Marci Ross Easterbrook is a printmaker, papermaker and book artist. I use a various materials and methods for illustration and artist books. I’ve taught fine arts and artist books for many years at colleges and in workshops. Currently I teach online Advanced Book Arts and Book as Sculpture at Santa Fe Community College. My images often have animals, plants and text. I also am a language therapist for children.

As a teacher and artist I strongly believe that materials in our hands will lead our senses and memories to generate ideas that can lead to visual narratives. Creative and cognitive can meet happily in text and image. Materials bridge our experiences and allow discovery.

My recent work focused on ideas joined with personal experience and stories from folktales. Los Poblanos Fields developed from a full moon walk in that New Mexico open space at harvest time. I’ve used wire, clay, gesso, Coptic bindings, paste papers and corn kernals in the installation.

Current work is illustration based on the Japanese folk tale of The Magic Tea Kettle. It will become a dimensional artist book that uses pulp, mixed media on flax paper, and metal finishes. I also am working on a large altered book project with the theme of peace and protection. The form is based on Korean paper armour of the middle ages.

In my course, Book as Sculpture at SFCC, I teach artist books with structures developed in decorated and pulp paper, fiber, fabric, wood, clay, metal, leather and found materials. The class is a community of artists who share their problem solving, insights and often use book making to process difficult and sensitive experiences or just to play.

Texts also guide my work. I have illustrated Two Foxes as an artist book with dry point etchings and adapted the narrative from Peace Tales by Margaret Read MacDonald.  The images for this book were drawn from my studies at Penland School of Art and Craft in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. I also have created an artist book of lithographic prints from the Inuit poem of One Language. It began as tea stains on paper.

Through my interest in illustration and book arts I’ve learned hand papermaking, letterpress and typography. I integrate my love of art history and children’s book art into book arts and plan a new course for image making and learning art methods called the Illustrated Page in 2024. In our studies we will look at different classic and contemporary children’s picture books and explore methods for picture making and text in artist books and journals.

I enjoy making my work and hope it gives you pleasure.

Thanks for visiting my website.  Stay posted for news and gallery!

My Bio

I’ve been fortunate to grow up on the East coast, live in Mendocino County in California for thirty years, live in New Mexico for ten years, and now reside in beautiful northern California’s Humboldt county amongst the redwoods, salt marshes and ocean landscapes.

Art Studies:

School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Rhode Island School of Design, BFA in Illustration, minor English

University of New Mexico, MA in Art Education, minor Arts Business

Tamarind Institute of Lithography, professional printmaking certificate

Additional studies: printmaking and book arts at Penland School of Crafts, San Francisco Center for the Book, Haystack School of Crafts, Mendocino College.

Teaching:

I have taught drawing, painting, printmaking and book arts at Mendocino College, CA, Mendocino Art Center, Cape Cod Art Association, and since 2012 I have taught Book Arts, Papermaking, Letterpress and Lithography at Sante Fe Community College. I also have taught children book arts as a Montessori elementary teacher and with grants in schools and as a resident artist at Mendocino Art Center, CA.

It is a joy to me to work with students of many backgrounds, from professional artists to young children. My language therapy work with children with dyslexia often begins with paste papers and making a personal journal with them for drawing and writing.

My work in Book Arts and printmaking has been in SFCC Faculty shows, BAG Rotunda shows, Lark Book 500 volume 2, and the cover art of the publication, Art Education, September 2017, Vol. 70, No. 5.

Below is an example of illustration for Two Foxes. For my drawings I have researched many photos of grey and red foxes, their habitat, and of course, how they walk upright while carrying buckets and lanterns.

Thanks for visiting my website. Look for news and updated Gallery!