Smells like Summer... Finally!

Hi there! I am so glad that the weather is finally warming up and we are able to get outside a bit. Apparently this has been the grayest winter in Germany in over 50 years! We've paid for it by taking turns with Aila being sick since January it seems like. I have a little bit of a cough and runny nose left, but I think we are almost done with it all. Whew. I've been trying to play catchup with work all spring, and have gotten several pieces finished and done. My first wallhanging print is watercolored and waiting for some signatures- hopefully tomorrow. I'll write about that process later. Now before I run too far, I wanted to talk about the portfolio. We showed it at the MAPC conference in Cape Girardeau, and it was recently accepted into an exhibition in Finland in Tampere, but since they have not made the official announcement yet, I'll have to hold my tongue. I'm very excited about it though, and am currently matting all the prints, so they can be framed when we go to Finland mid-May.

I mainly wanted to post a lot of images of the prints in the portfolio and talk a little about each artist. I'll interview a couple, for some more in-depth stories. The theme of the portfolio was animal ABC's. We wanted to do a small portable set with artist working in different media, so that it would also function as a teaching tool. Each artist also contributed three prints, so that you can better see the style that they work in. I love multi functionality- our portfolio is like a little Swiss Army knife! Lets introduce our artists:

Letters A, B & C - Mirka Hokkanen

Hi, you know me. I chose to do wood engraving for my media. The images were engraved on resingrave blocks and printed on a proofing press. The artists that we chose for the portfolio all work with animal and nature themes, so printing animals for the portfolio was no leap for any of us.

The titles are Ant Eater, Bees in Bluebells and Cats.

Letter D, E & F- Seiko Tachibana

The titles are just the letters d, e, f. The media is drypoint and digital. Seiko is from Japan, and has completed degrees both in her home country and in the US. She currently works in California, and balances Asian traditions with minimalist modernity in her prints. 

Seiko writes: "I like to compare the marks, lines, shapes, colors, and textures that are the basic language of my work to living cells, and in the context of an individual block or panel, those cells come together to comprise an organ. When I assemble several individual works together, the blocks and panels then become like organs in a body, a body that is the whole of an artwork. In contemplating the similarities between biological structures and my work, I have discovered many different connections between ourselves and the universe in which we live."

Letters G, H & I - Curtis Bartone

Gabon Viper/Gas Explosion - aluminum plate litho, polymer plate 3 color litho and embossing

Hornet/Housing - aluminum plate litho, polymer plate 3 color litho and embossing

Iktomi/Incinerator - aluminum plate litho, chine colle, embossing 

I have interviewed Curtis already, and will be posting that for you shortly. Big fan of his work, and hope you'll love it too! So here's just a sneak preview.

Letters J, K & L - Chandler O'Leary

All prints are linocut, watercolor, cut out with calico fabric in the back. Here is a closeup of the letter J. All the paper inside of the image have been cut out and you can see the light blue flower fabric peeking through. 

 

Chandler works as a designer, illustrator and letterpress artist and I was so glad she agreed to be a part of our portfolio. I think we work from very similar inspirations and I love how she's able to incorporate "high" and "low" art in these beautiful accessible pieces. I always wonder how to do the same without  being too crafty. I have wanted to feature an interview of her for a long time and this will be a reason to finally do it. Before I get to it, you can go and visit her website here.  

Letters M, N & O - Inari Krohn

Morpho - etching, chine colle

Narwhal - etching, chine colle

Owl - etching, chine colle, wood cut

Inari is an established graphic artist in Finland and around the world. Her works are inspired by Finnish forests and the rhythms of tree branches against the changing skies. She is equally interested in the luminous painterly textures of Japanese woodcuts and the precise, delicate lines of intaglio. The quality and combinations that I see in her prints always capture and surprise me. I love seeing her work in galleries that I visit. Being moer established and having worked for so long, she has built the most amazing home studio which gives me something to aim for when we are done moving around. I look up to her in so many ways.  

Letters P, Q & R - Leo Lee

Pangolin v Polyp, Spotted Quoll v Queretaro Desert Snake, Rock Rat v Red Squirrel v Raccoon - all screenprint and watercolor. We asked Leo to make her set using screen printing. I was a little afraid of what you can do with screen printing on such a small scale, but she did not disappoint. These images are so intricate its hard to believe from afar that they are screen printed. They make an amazing example of how you can push the media. I love that she also incorporated some humor into our portfolio with her combinations of animals battling it out. 

