The interdisciplinary artist Linda Pagani just wrapped up the first half of a two-part residency at Stone Hill Press, a private New England professional printmaking studio, and the results are glorious. Building on her well-established studio practice, the print work showcases the interdependence of Pagani’s process-forward approach and her thematic concerns around space, motherhood, architecture and constructions of contemporary womanhood.

Pagani makes large-format photographs, intricate sculptures and site-specific installations, most of which she creates alone in her studio. Working with Bryan Smith, the founder and Master Printer at Stone Hill Press pushed her to think collaboratively and accept results she wasn’t used to, an experience she appreciated more than she expected to at this moment in her career.

Like her photographs and sculptures, the prints Pagani created at Stone Hill Press are enigmatic, ethereal and highly abstract. They prompt discussion and inquiry rather than making definitive statements. In “Suspended,” petal-like shapes rendered in whispers of color — blush pink, iceberg blue and the faintest hint of shimmer — float directionless. The pockmarked surfaces of the pieces in the series titled “ADORN (Shattered)” create a three-dimensional effect resembling a close-up of building material or photographed shadows of stardust on the moon, rather than monotype prints on paper. And in “Adornment,” thousands of the tiniest circles scatter across a grey-white void, extending slowly and quietly toward infinity.

Pagani’s work installed in the print studio. Photo courtesy of the artist.

“My creative practice centers around a poetic study of life within the architecture of home, which has served as muse, medium and subject in much of my work,” Pagani explained in an artist’s statement. “The domestic setting, along with its inhabitants and surrounding landscape, serve as laboratory for examining personal experiences as I investigate more closely my own female experience within the walls of family and home life.”

Pagani grew up in Chicago, the daughter of Polish immigrants. Her seamstress mother and mechanic father taught her to value work made by hand, an affinity which has deepened as her artistic practice has evolved. Art degrees from The Art Institute of Chicago and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts (now SMFA Tufts) initially led to a photography practice in which she explored unseen or ignored intersections of nature, light and the built environment.

Linda Pagani, “Approaching Zero (door + arc)” 2012. Archival pigment print 30” x 40”, ed. 5 and 24” x 30” ed. 5.

In Pagani’s work, landscape and the environment transcend their literal definitions. The environments that she designs extend beyond internal | external. She locates sites of investigation outside the physical and cognitive. She says she thinks about things unseen, suspension, and the place between movement and stillness. White is not a singular color, but exposed as a myriad of shades, sometimes more grey, more yellow, or pink.

“Approaching Zero (door + arc)” 2012, captures an arc of light created by the reflection of a door handle, caught while her children were napping. The graphical composition and varying shades of white suggest another dimension.

Pagani’s work guides us into the unappreciated and the unknown, where oppressive gender, class, and vocation assignments give way to transcendent acceptance and sacred space. For her, this is personal. We met at the print studio and again on zoom. She told me: “For me, quietly, everything is a self portrait or a snapshot of your life. Motherhood has reminded me what it means to be a woman. What is a woman? Who are we? Have we made a difference? Have we pushed that so-called needle one way or another? I'm wondering more and more if my work is about womanhood as much as motherhood.”

She explores the self, obliteration, and feelings of invisibility in her 2020 photographs “Dissolving” and “Re-emerging,” shot with a DSLR, a deviation from her usual large format analog camera (the kind that takes hours) using a slow shutter speed.

Pagani found snippets of time to work in between her responsibilities as wife, homeowner, mother. These she identifies as constraints. Like Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus movement which inspired the design of Pagani’s Lexington home, she believes constraints are crucial for art. As Gropius put it, “Limitation makes the creative mind inventive.” She explained, “My constraints have helped me hone in on what’s precious to me. I searched for this love of life that I’ve always had through little things, like the light coming through the doors… If I had no constraints I don’t know if I would be an artist.”

When she temporarily put down her camera and began exploring installation and sculpture, Pagani wanted to work with space, architecture and light in new ways. She began playing with folding paper discs to create origami-like shapes. These became site-specific installations in organic, 3-D clusters or constellations.

Initially drawn to the resemblance of the folded objects to overlooked architectural details such as corners and creases, she was, with time, able to appreciate that most people thought they resembled flowers. Part of her evolution as an artist is a growing acceptance of her inherent love of things criticized by the art world as too feminine — the beautiful, the shimmering, shapes resembling flowers and stars.

“Garden of Eve” was exhibited in 2020 as part of an exhibition titled “Woven Female Landscape.” The artist invited women to make their own folded paper objects and add them to the assemblage, “placing a lens on the collective female experience.” These works initiated ideas that become important in the prints she created at Stone Hill Press, concerning propagation, reproduction and the fleeting nature of existence. Enthusiastic response to her paper installations, led her to make wall sculptures in other materials, specifically enameled copper and ceramic. Their customizability make them popular commissions.

Linda Pagani, “Garden of Eve,” site-specific paper wall installation, 25’ x 30’, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.

In 2023, Pagani initiated a project she could work on in a waiting room when one of her children was in the hospital. She deconstructed pieces of jewelry and invented a process of sewing the tiny pieces (glass beads for example), on to canvas, board or stiff paper. She emphasizes the intense labor associated with this work, hours and hours of intricate sewing and beadwork by hand. With this series, she could participate in an ongoing cultural conversation about social expectations around female identity while never leaving her child’s side.

