Margaret Craig received a degree in Biology Secondary Education, a BS in Art and an MA in Painting from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She received an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Texas at San Antonio. An innovator in printmaking techniques, she invented Tar Gel Pressless Etching and has demonstrated that and other techniques at national conferences. She is often involved in trade portfolios and exhibits locally, nationally and internationally. On recent sabbatical she completed the Blue Star Berlin Residency program. Currently she is Professor and Chair of Printmaking and Paper at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, TX . Her original Biology degree has been a major influence in the visual and ecological context of her work, and her shop promotes a less harmful approach to printmaking. She has one husband, one bird and four cats and one spastic puppy.
For my art, process is as important as the final result. That leads to the question, “How do I create objects that appear as fascinating as the things in the environment around me?”
To try and answer that question, I endlessly explore materials and experiment with new ways to use them. That is one of the things which drew me to printmaking, as the “kit bag” is enormous. There are endless processes to play with, endless special effects. As in nature, there’s endless diversity.
Like birds when choosing their mates, my heart embraces the irrational exuberance of the aesthetic. I find minimalism a bore.
The observations of forms and systems, learned from my first degree in biology, leads to my imagery. All is fuel for contemplation: biology, chemistry, physics, systems as large as the universe, as pedestrian as my cat. I observe the Human Condition, the structure and order we build, and the problems we create that destroy it.
I ruminate and contemplate through the physicality of making, creating objects hopefully that seduce the viewer into change ideas, by luring them in visually, and then having an edge.
In this work I have been exploring paper and print in the studio. These are all about the things we embed. The things we leave behind. One person’s trash is another person’s archeology. I’ve been thinking about the forest floor; what’s left behind in the anthropocene, layering cellulose (leaf litter) with images of plastic bottles, broken pipes, broken arrows…..