Letters S, T & U - Sari Bremer

Snake and Tiger are three plate etching and aquatints and Unicorn is two. I learned about Sari's work from Inari. I had mentioned to her that we were looking for an artist who works in animal themes and uses acid etching techniques in her prints. Sari was the perfect fit, and it was nice to have another artist represented from Finland in our portfolio. 

Here is what Sari writes about her work: "In my pictures I'm showing places where I've never physically been. The images are allegorical. Yet I wish them to also function on a purely visual level, each whole & complete in itself; tales that need not be interpreted. ... I want the viewer to experience through the images strange places, situations and phenomena. ... The subject matter changes and shifts freely from the stormy sea to the impenetrable jungle."

Letters V, W & X - Lari Gibbons
Vulpes Vulpes, Watersiphora Subtorquata, Xiphophorus Hellerii - all etching, letterpress and mezzotint. 
Lari is a friend whom I met when going to graduate school. She both teaches printmaking and directs the P.R.I.N.T. Press at UNT. I don't know how she manages her own time in the studio, but she is amazing and makes it work. 

We asked Lari to be in the portfolio, because she is well known for her intricate little mezzotints, and we wanted that technique to be in the portfolio as well. Lari helped us out even more, by adding letterpress to the prints, which no one else was featuring. Here is what Lari said about her pieces in the portfolio: "Because few common animal names begin with "v," "w" and "x" I looked to scientific names for a broader range of options. I also focused on invasive species--especially those that relate to the north Texas region where I live--so that the subjects would explore this overarching theme in my work. Lastly, I made reference photos and drawings at the Elm Fork Natural Heritage Collection at the University of North Texas. The labels that I incorporated in each design provide the common names of each species. 

I drew the subjects in a linear style that references technical drawing and illustration. I used mezzotint sparingly, adding subtle drop shadows around each of my subjects. Adding letterpress allowed me to show the relationship of each letter to the entire alphabet and to have a repeating visual element in each print. " 

Letters Y & Z and the title page - Jon Lee

Both prints are hand made paper with watermark and woodcut, title page is letterpress. 

Jon Lee was the co-curator of our portfolio. We came up with the idea about 2 years ago while I was visiting San Antonio for the visiting artist program at Southwest School of Art and Craft. Jon is so creative and talented in a multitude of ways. He has excellent craftsmanship and I love visiting and seeing all the things he has made. His skill as a master craftsman is integral to the creative artist work, as you can see in the prints. Even though his work looks minimal, so much has gone into it in thought, labor and skill. It is very beautiful to behold. 

On another interesting note Jon is active in papermaking and printmaking research, adapting age-old traditions to contemporary uses. He is a native of South Korea and has worked as a professional printer for eight years, both in Korea and in the United States. Upon completing his Master Printer Training at theTamarind Institute of Lithography, he moved to Iowa to earn his MFA in printmaking at the University of Iowa. He currently works as a printmaker, papermaker and educator and is an Assistant Professor at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas. 

I'm so happy to be a part of the portfolio. It was a great experience putting it together. I have Curtis' interview already in my mailbox and will post it shortly for you to enjoy!  

Interview with Abigail Anderson

It is not often that I come across a new technique and a fresh point of view in printmaking. If anywhere, the SGC and MAPC conferences are great events to attend if have been lacking inspiration lately. Abigail Anderson's artwork caught my eye at the last MAPC Conference and I just had to share it with you. It's been an interview long promised, so I hope you will be as inspired as I was when I met her.

Abigail Woods Anderson is a Minneapolis- based artist and educator. She received her BA from St Olaf College in 1999 and currently works with the Walker Art Center's department of education and community programs. Abigail is also an instructor and member of the artist cooperative at Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) and made her curatorial debut there at the Lerner Binder Gallery this spring (a multidisciplinary exhibition What Follows What Came Before).

I was drawn to her work because of the detail that she was able to get with photopolymerplates and her hand drawn negatives. Here is what Abigail had to say about her technique: "What's striking about letterpress is that it is at once anachronistic and in vogue. Artists working in letterpress have a vast array of technologies (two millenia) at their disposal. What sets my technique apart from most contemporary letterpress practitioners is my preference for handmade, rather than digitally derived, negatievs to generate photopolymer plates. I thrive off the direct mark-making and problem solving ingenuity of DIY processes and analog materials. Occasinally, specific projects necessitate the facsimile quality that a computer affords, but usually my process is more akin to drawing and painting."

