Bill Ritchie's art in Washington State
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in the

Presha Sparling & Keith Beckley Collection


Note: the actual print in the Sparling-Beckley collection is not
available for photo at this time but this is a reasonable facsimile.

Little Spaceship Crash

Provenance: 1977. Print. Intaglio, relief, stencil, litho. Colors uncertain at this writing but may have been ochre, red, blue, black, gray. Image 12 X 9 in on 15 X 11 3/4 in Van Gelder Zonen (natural, buff) paper. No. 35/35. Signed lower right.

About Presha Sparling & Keith Beckley: Presha and Keith both took printmaking classes at the UW and we stayed in contact for years afterward. They were instrumental in several special events involving my art and collected a number of my artworks. Twice they hosted us as guests in their house in Sayulita, Mexico. We remained friends many years and I enjoyed tracking their successes in real estate sales and private home construction.

Comment: Spanning two years of development and about 75 impressions, Little Spaceship Crash was the seed for a larger work. These came out of the movie, Planet of the Apes. I like to tell the story about the path flown by the helicopter filming it, and then my entry into computers graphics and how I learned the X-Y-Z of IT. This print was test of methods I would need for a larger version, then the tests resulted in an edition that stood on its own.

Private collections: Evonne Agnello, Billie Jane Bryan, Zena Chew, Larry Dillon, Linda Farris Estate, Alfred Harrison, Kim & Carol Hoffman, Eric Hoffman, Ross Jones Estate, Keith Kirkpatrick, David Lonay, Dennis Evans & Nancy Mee, Anne Middleton, Walter Parsons, Maury Pepin Estate, Donna Pope, Ed & Anne Praczukowski, James "Bud" Richardson, Lynda Ritchie, Carol Fuller- Schwab, Lori Shepard, Peggy Vanbianchi, and Carolyn Law & Andy Weisbecker

Institutions and corporate collections: Art Planning Consultants, New York, NY; Baker University, Baldwin, KS; Landau/Alexander Gallery, Los Angeles CA;Oregon Arts Commission; Bill Mally Collection, University of Washington IMS, Seattle, WA; Norton Building, Seattle, WA; Teller Training Institute, Seattle, WA; United Pacific Reliance Corporation,  CA; USIA Tokyo, Japan.

Exhibitions: Anne Hughes Gallery, Portland, OR; Davidson Galleries, Seattle (where it won an award), WA; DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; Impressions Gallery, Boston, MA; Kiku Gallery, Seattle, WA;  Silvermine Guild of Arts, New Canaan, CT; US Information Agency, Tokyo Japan; Visual Arts Center, Anchorage, AK


Locus and sea squares placeholder art by bill ritchie

Placeholder, the image above is a placeholder to indicate
the general composition of Sparling-Beckley's print.

Locus and Sea Squares

Provenance: Print. From a variable edition of 141. Both the lacquered copper plate and the woodblock is in the Buzz Pearson collection.

Click here to see the process of Bill printing this print
and the printed transcript by selecting: Transcript

Similar impressions in collections of Karl Beckley, David Bethlahmey, Tom Blue, Mark Bouffiou, Marnie Briggs, Billie and Eric Bryan, Fran Calhoun, Carl T. Chew, King County Northwest Artists Collection, Gilkey Collection, Lynda Ritchie, Rockford College, Microsoft Corporation, Sean Elwood, Laurie and John Fairman, Darcie and John Furlan, Banci Giacomo, S. Maria Guaita Estate, Karen Guzak, Laura Jackson, Davis, Wright and Jones, Inc., William Kelly, Dennis and Dick Kerr, Laurie and Michi Kosuage, Dan Lipkie, David Lotz, Kent Lovelace Estate, Wayne Ludvigsen, Jeffrey Martin, Emeline Mathews Estate, Paul Matsumura, Dennis Evans and Nancy Mee, Portland Art Museum, Camilla Nowinski, Buzz Pearson, Tommer Peterson, Deborah Poletti, David Prentice, Casey and Douglas Rosenberg, Ken Ross, Robert Sarkis, D. G. Smith, Nellie and Michael Sunderland, George and Kim Suyama, David and Sandra Taylor.

Comment: This print is from a series of 141 trial proofs and artist's proofs in "cycles" of approximately 15 each, of different color series. They are proofs which I made in the processes of cyanotype, woodcut, and intaglio techniques. The result is a series of monotypes. The images derive from three sources: The map is based on the Colorado River, a vicinity known once as the Crossing of the Fathers; the leaf-like shape I call locus--the path of a moving point (I drew these to help establish data for use in a computer program). The Great Wave was drawn to resemble the famous print by Hokusai. Besides the pleasure of meeting people who want to take this print into their personal collections, I have shown the print numerous times and it has given me many rewards, nationally & regionally.


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Email: ritchie@seanet.com