episode 258 : heather muise

This week Miranda speaks with Heather Muise—a Canadian printmaker living and working in Greenville, North Carolina, where she’s a teaching professor at East Carolina University. Heather has taught printmaking across continents, including seven years in Dubai, and their conversation moves through all of those layers: place, language, culture, and how those experiences shape what we make.They talk about Heather’s evolution from being a diehard lithographer—fast, loose, printing full editions in a single day—to falling deeply in love with the slower, more patient demands of etching. We get into her approach to color etching using a CMYK process on a single plate, and how that method connects back to her lithography brain in a way that just clicks.But the heart of this episode is symbols—how they travel, how they hide meaning in plain sight, and how they can guide a viewer without spelling everything out. Heather shares how growing up bilingual, living abroad, and even experiencing functional illiteracy in a new writing system pushed her deeper into thinking about coded visual language—everything from carpets and borders-within-borders, to tattoo iconography, to dream logic.Heather received first place in the SGCI Juried Members Exhibition, which is on view February 6 through March 28, 2026, at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock, Texas. If you’re anywhere near there, go see the show.Heather's WebsiteHello, Print Friend Residency in Chiang Mai, ThailandHello, Print Friend YOUTUBEHello, Print Friend MERCHHello, Print Friend WEBSITEHello, Print Friend INSTAGRAMHello,Print Friend PATREONHello, Print Friend SPONSORSLegion Paper