Degrees, detail

Abigail was great in sharing how she makes her negatives. Her basic technique is to paint a solid surface of India Ink with a foam brish on acetate and let it dry. Then you can use the scratching tool of your choice (x-acto knife, etching needle, sandpaper, wire brush, etc.) After you make the drawing you can expose your plate the way you normally would. I'd suggest making a couple of trial plates to get the exposure right.

Now, here is an image of one of Abigails negatives. You can see how much detail and fine lines she has. That is what was so mind blowing to me. I asked her what the trick is to keep the fine lines from washing away after exposure. Her reply was to keep the highly detailed areas close together, and then have the rest of the area open. If there was one little mark in the middle of a large open area, then it would wash away, but having the lines so close together keeps them "safe".

I asked Abigail to share some more of herself and her work with us:

How/when did you start letterpress?

I confess- I had no idea what letterpress meant when I signed up for a workshop at the MCBA in 2008. My first instructor was Allison Chapman and my first projects were entirely engrossing and overly ambitious. So I was compelled to continue coursework at MCBA by taking classes in advanced letterpress and polymer plate making. I knew I had the letterpress obsession once I noticed myself laying awake at night concocting letterpress projects. So, to satiate this creative impulse, I joined MCBA's Artist Cooperative which consists of artists making independently driven work in the book arts disciplines- papermaking, printmaking and book binding. In exchange for monthly dues, we get a host of benefits, not least which is access to MCBA's studio space and equipment.

Re-Embroidered II, letterpress, 7"x7", print above, detail below

For someone who has not seen your work, how would you explain it?

I think my artwork has a certain "telescoping inward" quality. While subjects vary, my prints and paintings consistently are small scale and highly detailed. The notion of making visual riddles- compositions held together by some kind of tension or enigma- has held my attention recently.

Strange Loop is a good example. I developed a resource about this painting that is a hybrid of an artist statement and statement of influence. Artist voice/Artist Choice was a project proposed and supported by my colleagues at the Walker, mnartists.org and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It invites artists to discuss their own work in relation to resources held by the Walker and/or Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Shelf Fungus, letterpress & chine colle, 4"x2.5"

Do you work in any other media than polymerplates?

While I only discovered letterpress about three years ago, I discovered love for printmaking about 12 years ago in a college intaglio class. But graduating college meant saying farewell to a sophisticated studio. I scaled back to art forms that could be accomplished in a small apartment. For several years I worked in pencil, pen and ink, watercolor, and gouache. Now that I am invested in printmaking, those direct media still interest me but are on the back burner. Within the medium of letterpress, I use primarily polymer plate, but occasionally employ metal type.

Where do you get your inspiration from for themes and colors? Do you always work with nature themes?

I often work with nature themes, but over the years my approach has edged a bit more towards abstraction. Recently I completed two works relating to mathematical principles. {2, 3, 5, 7, ... 2203, 2207} and {2, 3, 5, 7, ... 1789, 1801} are meditations on the prime number sequence. These prints reference the work of mathematicians Stanislaw Ulam and Charles Sacks.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea, letterpress, detail above and print below

Any great plans for the future?

To be fair, this is less of a plan and more of an ambition, but I'd like to edition an artist book about water bears. Also (totally unrelated) this summer I've got what I'm calling my "Gutenberg gig". On Spetember 24-25 I will be demonstrating the use of a Gutenberg replica press at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.

Other exciting things? This summer I have an experimental outdoors project called Open Phenology (science of how and when living things change over the seasons). I engage the public every friday in a meandering walk and conversation during which we identify species, hypothesize about our observations and share knowledge. Then I use a blog to keep records of our phenological observations (with a good dose of musings and non-authoritative content). Open Phenology is my contribution to the Walker Art Center's Open Field and Field Office. It's part of my bigger fascination with citizen science and the perils and powers of inviting non-scientists to be collaborators in scientific pursuits.

I fell in love with your prints, do you have any for sale?

My art is available at the Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis.

Minuend, letterpress, 8.5"x5", detail above and print below

Thanks so much for sharing Abigail!

