Meet Mother and Daughter Artists, Gail and Abigail Santner
Join mother-daughter team Gail and Abigail Santner as they explore the intersection of art and the natural world through simple book making and printing, nature walks, wind chime creation and more!
GAIL
My name is Gail and ever since I was little I have enjoyed making things from doll clothes to sock puppets to quilts and now to my latest adventure: artist books. I like creating things that have a purpose and artist books can be used as journals, photo albums, collections of lists, or organizers of memorabilia. I especially like repurposing materials to create something new and interesting so old magazines, postcards and even half-finished quilt projects can be viewed as raw materials for a new book. My other major interest has been gardening and hence the wide world of nature. When in residence, we’ll venture together into basic origami to create instant books; hone our skills with various accordion forms, and try our hand at making interesting covers for our books. With our books we’ll be able to record and remember the beautiful natural scenery of coastal Maine.
I first heard about Book Arts from a neighbor and have been taking classes learning about this art form since 2009 at the Cultural Arts Center in Columbus, Ohio where I live. Working together with people of all ages and different backgrounds has been stimulating: new ideas, new friends, new challenges.
I look forward to visiting Maine, working with my artist daughter and sharing my enthusiasm for Book Arts. See you in July!
ABIGAIL
Hi! I’m Abigail and I’m an artist living and working in New York City. This summer I’m very excited to be joining forces with my mother, an all-around creative and book arts aficionado, to help lead a week of nature-inspired arts projects during the week of July 5 – July 11. Join us as we let the natural world spur our imaginations and populate projects such as simple book design, nature printing, and wind chimes. We’ll integrate some short nature walks into our daily art making, to gather both materials and seek visual inspiration in the living world.
My background is in sculpture and technology-based art, but I migrated to creating work on two-dimensional surfaces after moving to NYC. My drawings try to capture the sense of volume of an object through use of shading and scale – most of my ‘finished’ drawings are over five feet long! For several years now I’ve been inspired by the delicate curling of drying tree leaves. I love their transformation from a flat, green living thing to a curled, delicate three-dimensional object which I then try and capture on paper, bringing it back to a two-dimensional surface.
I come from a very hands-on, creative household which fed my interest in studying fine arts in college. I graduated from The Ohio State University with a BFA and have been actively creating since that time, mostly through painting, drawing, and illustrating.