“I love seeing women deconstruct and break the rules. Taking something that’s knit for example and completely taking it apart. The work I do with jewelry is about deconstructing. It’s not that I’m trying to take on the whole world, but I want to deconstruct preconceived notions. Can we take apart the patriarchy? I want to pose the question.
”

— Linda Pagani

The ADORN series speaks to women’s invisible labor and the load women carry for the family and the home.

All of this led to Stone Hill Press extending an invitation. Pagani accepted with a mix of excitement and trepidation. The long, formal history of printmaking was intimidating, as were the rigorous, methodical rules. “I’m not much of a planner,” she explained. “I’m a feeler. I’m very emotional about the work that I do. It ends up looking like I’m experimental, but really I just don’t have the patience for instruction and rules.” The opportunity to partner with a Master Printer turned her intimidation into motivation, and she said they were both excited to stretch the idea of what printmaking can do. “It was the ultimate collaboration. I didn’t feel threatened, which can sometimes happen as an artist. It was a very easy relationship, we had an open dialogue coming to the project with different skill sets and different purposes.”

Pagani went into the residency with an intention to explore translating three of her sculptural series: “Suspended”: works on paper; “ADORN”: works on paper and canvas, installation, sculpture; and “Garden of Eve”: wall installations.

Residencies re-situate artists, providing space so they can explore their reservoir of existing ideas as well as stimulating new, sometimes radical areas of inquiry. Reflecting on the fully immersive three days at Stone Hill Press, Pagani said, “I was energized. Working that way works really well for me… My life is complex and I’m not always in control of my time. Carving out work-time like that, where you are just in this momentum, things happen. Maybe that is the ideal way for artists to work, you have a period of time to exhaust your ideas and exhaust the different ways to do something and you get to some sort of conclusion.”

According to Stone Hill Press, “Linda is brilliant and making work like no one else in Boston. Her technical skills are unparalleled. More importantly, the conceptual aspects of her work are so important at this moment in the world… Her wall sculptures, beaded work and photography were perfect works to translate to prints.”

When I asked her how she felt after the first three days, Pagani told me: “It was a gift. We had an open dialogue, coming to the project with different skill sets and different purposes. It was the ultimate collaboration.”

Below are examples from the three series: “Suspended,” “ADORN,” and “Adornment.” This work is best appreciated in person, you’ll find information on how to see it at the end of the article. To better guide an understanding of the process, the collaboration and the inventive ways Pagani pushed the limits of printmaking, I’ve included some notes from the artist.

SUSPENDED

Inspired by and building from “Garden of Eve.”

Monotypes with vellum stencils. “We used some shapes that I created for another project around the form of a flower. Inking these shapes with printing ink and mica powder once again gave us the reflective qualities I was after. The ink was also intentionally diluted with extra oil to create translucence. Once we ran these layered compositions through the press, the results included a multitude of lines and intersections of colors embossed into the paper. “

Linda Pagani, “Suspended, ryb.s.d.” Monotype with mica powder on paper, 11” x 11.”

Linda Pagani, “Suspended,ry.m.a” 2024. Monotype with mica powder on paper, 22” x 22.”

ADORN

Inspired by and building off of the “ADORN” works consisting of deconstructed jewelry sewn on paper and canvas.

Monotypes with glass beads. “This is where we got quite experimental. We crushed glass beads onto paper through the press. With ink and acrylic we were able to keep the beads in place, some whole and many crushed, while others fell off and left embossments. This gave the prints a look of an explosion of sorts — in fact the work is titled “ADORN (Shattered).”

Linda Pagani, “ADORN (shattered.s.1)” 2024. Monotype w ink, graphite powder, glass beads on paper, 10.25” x 10.25.”

Linda Pagani, “ADORN (shattered.m.5)” 2024. Monotype w color surface roll, graphite powder, glass beads on Magnani Pescia paper, 22” x 22” framed.

ADORNMENT

Copper Plate Etching. “Normally, a drawing is marked into a prepared copper plate... I wanted to create a composition of tiny circles that would resemble some of my large wall installations of enameled copper flowers but did not have the patience to draw hundreds of tiny circles onto a plate. So we sprinkled tiny glass beads onto the prepared copper plates and ran them through the printing press… the beads left marks on the ground of the plates which when dipped into acid, etched perfect little circles onto the copper.

We mixed gold leaf powder and mica powder into the ink for a shimmery effect. This made the ink very paste-like and extremely difficult to work with. The Master Printer at Stone Hill Press developed a special process of applying and removing the extra stiff ink from the plates that led to our desired result. This required a lot of patience, some unusual tools and elbow grease!”

Linda Pagani, “Adornment” 2024 (edition of 7 + AP). Two-plate color etching w gold leaf powder and mica powder on Magnani Pescia paper 19” x 20” paper.

The collaboration will continue in July with another three day intensive work session. Pagani realizes the value of stepping away from what’s familiar. She’s ready to take her work in new directions. “I have a hunch that the next way of working for me will be more expansive. So much of what I do now is very intimate. I want to expand what I’m talking about beyond the domestic… For me to move forward I have to disconnect from what I know.”

“If I had no constraints, I don’t know if I would be an artist.”

— Linda Pagani

Because she makes delicate marks, often no bigger than specs of dust, Pagani’s print work is best experienced in person. To see the work for yourself, contact the artist at LINDA PAGANI STUDIO, www.lindapagani.com. She offers private viewing appointments at her studio in Lexington, MA. Any available works are sold directly by the artist.

Some prints will be included in an exhibition at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth, NH August 2 - 25, 2024.

All images courtesy of the artist.