Bill Ritchie Artworks in the

Lynda Ritchie Collection

"Sweet Target Hearts No. 12"

1976. Mixed media work, (lithograph, intaglio, relief, chine-colle). Gray, brown, orange, black, ochre, yellow. Image(s) 19 1/2 X 14 3/4 in. each on 29 1/2 X 42 in. Arches Cover. Signed lower right, "A/P To Lynda." Collections also of Jane Bryan, Nellie Sunderland, Sam Davidson, The Evergreen State College and others.  Exhibited at Northwest Printmakers, Anacortes and Everett Art Festivals.

Artist's Comment: One of the best-documented prints I did in terms of keeping notes--available on the Web--because it bridge the time in 1975-1976 that I made my first trip from Seattle to Japan and back. This trip--or bridge--served me in ways similar to my old heroes of the Northwest School, the painters Graves, Toby and their kind. The name comes from a strange source--cartoons and pop music!

Two drawings on lithograph stones that started out to be a continuation of the Target Heart Series (I had one about five before) but then I got something like "writer's block." I was in a dilemma as to what to do until I went to Japan and discovered it is "all right" to repeat myself in my art and craft. I wrote an essay about, too. C. T. Chew helped me through it.

It was hard to list this as a "lithograph" when I wrote down the methods I used to make this print. I settled on the drawings on stone because they got the thing started. Then I added and added and added to my plates--even got C. T. Chew to add his collagraphs! -- until they came together as you see them now. The making of the Sweet Target Heart suite of prints spans almost a year in which one of my biggest dilemmas seemed to reach resolution. That was what I call the dilemma of redundant art. Then again, I am not sure.

"Video Hangdown"

1969 Intaglio print, Impression Red, silver, ochre on natural buff paper chine colle'd. Image 8 3/4" X 12" on 12 1/2" X 16" Arches Cover. A/P Lynda. Signed lower right. See also Kathy Rabel and Jundt Art Museum Collections

Artist's comment: "I'd made a series of targets and reflections, and it was the first year I started my video art period. About this time I acquired a lining tool (AKA 'liner') that made tiny, evenly spaced lines that reminded me of video raster lines. I also was perfecting the KPR photo-etching process. Last, I got a can of silver ink from Dan Smith. Chine colle I had learned from Stephen Hazel. All these things combined to yield my 'Hangdown Target.'"

"My Father's Farm"

Print. Intaglio and relief from etched zinc plate printed in thalo green w/black, blue and yellow. Image 16 1/4 X 22 3/4 in on 20 3/4 X 29 3/4 in Arches Cover. Signed lower right A/P "for Lynda". 

My Father's Farm is named for the real thing, inthe Yakima Valley, where we used siphon hoses for irrigation. Those bright, early mornings were just a memory when I made this print, and when I made this print I was in a very different environment, indeed! I composed the image from a video photograph made in the first "video art" experiments, using film of a sunrise over the Cascades and a drawing of the same title.  See this work in the Gloria Abbenhouse, Lee Altman, Rick Asher, Dr. Charles McCann, Kay Pruvich, and Kathy Sharp Collections, as well as the Everett Public Libary and the Seattle Juvenile Center.

You can contact Lynda for more information and similar prints at  ritchie@emeralda.com.