This collection of the work of 48 artists represents the diverse conceptual and stylistic approaches to printmaking. Each artist focuses on a particular characteristic of printmaking -- the transferred image, the possibility of multiples, the inherent visual appearance resulting from the process. Essays on artists' works are included and focus more on aesthetics and content than on the mechanical process. Some of the featured artists include Glen Alps, Paul Berger, Joan Ross Blaedel, Byron Bratt, Eric Chesebro, Dennis Cunningham, Lockwood Dennis, and Eleanor Erskine.

Their growing cosmopolitan populations and economic interchange with other Pacific Rim regions and countries stimulate the cultural environment and bring new zest to the evolving identity of Northwest art.

Vital signs, the pulses and patterns of the body, are indicators of essential life functions. The powerful work of Joe Feddersen reveals, like vital signs themselves, the state of the human condition from the vantage point of a contemporary artist who has inherited an ancient aesthetic tradition. Arising from Plateau Indian iconographic interpretations of the human-environment relationship, Feddersen's prints, weavings, and glass sculptures explore the interrelationships between contemporary urban place markers and indigenous design. Following in the footsteps of his Plateau Indian ancestors who "spoke to the land in the patterns of the baskets," Feddersen interprets the urbanscapes and the landscapes surrounding him and transforms those rhythms into art forms that are both coolly modern and warmly expressionistic. Joe Feddersen was born in 1953, in Omak, Washington, just off the Colville Indian Reservation. His mother was Okanogan and Lakes from Penticton, Canada; his father was the son of German immigrants. He has been a member of the art faculty at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, since 1989. Rebecca J. Dobkins is a curator at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art and associate professor of anthropology at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. Barbara Earl Thomas is a painter and writer living in Seattle. Gail Tremblay is a member of the faculty of the Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington.

Published in association with the Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Coast Art, Burke Museum, Seattle, Washington.

Because nature is so expansive and complex, so varied in its range of light, landscape painters often have to look further and more deeply to find form and structure, value patterns, and an organized arrangement of shapes. In Landscape Painting, Mitchell Albala shares his concepts and practices for translating nature's grandeur, complexity, and color dynamics into convincing representations of space and light. Concise, practical, and inspirational, Landscape Painting focuses on the greatest challenges for the landscape artist, such as: • Simplification and Massing: Learn to reduce nature's complexity by looking beneath the surface of a subject to discover the form's basic masses and shapes.• Color and Light: Explore color theory as it specifically applies to the landscape, and learn the various strategies painters use to capture the illusion of natural light.• Selection and Composition: Learn to select wisely from nature's vast panorama. Albala shows you the essential cues to look for and how to find the most promising subject from a world of possibilities. The lessons in Landscape Painting—based on observation rather than imitation and applicable to both plein air and studio practice—are accompanied by painting examples, demonstrations, photographs, and diagrams. Illustrations draw from the work of more than 40 contemporary artists and such masters of landscape painting as John Constable, Sanford Gifford, and Claude Monet. Based on Albala's 25 years of experience and the proven methods taught at his successful plein air workshops, this in-depth guide to all aspects of landscape painting is a must-have for anyone getting started in the genre, as well as more experienced practitioners who want to hone their skills or learn new perspectives.