Diane Fine's upcoming exhibit at the Joseph C. and Joan T. Burke Gallery will feature over 70 collaborative print works created with Mario Laplante over two years. As a trained printmaker, Fine is drawn to the process of printmaking and creating multiple copies of an image. Approximately half of the pieces in the exhibit were created during visits to the coast of Maine, aiming to capture the visual poetry of the experience. Fine and Laplante have collaborated extensively over 30 years, meeting while Fine was in graduate school, and their collaborative style allows each to contribute as an "extra pair of hands and brain."

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Printmaking is a process-oriented medium
that involves drawing on or carving into one material,
usually wood, stone or metal and transferring that image
onto another material, usually paper.
“Trained as a printmaker, every time I approach
drawing it’s in a ‘printmakerly’ way,” Diane Fine said.
“I’m drawn to the process of printmaking, the possibility
of the multiple, the fact that you can make more than one
copy of your image.”
Fine’s exhibit, “Red and Other Colors” featuring
collaborative works with Mario Laplante, will be featured
Feb. 28 to March 29 on the second floor of the Joseph C.
and Joan T. Burke Gallery in the Plattsburgh State Art
Museum at SUNY Plattsburgh. The show incorporates two
years worth of work, 70-plus pieces, created in two years
in North Carolina and Maine.
Fine took sabbatical leave in the spring semester of
2014 after being invited to be an artist-in-residence at the
Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. For two winter
months, she printed in Penland’s Paul Hayden Duensing
Printmaking Studio, and some of those prints will be on
display along with the pieces she created with Laplante.
Approximately half of the images in this exhibition
were made in concert with Laplante, who resides in San
Francisco, during two separate sojourns at a rocky and
remote seaside in Maine.
“Alltheimagesinthatseriesareinspiredbytheseacoast
we were visiting,” Fine said. “We were trying to capture
the visual poetry of the experience of being there.”
Besides their trip to Maine, Fine and Laplante have
embarked on multiple trips to Italy, England and Japan
during their 30 collaboration. They met during her second
year of graduate school at the University of Wisconsin
for printmaking. A project came along where she was
designing an artist book, for which she was making the
paper. Because he had a talent for lithography, she asked
him to join the project and contribute the lithographic
illustrations, and he accepted. They’ve been working
together ever since. “There’s sort of a rhythm between us
making the work together,” Fine said. “It’s like each of us
has an extra pair of hands and an extra brain.”
Even though Fine often works with other artists, she
also works alone, capturing visual poetry in the two art
practices she loves: printmaking and book art, loves that
started early on in life.
From the ages of 6 to 10, Fine would go home from
school and draw a picture of the characters from a story
she developed in her imagination. After the 15 minutes it
took her to draw the picture, she would stare at it and tell
the story over and over again in her head. After throwing it
away, the next day she would draw the same picture again
and retell the story. “I never thought of that as art,” Fine
said. “I remembered this once I was older, and I wish I’d
saved those pictures.”
Though she started drawing at a young age, she didn’t
gain a love of art until her high school years at Wellington
C. Mepham High School in Bellmore, N.Y. Her high
school had a small printmaking program where she had an
opportunity to make etchings and relief prints. Repeating
the process over and over again, she said she eventually
fell in love with the process.
Fine applied to both art programs and academic
programs, struggling to make a final decision on what
she wanted to do for the rest of her life. “I wasn’t sure
CONTINUED ON PAGE 13
Diane Fine captures visual poetry
in her upcoming exhibit.
By Teah Dowling
Clockwise from above: Palais, collaboration with Mario Laplante,
mixed media drawing on panel, 6.75 x 5.25 inches, 2014.
Tempest, collaboration with Mario Laplante, mixed media
drawing on panel, 6 x 7 inches, 2014.
Outcropping, collaboration with Mario Laplante, mixed media
drawing on panel, 16 x 11 inches, 2013.
The
“Printmakerly”
Way