Tina E. McCarty {Artist, Printmaker}
Artist Biography
As the only child of an archaeologist, Tina was nurtured with awareness of the obligation to protect our past and heritage. This consciousness was intended for a materialistic world, but also included the conservation of the natural world. Now, as a parent of three girls, she wants her children to benefit from the knowledge of our past and have the same desire to protect both the past and future. Having been able to “stay at home” during their youth, Tina hope to have instilled in them the knowledge that one can follow one’s dreams, no matter who or how old you are. Tina’s dream has always been to be an artist. After completing a Bachelor of Art in fine arts at the University of Colorado—Colorado Springs, in 2002, she enrolled in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the University of Wyoming Art Department where she was introduced to the varied techniques of printmaking, graduating in 2007. She further followed her love of the printmaking arts and graduated from the Academy of Art University in the spring of 2017.
Tina became a printmaker because of the multiple techniques printmaking offers. In printmaking, she can use the techniques of the painter, such as in monotype printing, or the techniques of the sculptor, with carving a print block matrix. As a printmaker, she also can etch with acid on metal to create an image, acid etching stone, as in lithography, or using development supplies like a photographer, in the process of silk screen printing. Tina is not tied down sitting at a canvas or a block of stone. There is much movement in printmaking - there is a station for everything: a place to ink, a place to carve, and a place to print. There is constant movement between each process to create a print. She is also not tied down to the one final product of one canvas or the one image; in printmaking, the ability to create multiples of the same image is in and of itself a challenge that must be met.