Lakeshore Arts Festival, Featured Artist, Mary Lou Hess

The Evanston Lakeshore Arts Festival is 36 this year and we are celebrating with a fresh, new logo (to be revealed in a few weeks) and this amazing blog. In this space we will profile artists and vendors who will be featured at Lakeshore this year.

The first artist we are highlighting is printmaker Mary Lou Hess. Mary Lou has been etching and printmaking for 25 years. Mary Lou is a returning artist, and this year she will triumphantly return, having won in the Prints and Drawings category in 2007.

Inspired by the landscape of the Midwest and beyond, Mary Lou says that she "always see(s) space, shapes, and textures in nature. Landscape is an excuse for making an etching. To conceive an idea by seeing a commonplace thing, and make it my own by building or designing a picture is my goal." For those of you unfamiliar with the process, an etching is when a detailed drawing is created on a metal plate, usually zinc, by corroding it's surface with nitric acid. Once the plate is completely etched with a design, the plate is inked and run through a hand press. Because each print is run individually, no two etchings are exactly alike with each being an original print. Mary Lou works on a smaller scale, and each individual piece is a jewel of texture and color.

Mary Lou has a studio in New Albany, IN and sells her work online at mlhessetchings.com. Recently, she collaborated with author Diane Aprile on the book, “The Eye Is Not Enough”. Please come visit her booth at the Lakeshore Arts Festival at Dawes Park August 2-3, 2008.