The Boyer Place 1946

Grace Albee made this print, The Boyer Place, with a technique called wood engraving, a painstaking process of carving into a block of wood to create an image. I can only imagine how long it took her to complete! Just look at the precision of those marks. There’s a real sense of care that comes through. I wonder what she was thinking as she engraved each tiny line into the block. I imagine her studying every little detail of the farm – the texture of the wood, the shape of the branches – and then finding a way to translate that into her work. It’s kind of like she’s having a conversation with the scene in front of her, asking, “How can I capture you?” Albee and other artists like her demonstrate how much can be conveyed through even the most seemingly simple of means. It also reminds us that all artists build on the work of those who came before, inspiring each other across time and space.