Greeting everyone from right here in 2021, we made it! Today, to ring in the New Year we have Jaz Graf, a wonderful book artist, designer, paper engineer and all round great person. Jaz was meant to be a part of our Summer 2020 Artist of the Week series but like all best laid plans and especially in 2020, things just went kerflooey! Jaz being the kind person that she is, gently reminded us this past Fall about one of the best videos we received from any artist in the series and that just happened to be hers. So, we thought it appropriate to close out our Fall 2020 Artist of the Week series with Jaz discussing her work Signatures, a culmination of fine art practice, book making craft and ingenuity. Jazz shows her thoughtful creativity, moving from the conceptual, into her hand crafted design, all in the culmination of making something truly delightful.
Jaz Graf's recent body of work juxtaposes synthetic and raw materials, the virtual gaze with organic imprints, and satellite imagery with dust. It sets in motion, a contemporary discourse around intergenerational memory and cultural preservation. Jaz exhibits locally and internationally, has been featured in AM New York News, The Jersey Journal and on NJ's Public Broadcast Channel - NJTV. She is former Vice President of Manhattan Graphics Center, a fine art print shop in New York City, and Board Member of ProArts Hudson County. Jaz holds a Master of Arts degree in Studio Art Printmaking from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Fine Arts degreee in Printmedia from the University of Iowa.
We would like to thank Jaz and all the artists that took part in our Fall 2020 Artist of the Week series. This series will be going on hiatus for the Spring of 2021, while we revamp our programming in preparation for what should be better and more involved year. If you enjoy this series, please remember you can go to our Vimeo page to see past artists. Also, check back next week, as we will be creating a gallery with all these great artists for you to browse and beginning a new series of artist book selections from our gallery to be highlighted right here on our own website. Happy New Year everyone, stay safe and we will see you (hopefully soon!).
