Marjorie Ferry
My work with linocuts has been focused on preserving and sharing memories, both of places and of aspects of nature, particularly plants. Obviously, both these subjects can be captured in photographs, but the process of developing and printing a linocut, which in my case means rendering it in black and white, allows me to focus in a way I cannot do with a camera. I choose what elements speak to me, whether in a landscape or in the grace of a plant stem or flower. My hope is that they will likewise speak to the viewers of my work.
While at the residency, I plan to work primarily on linocuts but may try some drypoint prints since I have experience with that process as well. In addition to continuing my plant series and /or landscape series in linocuts, I would like to experiment with linocut portraiture, something I’ve been wanting to explore for some time. In addition, Laura has learned printmaking techniques during her sabbatical that I hope will spark some new approaches for me.
Laura Mack
My work centers interconnectedness. Depicted are the beings who cohabit this world. The marks used in these depictions get embedded with intent: care, wonder, and an impulse to question. Yes, I am a human in the mix of many beings, but how do I belong here? How do we all belong here? How do we agree and disagree, come together and repel? How do we behave alongside? Since fall of ‘25, I have explored these themes in the “new to me” discipline of printmaking, specifically etching and drypoint.
For the residency, I will use the presses to combine intaglio work with the possibilities of relief. My multi plate explorations will start with linocut to introduce transparent color complexity. On top of those prints, the drypoint process will add line and mark making. Best of all, Marjorie will be right there. Her linocut strategies will offer instruction as I work through this process and its pitfalls.
I normally teach full time at Chemeketa, so this residency is only possible by a sabbatical grant. I am very, very grateful to Chemeketa for this year-long opportunity to learn printmaking and, hopefully, revive the printmaking options at the college.
Marjorie Ferry
In junior high and part of senior high school Marjorie (she/her) took weekend classes at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, and for a time considered a future as an artist. However, she had doubts about her ability to earn a living. Instead, she took a different direction—a BA in Russian from Bryn Mawr College and a PhD in Slavic Literature from Yale University. This led eventually to 33 years as a writing and world literature instructor at Salem’s Chemeketa Community College. Upon retirement, Marjorie signed up for a drawing class and found that
she loved art just as much as she had many years earlier. After taking many of the art classes Chemeketa offered, she finally signed up for Introduction to Printmaking in 2015. This was new to her and wonderful. While she has experimented with woodcuts, aquatint and drypoint, linocuts offered her the opportunity to continue printmaking at home. Though she is still actively drawing, she has been working with linocuts ever since.
Laura Mack
Laura Mack (she, her) is a 4th, 5th and 6th generation immigrant living with her family in Salem, Oregon. Her artistic practice includes making, teaching, curation, and writing. Her art has been exhibited throughout the United States and in private collections. She holds a BFA (School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, 1995) and an MFA (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, 2004). A faculty member at Chemeketa Community College since 2004, Mack teaches Drawing, Painting, Understanding Art, and Creativity. Her curatorial work includes Drawing Deeper (2015), The Presence of Absence (2008), and Alert & Attuned: Attending to Our Climate Emergency (2025). A former TEDx Speaker with Art Education Matters, so What’s the Problem?, Mack also presents papers at Foundations of Art Theory and Education (FATE) conferences such as “Drawing as Experiment,” “Collaborate or Die: Co-Teaching The Creativity Class,” and “On the Ground, Faculty Led, DEI Work.” Laura Mack is co-author of Art for Everyone (Chemeketa Press, 2018 and Oxford University Press, 2021).
Please feel free to contact Kathleen Dinges Rice, Artists Resources and Outreach Director, at anytime with questions. She can be reached at 503-581-2228 x312 or Kathleen@SalemArt.org.
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