Judith O'Rourke

Some of the most intriguing vitreograph prints that have been created at Littleton Studios over the years are the works of one of its most important associates, master printer Judith O'Rourke.

Ms O'Rourke has been employed at Littleton Studios in Spruce Pine, North Carolina for seventeen years. Her job involves collaborating with artists from the United States and abroad to produce fine art prints. Over the years she has worked with artists as varied as glass sculptor Dale Chihuly, Janus Press founder Claire Van Vliet, Czech glass master Stanislav Libensky, Italian abstractionist Emilio Vedova, Wisconsin surrealist John Wilde and glass sculptor and founder of Littleton Studios, Harvey K. Littleton.

Ms. O'Rourke graduated from Southern Connecticut State University in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science in Art and went on to the University of Texas, Austin where she was awarded a Master of Fine Art in 1985. An international program offered by the University of Texas, San Antonio took her to Florence, Italy in 1984 to study intaglio printmaking. Ms. O'Rourke began exhibiting her work in 1983 and has an impressive record of one hundred exhibitions, including eleven solo shows, to her credit. Her work is included in the collections of The University of Texas, Austin; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; John Slade Ely Museum, New Haven, Connecticut; Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia; The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; The University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi; and Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

The starting point for Ms. O'Rourke's work is the natural world. She has written, "For me, nature is both external and internal. External nature includes the quality of the environment around me: changes in the seasons, temperature and weather, variations in the purity and scent of the air. Internal nature includes my emotional responses to external stimuli and the sensations and physical processes within me; processes which are universal to the human condition. For me nature is not a single tangible thing or set of things to be literally interpreted. I admire artists as different as Arthur Dove, Charles Burchfield, Georgia O'Keeffe, Joan Snyder and Bill Jensen for the way they experience the environment symbolically, abstractly, sensually."

Ms. O'Rourke finds inspiration through the visual diaries she keeps of her everyday experiences. Inspiration can come by way of images that she sketches or records with a digital camera, or by the writing down of a short phrase or even a single word that will remind her later of a sensation or emotion that she wants to explore in her art. Although she also draws and paints, printmaking is her primary form of artistic expression. She especially enjoys the indirect process involved in printmaking, and the element of surprise it brings when the press blankets are thrown back and a fresh proof is lifted from the matrix.

In spite of the restrictions that printmaking technique can place upon artistic spontaneity, the artist has asserted that she "…work[s] the plate with much the same freedom that a painter works a canvas.' Her prints are composed of multiple impressions, often taken from a single plate that is manipulated between impressions. Imagery emerges with each reworking and the print changes, sometimes drastically, with each proofing.

Ms. O'Rourke's prints have a presence that can be appreciated whether they are seen from a distance, surrounded by other works or examined up close. Her talent lies in expressing abstract emotions, sensations and events through imagery that is compelling and memorable.

Originally written by Ellen Fischer, director of The Littleton Collection gallery