mending Fences: New Works by Carol MacDonald,” curated by Kadour, and held at Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh, Vermont, July 12-October 27, 2020.

Essays in the 92-page, full-color book outline physical repair as a metaphor for social change. Kadour considers the impact a century of planned obsolescence had on 20th and 21st century American consumerism in contrast to 19th century material culture. He examines the portrayal of repair in art and how it changed after Modernism. He offers the reader a tour of the objects, monoprints, and installations in “Mending Fences” at Rokeby and considers their potential connections to history, culture, and the metaphor of repair. He uses MacDonald’s interventions to talk about how objects have meaning and the role museums play in creating narratives of cultural heritage. And he writes about how art can help us understand complex social issues from the environment to the history of racial tension in America. “This conversation is inseparable from the history of housework and decoration, the labor of women, the role and function of museums, and the origin of objects and consumer goods,” said Kadour. “We talk a lot about art’s potential to pick up the unfinished work of history and contribute to civic discourse. This book is an example of what that looks like.”

92 pages | 10″ x 8″ | perfect bound
Published by Kasini House Books, 2020.

Purchase the book here ›


Knit Monoprints and Drawings book cover

Carol MacDonald – Knit Monoprints & Drawings
36-page catalogue of MacDonald’s knit imagery work with an essay, “The Thread and the Fabric” by Amy Rahn.

36 pages | 8.5″ x  9″ | 42 full-color illustrations
Published by Kasini House Books, 2008.

Purchase the catalogue here ›