Projects

The title for this series, Imagining the Pando pays homage to the Pando, the largest aspen grove in the world, located in the United States in the Fishlake National Forest (Utah).

Last winter, on one of my daily walks, I discovered a single desiccated aspen leaf in the snow and took it back to my studio. After hydrating and flattening the leaf, I made drawings and later scans of it, using both analog and digital methods to create this ongoing series of work (around 50 drawings and prints as of February 2023). Created from a single aspen leaf, Imagining the Pando is a nod to the magnificent ingenuity of the cosmos.

A suite of etchings exploring the theme of carnival by Adell Donaghue:

“I began this series in 2014, using my collaged drawings as a way to explore 16th -21st century printmaking techniques including line etch, drypoint, aquatint (step bite and spit bite), as well as a variety of photo etching techniques including photo silkscreen and Pure Etch.”

A suite of eight drawings by Catarina Coelho.

Before I began this series of digital drawings, I had spent a substantial period of time working on collagraph prints that spoke the language of painting, and also looking at cartographic spaces – lands shaped and eroded by winds, raked by sweeping waves, where mist diffuses the light.

An ongoing series of hand colored woodcut prints of Stonington, ME, a small fishing village at the tip of Deer Isle by Adell Donaghue. “I first visited Stonington in 1982. Nearly four decades later, this area remains a wellspring for my landscape work.”

Each Varied Edition contains 20 prints, each print is unique.

In December 2020, Simian Press published Carol Edelstein’s third book, Past Repair. A collection of poetry, Past Repair includes drawings and paintings by Adell Donaghue with cover art by Rosamond Purcell. In addition to the trade paperback, 50 copies of  the first edition were printed in hard cover, signed by the author and artists.

LINEA is a literary journal of micro fiction and poetry published annually by Simian Press. We celebrate the literary snapshot, the atmospheric vignette, the emotion jotted in the margin, the lives, characters, moods and settings that come alive within narrow straits. Each hand stitched volume includes drawings and illustrations as well as a unique tip-in folded into the center of the journal. LINEA is produced using traditional letterpress, offset and digital technologies and is published in small editions of 100-250 copies per volume.

The Book Of No-One was designed by Richard Carella, Adell Donaghue and Catarina Coelho. The text is set digitally in the Bembo typeface. It was printed on Arches text wove paper, hand bound at Simian Press in Southampton Massachusetts. The endsheets are Canson Mi-Tientes and the flyleaf and title inlay are Kitakata rice paper. There are twenty-four copies. Of these, twelve were hand-sewn and paperbound using Neenah Epic Black #80 cover. Twelve were German lap-bound using Japanese black mohair bookcloth. All are hand numbered and signed by the author.

The Fish Broadsides are an ongoing collaborative suite between artist Adell Donaghue and poets and writers Robin Barber, Richard Carella, Carol Edelstein and Elizabeth George.

In 2018, I carved a large scale woodblock titled, My Pyrrhic Victory!. Based on a mash-up of fifteen drawings of persons, places and things both real and imagined, this print was proofed on The Big Tuna press at the Deedee Shattuck Gallery in Westport, MA in conjunction with Lyell Castonguay and Big Ink. In 2018 and 2019, the remaining thirty prints for the edition were pulled at MassArt in Boston.

In 2022, I carved the second block in this series, Carpe Omnia! I returned to the Deedee Shattuck gallery to work with Lyell again on the Big Tuna press. This press it is quite a wonder – it can print close to 8 feet in length and 44 inches in height!

My Fishies are a series of monotypes and monoprints by Adell Donaghue. Begun in 2016 during a monoprint workshop at MassArt, this series began as a way to test a variety of printmaking inks, including traditional oil based inks, and both water soluble and water based inks. This ongoing series of prints now includes over seventy five unique prints and has served as the inspiration for the Fish Broadside series as well as a Sketchbook Project in collaboration with the Brooklyn Art Library in New York.

In 2015, I began a series of digital collages combining my drawings and landscape photographs from travels across the United States. In some instances, I combined my layered digital files with photographs from the National Archives, specifically, the civil war photographs of Mathew Brady, Timothy H. O Sullivan and Alexander Gardner. These digital drawings are printed on Epson Cold Press Paper in editions of 10.

A meditation on grief through a suite of drawings using handmade brushes.