Sporadic Revelations: (New College Professor) Samantha Burns’ laser-cut printmaking

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- by YourObserver.com

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With her monoprint exhibit, ‘Insula Insula,’ New College professor Samantha Burns explores fragmented memories.
Samantha Burns has been interested in art for as long as she can remember. Laughing, she recalls her family’s home movies, where she says there’s footage of her in tears because she wasn’t able to paint at the moment.  But it wasn’t until a college printmaking class that she decided to pursue art more seriously. In her freshman year at the University of Tampa, Burns says it was a moment of feeling out of place that started her on the path to becoming an artist.

“I was taking mostly business courses,” she says. “But I would show up to class straight from the printmaking lab in a black T-shirt and jeans, with ink and grit under my nails. I thought, ‘Am I supposed to be here? Probably not.’”
After switching to an art major — and convincing her parents it was a good idea — she says she finally felt she had found her calling.
“I remember being in the printmaking room, all by myself, working on a linoleum carving,” she says. “I was grinning ear to ear, and I just felt so at home. I had been in a car crash the year before, and that was the first time since that I had felt confident and relaxed. I knew this is what I wanted to do.”

After earning her MFA from Florida State University College of Fine Arts, she was invited to participate in a collaboration between the university and New College of Florida, in which she would teach printmaking at New College while creating her own body of work, currently on display in an exhibit at the college called “Insula Insula.”