In Other Words, lithograph-silkscreen-relief, 33 x 22 inches

When  printmaker Shelley Thorstensen walks into her Oxford, PA studio she passes a stone with a message from her muse:  TRUST. “I have to look at and read it because with printmaking there are so many directions I could go. There’s nothing complacent about making art. I have to trust that I’m going in the right direction.”

Shelley says she also has to trust that her viewers are going to “get it.”  While Shelley doesn’t mention anything about reviewers, art critic Edward Sozanski of The Philadelphia Inquirer really gets IT, right to the core of Shelley’s art making.

In Sozanski’s  May 16, 2010  review of Thorstensen’s  Woodmere Art Museum’s exhibit Counterpoint: The Leap from Vision to Print he wrote, “One is particularly impressed with Thorstensen’s mastery of media. Many prints involve multiple processes, including etching, mezzotint, lithography, relief, screen printing, woodcut, and chine collé – just about every graphic process known. The ease with which she combines these processes and exploits their individual strengths gives her prints uncommon presence and, more often than not, transcendent beauty.”

Shelley’s exhibit is on display until July 31 at the Woodmere Art Museum. For Sozanski’s complete review visit philly.com.