Kenna Boles Prior

Artist Statement

Most of my work is printmaking, with a variety of subjects, but most often tied to people I care about or those I have never met, but have stepped in the same places I have.

A house next to my studio had been abandoned. The memories of the original family generations of over 125 years were long gone, along with drug dealers, the homeless, and teenage kids looking for something more to do like vandalism. This series actually has 7 pieces all with a perspective of passage through doors and windows not knowing the fullness of the stories that lived there, nor all the people who had passed through. I took these pictures just weeks before it was demolished and this is all that is left.

The difficulty of woodcut as a medium is not just the composition and physical labor, but in the story or statement I seek to share. In the end, carving away reveals my intent and is cathartic. This is especially true when I am addressing children and abuses they endure, mostly taken from my own childhood experience. I sometime take a mental break and include other subjects or family focus. I always create my woodcut proofs through a community steamroller event. It allows me to be brave, have community peer support, and be more objective for any changes that are needed. Later I return to each piece to make edits and determine what will be reprinted in my studio or consider collaboration prints elsewhere.