Maryland Farmland

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   I was five years old. My new friend had a big playhouse in her backyard. As we entered the playhouse a small, silk ball on the top shelf caught my eye, and I reached out to grab it. To my horror a black widow spider guarding her egg sac jumped onto my hand, wrapping around my middle finger. The more I tried to shake the spider off, the more it clung to my hand. It bit me and then fell into the grass. Being stung by bumblebees while running barefoot through the clover fields behind my house was nothing new to me but the spider’s bite made my hand swell and throb in pain, later turning completely purple. I do not recall how the day ended, and I am sure my mother came to pick me up, but I never did see my new friend again. This is one of many childhood experiences with Nature that has inspired my commitment to bringing attention to our responsibility to be aware of nature’s world that parallels our own.

 

   I use film in combination with printmaking, photography, animation, and painting to create short vignettes of visual poetry for the audience to experience. I bring original artworks to life by interlacing and overlaying live action video with flat animation mediums in combination with music to represent the idea that our earth, and all of humanity as being armour clad, and protected by Love.

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   Awarded a full scholarship to Central St Martins in London, England, PD Packard earned a BFA degree in Textile Design and Fashion. Upon returning to the United States, she designed products and graphic design for packaging, displays, original textiles, and surface designs primarily catering to department stores like Barneys New York and Japan, Neiman Marcus, Henri Bendels, and Bergdorf Goodman under the Packard label. Drawing parallels between printmaking and fabric/surface design facilitated her smooth transition into fine art in 2009.

 

   Packard's artistic endeavors have garnered exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Her works have been included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art | Franklin Furnace | Art Book Collection in NYC, the Boston Public Library Print Collection in Boston, MA, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung City, the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Venezia in Italy, the Southern Graphics Council (SGC) International in Kennesaw, GA, and numerous private collections.

 

   In March 2019, she concluded a Fellowship Residency at Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Venezia, Italy, sponsored in part by The Boston Printmakers and Speedball Art Products. Additionally, in August 2016, Speedball Art Products commissioned her to create an educational video showcasing her specialized technique for Printing Decorative Papers with Akua Inks. The video, co-directed by Packard, Akua Inks inventor Susan Rostow, and Christina Pumo, is available on the Akua Printshop YouTube channel.

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