Jane Fay Baker is a printmaker who grew up on Cape Cod with grandparents on Nantucket Island. She obtained her fine arts degree from Smith College and her Masters in Printmaking and Art Education from Mass College of Art. Jane has been making woodcuts for over 30 years, she prints by hand in limited editions, sometimes hand coloring her works with watercolor. When she reaches the last print in a series, the wood block is destroyed.
She is on the board of the Printmakers of Cape Cod, and has been a member of the Artists Association of Nantucket since 1993. Jane’s work has been exhibited at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, the Provincetown Art Museum, The Cotuit Center for the Arts and others. Her work is in numerous private collections on and off the island.
I am interested in the iconography of life at the water’s edge. I grew up in Woods Hole, which is the bottom corner of Cape Cod. My childhood was spent there as well as on Nantucket with my grandparents, so for most of my life my inclination has been toward being on or near the water. I grew up in skiffs and sailboats, clamming and fishing, climbing over jetties and tide pools. I love the under-looked backstage of this environment, rusty buoys, old fish hooks, wooden boats and hardscrabble bluefish.
I begin my blocks by drawing them out in reverse on sanded poplar planks and I then carve out the negative space of the design using hand tools and a mallet. Once the block is carved, I roll ink on with a brayer and press paper onto the block using the back of an old spoon.
