Beyond Knitting
Nature Printing Society
I recently returned from a fascinating gig as a photographer-for-hire with the Nature Printing Society on top of a remote mountain in Western North Carolina.
The NPS Workshop is a weeklong gathering of artists devoted to nature materials, teaching others dedicated to the same.
Art supplies include leaves and seed pods, feathers and bark, flowers and fish. The processes blew away any definition of printmaking I’d had till then.
If it can be pressed, inked, molded, transferred, pounded, rubbed or otherwise made into an image on another surface, the nature print artists did it.
Wildacres Retreat in Little Switzerland, N.C., provided a stunning deep woods mountaintop backdrop for eighty attendees, including the dozen master artist printmakers who led day-long classes.
Teachers became students on their non-leader days, making each studio a chance to rub elbows (and sometimes also leaves and branches and fish scales) with amazing talent.
Photographing artists creating with passion in a beautiful setting is a wonderful work week. Most days I scooted from studio to studio, documenting the concurrent classes. Most classes taught a process and a project that could be completed by sunset. Others were open ended.
A personal highlight was my day spent learning octopus printing. It’s exactly what you think it is; I learned to properly ink and print an octopus. It’s not as easy as it sounds. There’s a lot to learn about composing nature prints to, well, look natural.
I tried to arrange my octopus legs in graceful underwater motion and each time ended up with a happy waving friendly octopus vibe. The experienced artists’ octopus flowed across the page.
Takuga
Boston area artist Sue Fierston teaching Takuga, the Japanese art of printing botanicals with ink and watercolor.
Direct Gyotaku
The traditional art of Japanese fish printing attracts a passionate following to the NPS retreat.
In the direct process class, beginners learned how to ink their fish using tampos, a handmade ink dauber that allows the artists to roll the ink delicately onto rounded areas.
Each teaching artist shared their own techniques, from carving a styrofoam bed for the fish to lay in while printed, to positioning and holding out fins and details with clay or cardboard shims and whether or not to moisten the paper used for printing.
Precious Metal Clay
Students made silicone rubber molds and cast silver clay nature jewelry.
Extraction Dyeing and Printing
A surprisingly straightforward process of coating botanicals with a bleaching mixture that strips the dye out of dark fabric when put into contact. A row of shirts drying on the Wildacres retreat main patio were solid dark blue; the extraction bleaching yielded a coppery gold tone print.
Indirect Gyotaku
The art of Japanese fish printing indirectly has the artist preparing the fish and covering it with a thin pieces of silk or paper, and using a tampo to carefully dab the ink onto the surface over the fish.
Chris Dewees discussing the selection of fish for students to choose from in his class. Chris is one of the founders of the Nature Printing Society in 1976. He is a passionate ecologist with a Ph.D., a career in marine fisheries, and a lifelong dedication to gyotaku.
Details and often backgrounds are added to the fish print with paints.
A finished indirect gyotaku printed scarf.
Monotype
A press room studio allowed artists to create monotypes using papers, inks, nature, and found materials by adding pressure.
Monotypes are one-of-a-kind prints. Each time the materials go through the press, a different combination of placements and colors is created in the work.
Octopus printing
Coleen O’Connell demonstrated a small starter octopus, and showed that going into the dried print with colored pencil can brighten the suckers on the legs to bring out a crisper definition.
Rachel Reeve, a Nova Scotia based artist arranging a large inked octopus, patting the print paper onto the inked octo, and pulling a print.
O’Connell shows a freshly pulled print on brown handmade paper, and a stitched detail from her jeans, based on a print she’d made.
CollageFrottageDecoupage
Bee Shay, a Nantucket-based artist, holds a bird from a class that included charming paper projects made from nature rubbings, painting, and collaging. Bee was one of the organizers of this year’s retreat.
Encaustics
Artist Bridget Benton taught a class in encaustics: printing, collaging, and painting with wax—a process that includes use of heat guns and molten pigmented wax to build up layers..
The Nature Printing Society will gather for its 50th annual retreat in 2026. Membership is reasonable and well worth the adventure.
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I’m speechless
Exactly. Sitting here agog.
OMG! I have now added another event to my bucket list. Thank you so much for sharing this! What an experience!
I know this will be a buzzkill response but octopus (and probably fish) are intelligent, sentient beings. Not sure whether that was acknowledged and how respectful the use of their bodies were in these classes.
My thought too!
My thought, too. Especially octopuses. Hard to say how they acquired the specimens, though.
Wow. I will have to share this with my very artistic friend and art teacher. Such a breadth of subject matter and techniques. Bearing in mind Lizziebelle’s very thought-provoking comment, I was very tickled by the intellectual (not physical) concept “starter octopus.” You don’t get to hear these two words together every day of the week. We tend to label ourselves as science geeks, tech geeks, drama geeks, etc. But Art and Music are for everybody. Thank you, Gale.
I enjoy everything that MDK puts out but rarely (if ever) comment. These works of art are simply gorgeous. It takes my breath away every time I scroll over a picture. The photos are beautiful and communicate the peace of the setting and the faces and the posture of the artists as they work and rejoice. Lucky to have shared in the experience even from afar. Thank you.
Wow!
Given how intelligent they are, the octopus printing is disturbing.
I completely agree and the phrase “starter Octopus” says it all for me.
My initial reaction as well.
I love Little Switzerland! I have stayed there several times at the Alpine Inn and also another cabin on that same road. The coldest motorcycle ride I ever took was on the Blue Ridge Parkway in August. We had to stop at the Switzerland Inn and get a sweatshirt to continue on with the ride.
Anyway, I love the prints that you made. Beautiful. I love the octopus! The embroidered one on the jeans was gorgeous.
Such a breathtakingly beautiful part of the USA! Definitely on my
list for a return visit.
OH. MY. GOSH. What a delicious piece! I went to college in Western NC and still have close friends in Spruce Pine. In June we all got together for a week at The Switzerland Inn. I’ve never even heard of Wildacres Retreat or the Nature Printing Society! I am SO in! Would love to go to one of the retreats. Thanks so much for this fabulous story!
This is so amazing!
For those who are concerned about the animals, my thought was that the society elevates and respects the beauty in nature. To confirm this, I searched their website and found this:
“Our prints tell the stories of fish and plants, wood and fossils: we give people a new perspective on the natural world”
For me, enough said. If the art helps even one person look at nature with more honor, respect and awe…then mission accomplished.
This was fascinating. I loved this story. I agree with others though, the octopus was disturbing. Maybe there is more to obtaining the octopuses than we know? The other articles used to print were remarkable.
I know this is an intellectually curious group. For anyone interested in expanding their understanding of underwater organisms, specifically fish, I highly recommend Jonathan Balcombe’s What A Fish Knows. (I’m in no way affiliated with the author or publisher.) The book changed my world view.
Wow, Gale, thanks for sharing ! That Stitched Octopus & everything else, really… wow. My kind of fun !
Thank you for bringing a moment of awe and wonder to my day. Such beautiful artistry! There is always more to learn.
Amazing! What will we come up with next?
Holy Cow! I’ve got to get another cup of tea and focus on this further. But really, you had me at ‘starter octopus.’