Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Mary Hills – art copy technician
Mary started working at Fine Print by a serendipitous chain of events in January of 1992. She was hired as a finisher. “My background in painting was good training for the many hours I spent spotting prints, now a thing of the past. It was always fun to match colours and make the “spot” disappear. Since there were many copies of the same image, with the same “spot”, one had a good chance at achieving perfection, which was always our goal.”
Her duties at Fine Print have changed over the years. “Now I do the art copy scanning, with the wonderful BetterLight Viewfinder Digital Back Scanner. I still do some spotting occasionally, catch and trim prints, archive print records, ship orders, help with walk in customers and other ancillary tasks.”
Mary says that there are always many challenges at Fine Print, which is what makes the work so enjoyable. She enjoys problem solving issues like how to copy the great variety of art work we are privileged to handle. “We have had Indian woven rugs, painted tiles, quilts, large paintings, tiny paintings, pieces with bas relief, fragile old photographic prints, tooled metal pieces, stretched and unstretched canvases, pastel paintings, graphite drawings, collages and even Xerox copies of work to copy! It has also been fun to figure out how to ship some of the larger stretched canvases that we now produce.”
Mary feels that her education still continues, as she works at becoming a better pastel painter. She has a B.A. in Art and German; an M.A. in Elementary Education and postgraduate work at the Museum School of Art in Boston and the City and Guilds of London Art School. She’s also studied watercolour painting on Monhegan Island, Maine, with Lawrence Goldsmith for two summers.
“When I am not at work I like to take walks with my husband and our dog, read, run, and make things with….paints, pastels, pencils, food, yarn, cloth, plants and whatever life throws at me.”
You may view Mary’s current pastel paintings at www.artforconservation.org/artists/maryhills.
