Erin Tapley

Tapley, a life-long printmaker, recently turned to the process of hydro-printing or paper marbling, which involves a combination of chance and learned manipulation, as well as watery, organic results.

Traditionally, paper marbling has been a commercial activity in which pattern consistency is sought because marbled papers are used for purposes such as bookmaking.

Design in marbling is done on a slippery surface (usually thickened water) and requires an understanding of chemistry and physics. Its materials, which include hand-held tools, starch, alkaline-based pigment, oily media and human movement, all may be manipulated to produce different effects, each unique.

She also enjoys plain old printmaking with a printing press and its experimental possibilities. She has traveled to five continents and sixteen countries to research various visual art interests. Tapley is professor of art education at Western Carolina University in Cullowee. She earned a bachelor’s in art from Skidmore College, an MFA in printmaking from the University of Alabama and a Ph.D. in art education from the University of Iowa.

She has had solo shows at Hothouse Gallery in Chicago, Hopkins Center for the Arts in Minneapolis, and Lexington, Ky., Art Gallery, among others.

Clayton Visual Arts, Inc., is funded in part by a grant from the Town of Clayton’s Cultural Arts Fund.