Tom Reed is the master printer at Island Press, the Sam Fox School’s collaborative printshop, as well as a senior lecturer in art and printmaking area coordinator. He received his training as a printer from Landfall Press in Chicago, where he served as an intaglio printer with Jack Lemon and Steve Campbell. A practicing artist, his work has been the focal point of several solo and group exhibitions, including at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and Elmhurst Museum of Art. Reed earned his MFA from the University of Iowa.

Artist Statement

The river is continually referred to in my work. Once a symbol of time and change in my paintings, it now has become a collaborative partner. I spend days and hours on the river fly fishing. Mementos of this time on the river—beaver-chewed sticks, logs, arrowheads, and junk—slowly began making their way into my studio and eventually into my work. Over time they formed a bridge between the river and my creative output. In my exhibition this is the before, I combined painted landscapes with small, wooden sculptures in the form of trail markers dotting a hiking trail. The largest, an arrow, reads simply “Before.” The word is both a warning and an invitation to view any ordinary, present-day moment through the eyes of a time traveler from the future. It asks, What would you change if you could go back in time? What if you are there right now?