The Grandmother of Scratchboard

Scratchboard is a subtractive medium that Sally Maxwell has moved toward becoming an additive medium as well. The medium consists of etching away black India ink from a white clay subsurface, using fine-tipped tools—one painstaking line at a time.

For Maxwell, the process evokes emotions she can’t find in other art forms. “It feels so good to work with it,” she says, adding that her personal satisfaction stems from the way she’s wired—specifically mathematically. Many artists of her caliber came through top-tier art programs in college, but Maxwell dropped out of Monmouth College in the early 1960s after an undeserved F in calculus killed her scholarship.

The precision and perfection required of science and math persists in Maxwell’s art, however. “[My love of scratchboard] has to have something to do with the way my brain works,” she says. Since it’s a removal process, she says she has to use “natural calculation” to move toward a finished product. And, as an animal lover, there’s also a more organic reason for the way she works.

Read the full article in the May/June 2026 issue.