far from the tree: Tammy Ratcliff
By Virginia M. Eichhorn

It was once a common tradition to plant a tree at the birth of a first
child. Some cultures still do so. In Jamaica, for example, a coconut
tree is planted every time a child is born with the hope that the child
will never go hungry. This atavistic connection between birth, family
and trees has integrated itself even into our language. Bloodlines are
described as the “family tree” and to lose connections with home and
family is to be “uprooted”. As such, it isn’t surprising when Tammy
Ratcliff states that her body of work titled far from the tree was
stimulated by her reflections on family and society in relation to
nature and our natural instincts.

Ratcliff is an accomplished printmaker, educated in London, England and
Ontario. She has shown her work in numerous galleries and has been
accepted into the print residency at the Frans Masereel Centrum in
Belgium for summer 2005. On a personal note and important to fully
understand this work, Ratcliff was adopted. It was after the birth
of her son, five years ago, that Ratcliff began a search for her birth
mother. This involved, as she describes it, the piecing together of her
life story which necessitated her maintaining a balance between the
desires and tensions of her birth and adoptive families. It is that
sense of disparate but somehow related parts brought together as a
whole, which she effectively creates within her art work and which
mirrors her personal experience.

far from the tree consists of a number of large and small prints using
primarily intaglio printmaking techniques on mulberry or gampi paper.
Her process involves taking one square plate on which the design is
etched, printing with it, then altering the plate through etching and
drypoint and reprinting several times until her small edition is
complete. The resulting printworks produce images which are subtly
obfuscated yet which retain some ghost or remnant of the original
image. In a poetic sense, this process indicates the passage of time
and changes that everyone experiences, both in their person and in their
relationships. For Ratcliff, this type of artmaking reflects her
fascination with images in which the parts are related, individualistic
and contribute to the sum. While the images are separate and could be
seen on their own, their full effect is not evident until they have been
arranged together to reveal the overall pattern. The pieces are
separate yet related and ultimately are integral to each other.

Ratcliff’s explorations into identity have been metaphorically
articulated through both her imagery and her techniques. While
undoubtedly inspired by personal concerns far from the tree has broader
implications as well. The questions that she rises relating to “family”
can be extended to concerns of society at large. Essentially, how do we
integrate and co-exist with others whose only connection to us is our
sense of place? Ratcliff’s work posits that while we are all separate
and individual that it is through and in our relationships that the “big
picture” is fully realized and relationships revealed. Ultimately, it
isn’t the seed that sprouts or the fruit that the tree bears that is
important; rather what matters is that the ground is fertile and that
the roots grow deep.