Debra’s current focus is the technique of collagraph, a printmaking method that enables her to use non-toxic materials. She crafts plates from simple mat board building up and cutting into the surface, while avoiding the chemicals typically associated with the traditional etching of copper plates. This low-tech approach feels very appropriate to convey the small stories and the specialness of the environments she depicts, as well as our relationships with them.

This year, Debra has spent a great deal of time away from her studio to provide care for a seriously ill family member. This time away narrowed her artmaking to a sketchbook, and a readily available subject - trees. She noticed particularly gorgeous and twisted-by-time trees while waiting at the doctor’s office, walking in the park, and then pretty much everywhere.

What began as line drawings in a sketchbook evolved into the fully developed collagraphs for a new series entitled “Everything Under the Sun”. Debra considers them “a meditation on the curious nature of the passage of time, how it changes from circumstance to circumstance, event to event. Under the sun’s gaze, the trees stand as witnesses bearing all the marks and scars that become a beautiful and poignant recording of that passage.”

Having grown up along the central Gulf Coast of the state, Debra is a lifelong resident of Florida. As a child, she had free reign to wander her grandparents’ farm and ranch there. Those wanderings began a foundation of watching and observing the flora and fauna of the Southeast that now influence her art.

In her work, Debra heeds a deep-rooted calling to bear witness to the native environment of the region that she knows and loves. She explores nature as a boundless well of subject matter and our relationships to nature as an entry point to addressing themes on boundaries, connections, sense of place, time, memory, and identity.

Debra holds a BA in visual arts from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida and a BA in English from the University of South Florida. She resides in St. Augustine, Florida, where she continues with learning, exploring, and pursuing her art.

For First Friday Art Walk on September 3 at 6 PM, head to Butterfield Garage for an artist talk with Debra.

On Saturday, September 18 at 1 PM, Debra will demonstrate her printmaking process in great detail.