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Gayle Fitzpatrick's Biography

Papermaker Gayle Fitzpatrick overturns tradition while making it. 

Her training with master Tsuneo Naito in Japan allows her to use the technical aspects of oriental papermaking to express European ideals of color, and composition. Gayle recreates visual experiences from her travels; in this way, intense environments in Japan, Ireland, Spain, and Eastern Europe have become evocative compositions such as the Krakow or Andalus pieces.

Gayle's handmade paper and intaglio prints are regularly exhibited throughout New England and the Midwest. She has had one-woman shows in Chicago, Washington DC, and her spiritual home, the Ogunquit Art Association in Maine. Her pieces have been displayed at the 30th Crafts National (award), Paper/Fiber XX (Iowa), and Pulp Friction (Mesa, Arizona).

Gayle gives frequent workshops in western and oriental papermaking, etching, and bookbinding at Chicago studios and collages. She has taught at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and at the Barn Gallery in Ogunquit. She assisted teaching papermaking and book arts at Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC.

Gayle is a member of the Maine Craft Association, the Ogunquit Art Association, the Maine Association for Women in the Arts, and the Chicago Artists Coalition.

Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC; Etching, Book Arts.
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Island, Me.; Etching, Papermaking.
Massachusetts College of Art; B.F.A. w/Honors in Painting.

Gayle Fitzpatrick makes her own handmade, archival-quality paper for her prints. She learned the art in Japan, and performs the tedious process with imported Japanese tree bark. The results are breathtaking and graceful etchings with aqua tint. 

While the papermaking is labor intensive and vital to the finished product, Gayle is more interested in composition. Hours of her time are spent at the Chicago zoo, sketching the cats, leopards, and lions. Cats figure prominently in her work, as well as nudes. "One can always find cats...one can't always find nudes."

Gayle is originally from Boston, and continues to show in New England, with the Boston Printmakers and the widely respected show in Ogunquit, Maine. Her works have appeared in dozens of major national shows, and are permanently exhibited in galleries in New York, Washington D.C., Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Her one-woman shows have included the Bird-in-Hand Gallery in Washington D.C., L'elan Vitale, Inc., in New York, and the Walt Kuhn Gallery in Cape Neddick, Maine.