Deborah Vass Linocuts

This mornings bus read was Stefan Zweig's 'The Invisible Collection', the collector in it had amassed portfolios of Dürer's and Rembrandt etchings and woodcuts which will forever remain beyond my means, but I recognised his passion.

I wouldn't like to say which gives me more pleasure - books or art, but I do know that in a fire it's the pictures I'd make a grab for. The small oil portrait of a woman by my great grandfather, and an exquisite embroidery of figs that looks like a painting by my very talented friend Mary Fraser - I'd risk injury for either. They and a few other things are utterly irreplaceable and I treasure them not just for their beauty but also their associations.

Meanwhile, like Zweig's collector, my means are relativley limited so when I started buying pictures they were mostly prints. That's a very vague term, but this doesn't feel like right moment to launch into a long list of all the print making techniques that particularly attract me. It's enough to say that as I've found myself with slightly more disposable income it's still mostly prints that I collect.

I'm not generally a fan of buying things online that I haven't actually seen first. The image on the screen will never be the same as the actual object, and you lose the sense of going on an adventure that going to find something gives. But this weekend I took a chance, and I'm delighted with the results. I've been following Deborah Vass on Instagram for a while, coveting her Lino cuts. On Friday her Etsy shop opened and I'm now the proud owner of two of them. I don't think it'll end there either.

You can tell how pleased I am with them because I'm writing about them here! Have a look at her work, think for a moment about the effort, skill, inspiration, personality, and love that goes into creating them, and keep an eye out for what she does next.