Librarian and Artist: Elizabeth Stettler

Besides being expert accordion players, experts on rare carillon music, and sought-after consultants for popular TV shows, today's librarians can also be successful artists. Meet Elizabeth Stettler, master of the woodcut print.

Elizabeth Stettler, wearing one of her designs.
Image via http://www.libraryasincubatorproject.org

Interviewed by the Library as Incubator Project, Stettler works as an assistant lab technician at a paper conservation lab in Austin, Texas. There, she repairs works of art on paper and paper archives, putting her studies in library science - with a concentration on preservation - to very good use.

In her free time, Stettler focuses on woodcuts. "I love making woodcuts because they are a great mix of sculpture and printmaking," she told the Library as Incubator Project. "And I can cut and print on my dining room table without fancy presses or chemicals. Recently, I learned to screen print and have been making screens from my woodcut images."

A hand printed woodcut by Stettler.
Image via http://www.libraryasincubatorproject.org

At her Etsy shop, LibrarianArtist, Elizabeth Stettler has a plethora of items that she hand printed from her meticulously created woodcuts. There are T-shirts and tote bags, onesies and tea towels, and greeting cards and blank sketchbooks and journals, all featuring her woodcut images. These images are of owls, foxes, chickens, buffalo, octopi, bats, cats and dogs, and more. She also does portraits of you or your pet on items of your choice.

Creating and printing from woodcuts is a real passion of Stettler's, and it can sometimes take over! "My art is very detailed and exact - though I'm afraid my studio has gotten a little out of hand," she told the Library as Incubator Project.

To read the full Library as Incubator Project interview with Elizabeth Stettler, where she also talks about how she came to the library profession and found her calling as an artist, go to THIS LINK.