Carolyn Muskat
Carolyn’s work has been in local, national, and international exhibitions, including the solo exhibitions Here and Now: Prints by Carolyn Muskat at the Irving Arts Center, Irving, TX, A Sense of Place at Smith College in MA and Waystation at Art House 5 in Hanoi, Vietnam, plus the group exhibitions 4th Jogja International Miniprint Biennale 2020-21, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Four Americans: Prints and Works on Paper at the Fine Arts Assoc. Exhibition House in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Carving a Creative Path: Prints from BIG INK’s Permanent Collection, curated by Kate Driscoll, The Hudgens Center for the Arts, Duluth, GA. Fall 2019, Carolyn traveled to Hanoi, Vietnam as one of two representatives from the U.S. for the International Arts Residency and Festival Hanoi Arts Connecting 4. Carolyn was awarded the “Excellence in Teaching” Award by the Southern Graphics Council International at the 2019 Conference in Dallas, TX. In May 2018, Carolyn traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa to teach and work at Artists Proof Studio. In 2016, Carolyn was invited to participate in the Pulau Ketam International Art Festival on the isle of Pulau Ketam, Malaysia. In 2015, she participated in the Yogyakarta International Art Festival. The festival hosted 50 artists from 20 different countries to create work in Indonesia. Carolyn also represented the US at the Sasaran International Art Festival 2014, an international arts workshop and residency in Malaysia. The festival invited over 70 artists from 23 countries, creating and sharing work over 12 days. After the festival, Carolyn traveled to Vietnam for her first solo exhibition in Vietnam. In 2010, 2012 and 2013, Ms. Muskat was invited to teach at the Center for Graphic Excellence in Hanoi, Vietnam, where she worked with some of the most respected artists in the country. In 2012, she was awarded the Vietnam Art Medal, an award given to only four other non-Vietnamese artists at that time.
Carolyn Muskat owns and operates Muskat Studios, a professional printmaking studio in Somerville, MA where she creates her own work and collaborates with artists to produce original fine art prints. The Studio recently celebrated 25 years of collaboration and artistic creation with the publication of a portfolio of prints: 25 Artists, 25 prints, 25 years. The 20th anniversary of the studio celebrated with an exhibition at Somerville’s Brickbottom Gallery. A full-color catalog was produced, including all of the work created at the studio, plus a history of the founding of the studio and an overview of printmaking in the Boston area. Carolyn has worked with more than 50 artists to publish over 400 prints in the past 27 years. In summer 2020, Carolyn developed Lemon-Etch Litho, a way to create and print lithographs at home without a press using easily sourced non-toxic materials.
Ms. Muskat has also been invited to teach at several local art colleges, including the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Hartford Art School, and Lesley University College of Art & Design. At the 2019 SGCI Conference in Dallas, TX, Carolyn was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award. As part of the 2015 SGCI Conference in Knoxville, TN, Carolyn participated in the International Panel: Outside the Comfort Zone: The Print as a form of Graphic Diplomacy. She has also presented numerous technical demonstrations. She has been a guest professor for AIB's Master of Fine Arts program, and a visiting artist and lecturer at RISD, Boston University, Montserrat College of Art, Wellesley and Salem State College. She has given numerous talks and lectures at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Danforth Museum of Art, the Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, and the Museum of Printing in North Andover. Ms. Muskat is an active member of The Boston Printmakers, serving over 7 years on its Executive Board and 2 years as its President, and was the Finance Chair of the committee that organized and hosted the 2003 Southern Graphics Conference, Boston. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA and is a Tamarind Master Printer.
You walk through the woods and then stop. You look up and are caught within the branches, the lines and shapes, the shadows and forms, the sky.
You’re working under an open pavilion, on an island off the coast of Malaysia. It is time for the afternoon rains. You stop and watch the drops pelt the concrete in amazing rhythms, patterns and chaos.
The sun comes out, and each droplet becomes a mirror, a prism, reflecting light and color briefly before evaporating back into the air or being absorbed into the earth.
You are distracted by the sound of the rain on the skylight above you. It shifts, louder and softer, along with the visual staccato of points.
You hear the birds – so many birds. You look around, but you cannot find them. And then you look up, and see them like notes floating along the treetops.
You are at a lookout point, waiting for the sun to set over the ocean. You turn, and see a wide expanse of quiet tidal pools, ignored by the busloads of tourists surrounding you. You climb down and spend so much time exploring the creatures and plants and colors and forms that you miss the sunset. But you captured something else.
All of these and more are moments to stop, to absorb the colors, the light, the movement and line, the experience of a point in time in the world around us.
Whether walking around my neighborhood or traveling far from home, I have developed the habit of stopping and observing my surroundings. Sometimes the focus is on the unique; sometimes it is on the universal. But it is always about this moment, this brief, fleeting moment.