Valerie Carrigan works out of her studio in a historic mill in western Massachusetts where she produces drawings, prints, and artist books. Her work explores the intersection of the natural world and the human spirit. Valerie is a recent recipient of the College Book Art Association Member Support Grant and Martha Boschen Porter Fund Award of the Berkshire Taconic Foundation. She was selected to paint a mural in downtown North Adams, MA funded through a Cultural District Initiative Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Residencies include Maine Media Workshops + College, Penland School of Craft, and the Vermont Studio Center among others.
Valerie is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, where she teaches courses in drawing, painting, design, book arts, and creativity. Her artist books are held in collections across the United States.
Email: carriganv@gmail.com
COLLECTIONS
Smithsonian Libraries
Smith College
Swarthmore College
Baylor University
Cleveland Institute of Art
The University of Vermont
Savannah College of Art and Design
George Mason University
Bryant University
Trinity College
Colby College
Philadelphia Free Library
The University of Denver
The University of Wisconsin - Madison
The University of Nebraska - Lincoln
The Southern Graphics Print Archive
Rutgers University
The University of the Arts
The Amity Art Foundation
College Book Arts Association Archives
Pringle Gallery Private Collection
Spencer Timm Private Collection
Cig Harvey Private Collection
Jarvis Rockwell Private Collection
STATEMENT
My artistic work stems from the act of paying attention. It explores the intersection of the natural world and the human spirit by merging drawing, painting and printmaking with the contemporary form of the artist book. Images rise from a sense of wonder; things I happen upon unexpectedly against a backdrop of the common and everyday. Philip Fisher, in his book Wonder, the Rainbow and the Aesthetics of Rare Experiences, describes wonder as “that which stops us in our tracks.” And Descartes, as the instant when “the soul considers with attention the objects that seem rare or extraordinary to it.” I believe that when we observe and acknowledge a plant, a flower, a landscape, we forge a deeper connection and develop a greater sense of urgency to protect it.
I walk the woods and the river’s edge, open to experiences of wonder - the release of seeds from a milkweed pod, the opening and closing of a California Poppy in response to the light. Sublime moments like these find their way into my work, often coupled with historic or scientific research, and literature.
I marked time during quarantine not by using a calendar, but by charting and painting the first blossom of each plant and flowering tree within one hundred feet of my house. Checking numerous times a day for the opening buds, I sketched, photographed and mapped out visual timelines of these moments. Observations quickly filled the pages of my sketchbooks, awaiting creative translation.