Ellen Shattuck Pierce | Wash, Rinse, Repeat, 2020

Linocut

61 x 46 cm

Edition of 20

Ellen Shattuck Pierce is an artist, mother and a public school art teacher living in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. Making linocuts gives her a sense of agency. Printmaking is her main medium. She is attracted to print’s historical role in disseminating knowledge, its use as a decorative art, and its use as a medium for protest. She embraces all three of these aspects in her printwork to create social commentary. With the pivot to online teaching during the pandemic, she had a window through which to view the pandemic’s effect on families’ lives. She recorded the pain, anxiety and grief she witnessed by carving 18” by 24” linocuts. The result is a series of sixteen relief carvings called the Covid Chronicles which chronicle her experience of the Covid19 pandemic in Boston, Massachusetts and its wider impact in the United States. Nearing what we are starting to hope will be the end of the pandemic, she intends for the series to serve as a remembrance and a validation of our shared experience. Additionally, she hopes it will be read as a cautionary tale of what we hope not to repeat when the United States faces its next pandemic.