Studio and Two Shows

The studio has been somewhat taking shape, there is still a lot of organizing to do. I will get a shelving system in August that I will be able to put a lot of my things in, but until then, it will be messy. I am going to try to get it organized, since I need to get going on finishing up illustrations for a book and start work on new projects. The image is a photo collage, sort of a 360degree view of my space. I just need some more space in the form of shelving to be organized and use the space for printing, drawing, watercolor, and design work...

My work is featured in two shows, one in Helsinki and one in Seattle. The one in Helsinki is already up at Galleria G, Pieni Roobertinkatu 10.

"Uusi Lehti- Uutta Taidegrafiikkaa"

29.june.-22.july.2011

Mon-fri 11am-5pm, sat-sun closed

The popular summer members exhibition has new work from both well known and new graphic artists. Here are a couple of overviews of the gallery area. This is the gallery for the finnish graphic artists society, and you will find a wonderful large collection of prints to browse through. If you are not in Helsinki at the moment, many of the artists works can be viewed online, here is the english version link. You can view works either in Sales Collection or Artists.

These were just a few of my favorites:

Ritve-Liisa Virtanen, Bear Your Cross I, 2011, Screenprint, beeswax, collage

Pia Kousi, From the series: Topsy-turvy-photo-stereo-synthet, 2010, pigment on film, plexi

Maija Lavia, Puun Kosketus II (Touch of the Tree II), 2011, pigmentprint

Kirsi Neuvonen, Matkakertomuksia: Sininen Portti (Travel stories: Blue Gate), 2011, etching, aquatint, copyetching (not sure what that technique is)

The other exhibition will take place at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, 800 Convention Place, Seattle, WA. The exhibition is installed on July 15th, so you can stop by to see the work after that. If I remember correctly off the top of my head the show is up for at least two months.

"PS 5" features five Puget Sound printmakers work: Bill Colby, Dorothy McQuistion, Janet Marcavage, Ann Johnston-Schuster and Mirka Hokkanen. I hope to get some photos from someone when the show is up to post those as well.

Next time we'll look at some illustrations. Until then, have a great day!

Modifying Photopolymerplates with Acrylic Media

The moving day is inching closer by the hour. Moving trucks are rolling in first thing on Monday, and I have been organizing our house and the studio for weeks now. I have a couple of last minute things to complete before we head out. A couple of people are coming over tomorrow for a last minute photopolymer class and there are 6 huge panels that need to be finished up for a church commission. I have been taking some progress photos, and will post those after this moving madness is over.

Until then, I am pleased to feature a great article by Australian print-maker Annie Day. She has been a practicing artist since 1974, and is a passionate advocate of safer, healthier and more environmentally friendly printmaking techniques. A short plug- Annie and her sister Robin Ezra are teaching an exciting class in Florence, Italy, this summer. The 60 hour class covers the following safer printmaking techniques: waterless lithography, drypoint, monotype and collography. The class will be held at the world famous printmaking studio, Il Bisonte, where artists such as Picasso, Annigoni and Moore have worked. The workshop is suitable for any level of experience- you can find more information about it at their website here. I would love to go and take this class, the setting is ideal. (Maybe next year, since I'll be living a lot closer!)


Modifying Photopolymerplates with Acrylic Media by Annie Day

Less than perfect polymerplates can be readily rectified by modifying the plate surface using acrylic media. A small section of the plate can be transformed, as in the example "Chamellia"; of for a more complete overhaul, the original plate may be covered in gesso and reworked.

Camellia before and after

The original plate was overexposed resulting in a loss of contrast between foreground and background (see before). This was easily recovered however, by adding pastel primer to the plate in the areas where more ink was required, resulting in a darker final print with better contrast (see after).

Method

-Wash the plate first, this will help the acrylic media to form a good bond with the surface. Clean the ink off the plate with vegetable oil, then using soft brush or cleaning mitt and a little detergent with water gently work the surface until all ink and greasiness is removed, rinse and dry with towel. Surface is now ready to apply acrylic media.

-Use various acrylic media: gesso, pastel primer, acrylic varnish, PVC glue, and gel medium for example. Art suppliers carry a huge range of these mediums and you may already have a few types.

-Carborundum or ground pumice mixed with or sprinkled onto gesso or PVC glue will give a finish with "tooth" for darker areas similar to the pastel primer used above in Chamellia.

- The medium can be painted, applied with palette knife or other implement and drawn into to create lines and textures.

- The surface can be built up by gluing a variety of low relief textural materials- such as paper or fabric using PVC glue, seal the surface with watered gesso or varnish.

