Tedious Little Things, aka Katherine, is a linocut printmaker currently living on the island of Kauai, Hawaii’s oldest island, working out of her home studio space. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve always found myself easily amused drawing, or doing something of a creative nature,” says the printmaker. Many of the skills Katherine has used throughout her making process have come from various people who have come into her life since she was a child. These teachings have aided her in the creation of Tedious Little Things.
Despite the fact that she does not have a degree in any fine art medium, printmaking came to Katherine during her first year of college in 2011, and she had no idea what printmaking was! The class taught her many different forms of printmaking, but had too much “this is how you do it” structure for her which left Katherine dissatisfied and seeing no use for the skill at the time. Although she found no desire for printmaking, she decided to hold onto the printmaking kit she purchased for the class; “I thought I might need this stuff again one day.”
The majority of Katherine’s educational background is in healthcare. While in college, she took care of her elders for a handful of years, and after returning to school again, she started working as a Phlebotomist. Once she completed her Medical Assistant training through Ohio State University, she closed the books on healthcare, and in 2019, after the birth of her second child, Katherine left the doctor’s office where she was working and stayed home with her youngest. With some free time on her hands, she dabbled around with some of her old craft supplies, making whatever came to mind. When she decided she wanted to start selling these things, the name Tedious Little Things came to her while lying in bed one night.
While brainstorming business ideas, Katherine thought about making custom stamps to save money on package labels, and that’s when she broke out the old printmaking kit. She started with carving little things, mostly flowers, but it didn’t take too long for images to appear in her mind that had more depth. Katherine comments; “I was starting to feel inspiration like I never had before and my desire to carve on linoleum grew stronger. Ideas started to develop rapidly and I was imagining things I had never thought of before. It was like a door opened in my head and I haven’t turned back since… I would say, at this time, I had met the soul walking upon my path.”
Much of her work stems from her admiration and curiosity for nature and patterns; “It’s not just the way they look to the naked eye but the way nature communicates and the patterns within it, and the patterns of human nature, the way we operate, and the things that we do. Some of the things I create come from the digesting of spiritual concepts I’ve studied that then generate images in my mind.”
For the first year or so of returning to printmaking, Katherine worked with the standard speedball carving tool she got while taking her printmaking class, and all of her prints were transferred to paper using an old wooden spoon (“boy did my fingers hurt at times!”). As she has continued with this creative process, Katherine has upgraded her tools and equipment slowly over time. She was gifted an etching press which has changed things drastically for her practice, as she was then able to carve pieces with smooth and delicate cuts and print larger editions.
Katherine’s artwork is mostly printed on handmade cotton rag paper. She tells us; “I could sit on the interweb for hours looking at the handmade paper that others have made – something about the way it looks and feels is so satisfying for me”. She hopes to one day start making her own paper, and has been saving some of her childrens’ cotton clothes to eventually cut up and make into paper.
The printmaker daydreams about one day opening a physical shop where she can sell her handmade paper and artwork, along with all the other things Tedious Little Things creates. Currently, some of Katherine’s artwork can be found in an eclectic shop in Maine called Old Soul Collective. For the past few years she has been participating in markets; “It gives me tremendous joy to travel and meet people from different places and share my artwork and techniques with them. I know for sure for the next several years I will continue to connect with others in this way and share my work by traveling around and popping up at events.”
www.tediouslittlethings.com
@tediouslittlethings
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