etching with chine collé
16×14 inches paper size, 8×6 inches image size
©2021 Fatima Ronquillo
for purchase inquiry, please contact Blackrock Editions
email: info@breditions.com
My friend Lisa’s grandmother provided the Navajo symbolism behind the hummingbird: “The hummingbird represents ability to perform quickly with beauty in whatever the task. So if you catch one, hold gently and bless yourself with it saying a prayer….It’s name is k’aa loo gii…”
Ten percent of the proceeds from the sale of Hand with Hummingbird with Lover’s Eye will be donated to the Navajo Water Project. The Navajo Water Project is an organization dedicated to providing clean running water to underserved Navajo communities, especially crucial during the pandemic. When Blackrock approached me on a collaboration for their Progressive Print Project―prints with an aim towards donating part of the sales to a charity of the artist’s choosing―I felt honored and delighted to be able to help in some small way. The plight of the Navajo Nation and the Native American community in New Mexico during this pandemic has touched me deeply especially because of friends who have suffered losses and illness. I asked a Navajo friend how I could help when I learned of the print collaboration and she very graciously sent me a list of organizations. After many months of work (with the added challenges of socially distanced collaboration) and several iterations of printers and artist proofs we are finally able to offer it to the public.
Ah, these jasmines, these white jasmines!
I seem to remember the first day when I filled my
hands with these jasmines, these white jasmines.
I have loved the sunlight, the sky and the green
earth;
I have heard the liquid murmur of the river
through the darkness of midnight;
Autumn sunsets have come to me at the bend of a
road in the lonely waste, like a bride raising her veil to
accept her lover.
Yet my memory is still sweet with the first white
jasmines that I held in my hands when I was a child.
Many a glad day has come in my life, and I have
laughed with merrymakers on festival nights.
On grey mornings of rain I have crooned many
an idle song.
I have worn round my neck the evening wreath of
bakulas woven by the hand of love.
Yet my heart is sweet with the memory of the
first fresh jasmines that filled my hands when I was
a child.
~ THE FIRST JASMINES by Rabindranath Tagore
“The First Jasmines”
paper size 22×19 inches, image size 16×13 incheson Somerset Grey paper
5-color lithograph on aluminum substrate.edition 30.
in collaboration with Landfall Press. 2020.
for purchase inquiries please contact Meyer Gallery, Santa Fe
Email: meyersfnm@aol.com
I have always been fascinated by traditional printmaking process after being introduced to etching over 25 years ago. Other than the odd workshop I had not had the chance to explore the medium. Imagine my delight when Jack Lemon, master printmaker and founder of Landfall Press, invited me to create a print with them. It is my first editioned print and Jack’s final official print before his retirement. It is such an honor to have been given the chance to collaborate with this legendary print shop. Landfall Press has just celebrated 50 years of printmaking, publishing prints by so many artists whom I admire such as Claes Oldenburg, Sol LeWitt, David Ligare, Kara Walker, Leslie Dill and Judy Chicago to name but a few. I am so honored to be a part of it. “The First Jasmines” print is my first editioned work and Jack Lemon’s last official print before his retirement. It was run on an antique press from the 1860s, the Marinoni Voirin. It is an impressive piece of machinery that was converted to electrical power from steam power having made its way from Paris to Santa Fe. My work has always referenced the art of the past and I find it romantic and fitting that this print was made on the Voirin. To see the Voirin in action at Landfall Press please click here.
2020, 4-color lithograph, edition of 14
paper size: 30×22 inches / image size: 26×17 inches
Collaboration between artist Fatima Ronquillo and staff of Landfall Press during March-October 2020
for purchase inquiry, please contact Blackrock Editions
email: info@breditions.com
I never thought that a lockdown could have its advantages. In this case, it gave us time and opportunity to explore a side of lithography we never had the chance to do before. After completion of the small monochromatic edition of Fatima’s “The Watchers”, we began to ponder an approach to a color version and since Fatima’s painting style echoes the neo-classicism of a hundred plus years ago we reasoned a similar lithographic rendition would be appropriate. Jack (Lemon) has long been a fan of the Jules Cheret lithographs of 19th century Paris and suggested we follow a similar manner of working. The result is a 14 color lithograph not only in homage to old Jules but printed on the same kind of machine that would have been [in] use back then, our c. 1870 Marinoni Voirin Press. I feel the resulting print was a huge success with overlays and a saturation seldom seen in contemporary prints. It’s really a print to let the eye linger on.
~ Steve Campbell, Blackrock Editions, read more here
The Watchers
2021, 14-plate color lithograph, edition 50
paper size: 28 3/4″ x 20 1/4″ image size: 26″ x 17 1/4″
collaboration between artist Fatima Ronquillo and staff of Landfall Press/Blackrock Editions during March 2020 through March 2021
to inquire please email info@breditions.com
FATIMA RONQUILLO 
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