To write an artist's statement is to remember that everything changes. What I know about meaning and purpose in my work changes, grows and fades, ebbs and flows, and can be an assortment of intuitions and felt sense. The work is a search and a finding, this work of artists, and viewers. We are romancing the imagination. What remains consistent is the creative process. I make prints, and make paper, and paintings - following the trail of my experience, sometimes having the trail pointed out through the work. My artwork is personal imagery, with resources in large part from my travels and study of Asian cultures. Sometimes the work leads to understanding, sometimes understanding leads to the work. My work reflects and echoes my life in a visual narrative, as witness to the felt sense of my experience. I love the monotype method of printmaking for its painterly characteristic and its quality of being immediate, and still it is a print. A monotype is unique as an image and in its sensibility. This method is particularly susceptible to the printer's state of mind. The precursor to, and old friend of printmaking, is paper. The basic materials of fibers and water, and the simple technology of papermaking, combine and open up a field of creative possibilities. Papermaking is simple fun.. I love the historical and cultural content of papermaking, with the permutations of methods and techniques that evolved from culture to culture as the technology made its way around the planet. I frequently print an engraved line image on the matrix of the poured paper composition. Handmade paper takes a printed line beautifully. Key in my thinking about art and process is an integration of ideas, view, frames of reference and all the influences that can be a part of an image. Making art is a privilege and a service. Carol Brighton 2009 ©2005 Carol Brighton