Tammy Ratcliff is a Guelph artist specializing in printmaking and fibre arts. She maintains an active studio practice while co-managing Wyndham Art Supplies, the family business she runs with her partner. Since completing studies at Beal Art, London, ON (1993) she has shown work regionally, nationally, and internationally. Notable exhibitions include ‘Fibreworks 2020’ at Idea Exchange, Cambridge, International Print Centre New York juried exhibition ‘Homebody’ (Coursework Prize), and the Mid-American Print Council’s juried show at the University of Kentucky (honourable mention prize). Her work is included in numerous private, public, and corporate collections including the Dan Donovan Collection at University of Toronto, Art Gallery of Guelph, Ernst & Young and Idea Exchange. She has travelled extensively for artistic research and development, including residencies in Tromsø, Norway, Belgium and to Japan to research fine paper making history and techniques.

Tammy is inspired by the botanical world – the impermanence and resilience of plant life as well as its many examples of perfect imperfection. The papers she uses in her print practice literally and conceptually support her imagery of flora – they are handmade from plant fibres and part of the botanical life that her work often depicts. On a trip to Japan in 2019, Tammy had the great privilege of visiting traditional papermakers to learn more about the fibres and processes involved in creating her favourite art material. Some of these beautiful papers are simultaneously delicate and incredibly strong. After this trip, she was inspired to push her materials and processes further which led to the creation of a body of work that transforms etchings and monoprints on washi paper into sculptural renditions of common garments, including sports socks, an apron and underwear. These pieces were created through a process of printmaking on layers of fine, handmade Japanese papers, then stitching them together by hand. Items of clothing whose utilitarian value diminishes as they become threadbare and fragile through use are thus transformed into artifacts of shared memories of the passage of time. This nostalgia parallels a longing to preserve the complex traditional art of growing and processing plant fibres into exquisite papers.

Technique

The process and materials I employ are as important to my practice as the subject matter, and my love of printmaking and fine washi (handmade Japanese papers) informs how I work. My recent body of work is composed of multi-layered etchings and relief prints on semi- transparent washi. 

Intaglio can be simply described as drawing or etching into a metal plate (in my case, copper) to create grooves and depressions which hold the printing ink. This ink is then transferred onto the paper through the pressure of an etching press. The etched lines in the plate allow for the process to be repeated until the plate’s surface has worn down to the point that its ability to hold ink has been affected. 

The number of identical prints created in the same manner is called an edition or the bottom number you see on a hand pulled print (ie 3/10). If a plate has been printed only once, before the plate or ink is altered, then this print is unique and is called a monoprint (1/1). 

Many of the works in my shows are monoprints created from various etched plates, combined with parts of other prints to make new and completely singular prints. Chine collé (‘pasted tissue’) is a printmaking technique that I have used in my work for many years, and find it allows me lots of room for experimentation and discovery when assembling printed pieces of washi into new compositions.