Rita Orr and her husband, Joseph, who is also an artist, live in Osage, Missouri. Rita started working with silk screening in 1978 and continues to make her prints completely by hand. The labor intensive process includes pulling inks across a silk screen onto paper that has been stenciled or blocked off using various materials.

"In creating my original prints I use no photographic materials or techniques but hand 'paint' stencils directly on the screen in a 'reduction' process. That is, I use one screen and close more of the open areas after each color printing. The result is a spontaneous design purposely more 'painterly' than some other serigraphs you may have seen. My intention is to produce editions of 10-50 prints, each with the nuance and freshness of an original work of art, because these are my originals!"

"In creating art, my impressions have become more spontaneous, a slightly abstracted view of a real thing. Hopefully that leaves the viewer with the feeling of seeing something in a flash, recognizing a situation in an instant which leaves all the detail to the imagination."

Rita Orr's work is in many public and private collections and she has exhibited in many invitational and juried exhibitions throughout the United States such as the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver, CO, the State Street Art Fair in Ann Arbor, MI, and the Festival of the Masters, Disney World, Orlando, FL.Click here to view the artist at work on her new website.