Headwaters of the Roaring Fork

 Hi, this is Curt Carpenter. You're looking at a woodcut called "Headwaters of the Roaring Fork" and that's the Roaring Fork River. This is a location called Upper Lost Man, it's a trail just below the summit of Independence Pass. The inspiration for the print was a small drawing I made in early summer when the Roaring Fork was running big and there was still snow in the gulches and on cornices and I was very attracted to the great rugged granite boulders and these engelmann spruce at tree line. This is the elevation above which trees cannot grow.

Woodcut is made by cutting away everything but what gets the ink. So these were made on two sheets of half inch thick birch veneer plywood. The black plate prints first, and the blue gray prints over it, and where the blue gray prints over the black, a new dark gray value emerges.

I'd like to thank the Arvada Center Galleries, Olive Jarvis, and the jurors, Jane Burke, Christopher Herron, and Colin Parson. It's an honor to be included in this show. Thank you.