This is a limited edition etching by Amy Adshead, who has been a professional printmaker since 1979. After receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Wesleyan University, she worked in the exhibits department of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. In 1977, she moved to rural New Mexico to build a house and concentrate on printmaking.

Amy Adshead has exhibited her work from California to Pennsylvania as well as in Europe, and has shown in numerous one-and-two person shows on both coasts and in the Southwest. Her etchings are a reflection of her fascination with the mysteries of the natural world around her mountain home.

The etching process is basically unchanged since Rembrandt's time. The artist begins with a metal plate, coats it with an acid-resistant ground, then scratches through the ground with a needle tool to expose the metal. When  the image is complete, the plate goes into an acid bath, which bites into the metal where the artist has exposed it, eating lines and textures into the plate.

The artist then forces ink into every line and texture in the metal, and wipes off the excess ink, leaving it only in the etched lines. The plate goes on the bed of an etching press with a dampened paper on top. Rolling the plate through the press transfers the ink onto the paper.

Each print pulled from the plate is an "edition" and each edition is individually printed, signed and numbered. Once the artist has printed the desired number of prints, the metal plate is destroyed.

Fifty editions were made of this etching. This is #8 of 50.