Jess Hough is a master at detail work. Her intricate landscape prints depict scale and light beautifully, putting the viewer right in the middle of a scene. For the past few months, her work has focused on areas of the Southeast Utah Group of National Parks: Hough is this year’s Community Artist in the Parks.
What she’s enjoyed about the program so far—she’s nearly halfway through—is the ability to spend a lot of time in a place, she said. In the program, she spends at least 24 hours each week from April 1 to October 31 making art in the Southeast Utah Group, which includes Arches and Canyonlands national parks and the Natural Bridges and Hovenweep national monuments.
She finds herself spending hours in one place to create a drawing of it, she said.
“Sitting in one place and observing the way the light changes over the course of a few hours, and noticing the way the light changes the shapes of the landscapes, definitely helps me look at things differently,” Hough said.
Part of her responsibility too is engaging with visitors, something she said she’s enjoyed so far.
“Usually, if I’m creating art in my house, it’s pretty solitary, so it’s been fun having a little more interaction,” Hough said. “The most fun thing about these visitor interactions is talking with kids: they’re just so excited about art and excited about their own creative projects. It’s cool to see their enthusiasm.”
Hough’s main medium is intaglio printing, which allows her to create layers of delicate detail. In intaglio printing, the image area is below the flat surface of the printing plate; meaning, instead of relief printing, where ink is applied to the raised portion of a woodblock or piece of rubber, ink is instead applied to an etched metal or plastic plate, so the ink sinks into the recesses. In both printmaking processes, paper is rolled over the ink, but with intaglio, the paper must be very firmly pressed into the plate.
The program requires that Hough makes art in the parks, so she’s been splitting her time between sketching landscapes out near trails and making prints near the parks’ visitor centers. Her printing press is handmade—intaglio printing requires a specialized printing press, so Hough made one herself—and she said it’s been fun to introduce visitors to intaglio printing, which many mistake for screen printing. She has her setup time down to 15 minutes.
“When I applied to the program, what I wanted to do was spend more time in the parks and spend more time working on art,” Hough said. “It’s been working out great.”
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