-Once the desired finish is achieved, dry the plate thoroughly with a hairdryer or airdry over night at room temperature. To speed up the process use an oven at very low temperature, 50-60 Celsius, no higher or the plate may dry out too much and crack. The plate must be completely dry before inking to avoid paper sticking during printing.

- Apply ink with a short stiff brush, wipe with a small flat piece of tarlatan and finish with paper wipe. Buy cheap flat bristle brushes and cut bristles with scissors.

Plate being modified with pastel primer and gesso

Clear pastel primer was added for darker areas, and gesso thinned with water painted over the leaves.

Cicada

The sky in the print to the right was lightened using gloss varnish on the plate.
This print after was created after a visit to the Northern Territory, Australia, it tells the story of the great Rainbow serpent, Boulong, who lived in a deep waterhole, at Nitmiluk- named after the song of the cicadas.

Wash the plate with a soft brush or cleaning mitt in water to clean thoroughly. Gloss varnish, thinned with water, applied to sky areas to lighten. Keep the print nearby while you work and refer to areas that need change.

Fossil Fish

Before and after

Plate showing tissue glued to the surface with some thinned gesso and gloss varnish added over the paper. The fossil fish, Clibming Galaxis- live today in small pockets around the world. The fish has been in existence for millions of years. They are found in tiny streams leading to Manly Dam near my home.

The fish plate was too dark. I covered the background in PVC glue and attached tissue paper. A thin coat of gesso and thinned gloss medium were applied to the plate. In retrospect, the paper layer might have been more succesful if I had used crushed or textured paper and added gesso applied with palette knife for more interesting textural effects.

Notes:
- Art Spectrum Colourfix pastel primer was originally designed for coating surfaces in preparation for pastel drawing, but is a great medium for our puroses as it holds ink where the artist needs darker areas to print.

-Try experimenting with various acrylic media and pasting paper and textiles etc. The plate becomes a collagraph when you add media to the surface.

- Sometimes it is difficult to find where you need to apply the medium. Outline areas you are modifying in ballpoint pen. It makes it easier to see and will not show up in the final print.

Horse printed and Craft fair

Greetings from rainy Dupont. Its been one of those on again/off again weeks with rain. We even had a nice little snowstorm a couple of weeks ago. It's been pretty amazing that every time I have taken our dog out for a walk, the weather has always been nice. God's pretty cool in the little things he does to bring sunshine in our day.

After arriving home from TX I had the Tacoma is For Lovers craft/art fair the very following weekend. I had time to sew a couple of things for one half of my table, and then I had prints on the other half. Here are a couple of shots from the very Valentine's day themed fair:

Here is what else I spied from around me. If you live in Tacoma area, the TIFL fairs are really worth making it to. The wares are affordable and there is so much variety. I will really miss going to them after our move. My table was next to Laurie Cinotto's. She has the most wonderful things made from paper. As a printmaker, how can I resist! Of course I did not take a picture of her table, but you can see her beautiful things at her website. I already had one pin, and had to splurge on another one as well. I also ended up getting a pair of earrings from Maija McKnight, who does equally beautiful jewelry (and who, of course, I did not get a picture of either...).

So after a busy week of sewing for the fair and unpacking after the trip, I got a chance to print the horse plate at a local high school with a small printshop. The press was a nice Conrad Machine press. Mental note, the day when I save enough money for my own nice press, make sure it has gear reduction drive in it. I was breaking a sweat and growing biceps like Paul Bunyan cranking the plate back and forth though the press 40x !

As you can see from the picture above, I was using a sheet of mylar for registration. That always works well for me. I have dried my prints by now, but am hesitating signing them, because I am not quite sure if I want to add watercolor in the effect of chine colle, and have a light yellowish background for the whole print area. I like the effect of setting the print apart from the border that way, but its a pretty big area to cover uniformly, so I can't decide if I can handle the agony of trying to manage it. Should have thought of it before I printed... We'll see.

I also took down the last exhibition I had in Kent last week. Now I have two more classes to teach and 10 more illustrations and I can finally pack my bags and move. We are having a lot of trouble because of Army bureaucracy, but I hope it will be ironed out in the next couple of days before it gets too late. I am still waiting for the interview I've been promising, but in the mean time I have a guest writer share some tips on polymerplate printing (intaglio style). Excited about that. Have a great week, Nappi (our dog) wishes you a happy early spring!