trippy

Bldgblog posted this link yesterday and called it "stationary cinema". It made me smile, and it's an interesting idea. enjoy!

Kickstarter + Power and Light Press

Do you guys know about Kickstarter? Kickstarter is the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. People post their ideas for projects on the Kickstarter site and request funding from individuals.

This project is a mobile letterpress shop. Kyle Durrie, the proprietor, made a short video to explain the project - why she loves letterpress printing, what she hopes to do. She asked for $8000 and has received over $9000 with 45 days left to go!

Check it out!

i heart st louis

SO, I was going to email this out to everybody, but decided not to be obnoxious and post it here instead.

Guerrilla tactics for our map installations! I know we've got a lot on our plates...but what if we printed out secret prints/or had special items of some sort and deposited them in our favorite spots in Louey? Like a treasure hunt kind of thing. Except we wouldn't tell people what they were...only that they exist elusively in the spots we would highlight on our maps. And that would hopefully generate a lot of excitement and traffic towards those places...

...Would that be mean to all the businesses/restaurants we DIDN'T promote?

Just an idea. We could even just hide little prints of hearts. Even ironically pixelated ones!!

-g

Venue Map

View Local Venues for emerging artists. in a larger map

This is the beginning of an interactive map that details the various venues around town where you can have a DIY style show or show your work as an emerging artist.

ART Talks

Here is a TED Talk by Marian Bantjes.

Seniors, please review this presentation. It is a great example of how you might structure your ART Talk next week.

3rd annual undergraduate exchange portfolio and exhibition.

The Central Michigan University Print Club invites you to participate in the 3rd annual undergraduate exchange portfolio and exhibition

Theme: Temporary Existence
Eligible Artists: undergraduate students
Printmaking Media: open

for more info, go to http://mcaprint.blogspot.com/2010/10/exchange-portfolio.html

WHAMMO Fundraising Opportunity

Greetings Beloved Printmakers,

I have a fundraising opportunity to propose to you all. I am working with the Kemper Museum to recycle their old vinyl banners into useful objects - totes, sketchbooks, wallets, card holders, etc.

We are recruiting any interested art students (i.e. WHAMMO) to get involved! What you make will be sold on consignment in the Kemper Museum shop, and a portion of the proceeds will go back to WHAMMO.
I also think that you all should start selling the WHAMMO zine at Kemper. Maybe even vinyl covers! The possibilities are endless, really.

Converse amongst yourselves, and then contact me - your favorite printmaking alumna downstairs! Feel free to stop by my office (next to Georgia's in Bixby) if you want to discuss ideas or have questions. If you decide to do this, we will set up a time to meet with Karen at the Kemper and get the project (and the cash money) rolling.

Faithfully yours,

Kim Wardenburg

Printmaker Cameo

This is an animation that addresses the age-old question 'what is art?' in a fun and cute way. Also, watch out for some priceless special appearances by a certain printmaker . . .

I've always wanted to make. . .

cut paper
9x5x5"

Project 1

What started out as an idea for a room full of moths...translated into plaster and foamcore.

the gathering (2010)

paper, plaster, foamcore, acrylic, wooden spoon, late night coffee stains

Rivane Neuenschwander

Installation view from Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other, New Museum, New York, 2010. Foreground: Rain Rains (2002).

Perhaps some of the seniors remember this artist being mentioned during seminar last year, but she is worth a new look as her work is coming to the Kemper Museum October 8, 2010 - January 10.

Additionally, she will be giving a talk 10/9 from 11-1 (a saturday) with Richard Flood, chief curator of the New Museum. Take a moment to research this artist-her work is amazing.

Your own private wilderness

While this isn't entirely print related, it is totally mind blowing. I think the opening and closing of the various windows relates to how we sometimes work in a series, and the interactive part of this explores how we own and explore urban spaces.

www.thewildernessdowntown.com

First crit: that project I've always wanted to do

"Something You've Always Wanted to Do..."

RESULTS:

The Big Wait, 2010

Balloon installation with glitter and stool, dimensions variable.

3 Minute Egg

Kathan Brown, founder of Crown Point Press in San Francisco and author of several books including Magical Secrets: The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life, has a regular video commentary on her blog site called, 3 Minute Egg.

Her commentaries reflect her thoughts about various art, creativity, and print-related subjects. Check it out. And check out the blog, too. It's Magical Secrets - listed on the side bar to the right on this page.

WELCOME BACK TO A FRESH NEW ACADEMIC YEAR!

Dance to the Printmaking anthem....

Hurrah!!

Yay everybody for making this weekend a print extravaganza, everyone should post some photos of their from the shows!

Shows!

Two shows tonight! The Sculpture BFA show at the Des Lee, "Jailbreak", and a printmaking show at Open Lot. The show at Open Lot will feature sculptural and kinetic prints and drawings-definitely worth checking out: Kristen Bartel, Fistfighting panthers and the bird who couldn't talk, Opening Reception 7-10 at 1310 South 18th Street 63104.

The shows are a mile apart. Expand your St. Louis circle, drive, walk or bike between the two!


View Larger Map

See you all there!

Overheard

Overheard at the conference:

"Wait, on more box."
"Did you see those mezzotints?"
"It was good for a demo."
"You skin won't fall off."
"Juiced!"

What did you overhear?

Incoming! SGC 2010

Directions, from the airport to the Hotel. Can't wait to see you all there!!!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Philadelphia+International+Airport,+Philadelphia,+PA+19153+(Philadelphia+International+Airport)&daddr=loew%27s+hotel&hl=en&geocode=Fe9yYAIdkMiD-yktd-xwnsTGiTEgxN9m6suqyQ%3BFT-eYQIdhCaF-yHb06P6D1OiOimL2tsqKcbGiTEHSj1TRqFvKQ&mra=cc&dirflg=r&ttype=dep&date=03%2F22%2F10&time=4:55pm&noexp=0&noal=0&sort=&sll=39.913735,-75.20484&sspn=0.132193,0.301437&ie=UTF8&z=12&start=0


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3-D Prints, or, Why not PRINT buildings?

An interesting article over at Printeresting that posits the question..."Is printing the future of architecture?"

I would argue for yes. But I already think printing is the future.

Mylar layering

I stumbled upon this artist who works with layering acrylic on mylar. She achieves some pretty amazing delicacy at different scales.

FRESH BREAD

Dear beloved printmakers,

I would love for you to collaborate on my screenprinted flatbread project by submitting a hand written description of two covenants you have been a part of  - one that's been broken and one that's been kept. It can be serious, trivial, enigmatic, or specific. You can give your submissions to me or put them in the mail box in my studio.

On Monday, I will be set up in Steinberg lobby to collect submissions. Stop by!

email questions or thoughts to printfreshbread@gmail.com

Check out the new FRESH BREAD blog for details!

Offset

After yesterday's photolithography demo and the discussion of the word "offset" I thought I would post a bit about the process. When I was in graduate school, and actually, undergrad as well, I often used an offset press called a DUFA for photolitho and monotyping. The press consisted of two beds and a complicated inking/dampening system that could be run manually or with electricity. You put your plate on one bed, inked it, then rolled a large rubber blanket over the image area, which "offset" from the plate to the blanket. From there, the rubber blanket printed onto your paper on the second press bed. It was a great way to work monotypes-you could make changes to the plate or even the blanket before you printed on your paper. Ghosting was easy and subtle.

I had the chance a few times to work with someone to run the press automatically. There were sponging rollers and inking rollers, and if everything went well you could stand back and watch the photolitho plates being printed for you. In my studio, I have several examples of monoprints done using the DUFA. If anyone would like to see them, please let me know!

From Wikipedia, a definition of offset:

Offset printing is a commonly used printing technique where the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on the repulsion of oil and water, the offset technique employs a flat (planographic) image carrier on which the image to be printed obtains ink from ink rollers, while the non-printing area attracts a water-based film (called "fountain solution"), keeping the non-printing areas ink-free.

Development of the offset press came in two versions: in 1875 by Robert Barclay of England for printing on tin, and in 1903 by Ira Washington Rubel of the United States for printing on paper.

In our shop, because we hand print offset plates without the use of a rubber blanket, we often have to tweak the inking or pressure to get a good impression from our plate. Isn't pkmg a grand, complicated beast?

Philagrafika Review

An interesting article from Friday's NY Times-a must read for all you up and coming printmakers!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/arts/design/05philagrafika.html?pagewanted=2&sq=printmaking&st=cse&scp=1

And slideshow:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/02/05/arts/20100205-PHILA_index.html

Reconfiguring Collage History!

So many contemporary artists look back into the past for inspiration and explorations. A current exhibition at the Met (previously at the Art Institute of Chicago) provides a perfect lens through which to do so.

Kitsch (and so, so sorry for the delay)

It's funny that I pulled the word "kitsch" out of the hat instead of one of its scribbled fellows because I have a really weird relationship with the whole---what? genre? medium? category? stereotype? Kitsch is described by wikipedia as "a German word denoting art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value," often associated with widespread icons of culture, like santa and apple pie and g.i. joe. Since I was a little kid (and I do mean little--maybe 5 or 6) I followed my dad from neighborhood housesale to housesale avidly searching for little figurines that exemplified kitsch.

At first I was attracted to anything at all that was small and representational-- ceramic ballet dancers, chicken salt and pepper shakers, entire farms-ful of animals in a dozen different aesthetics. As I got older my tastes narrowed a lot, until I was looking more and more for things straight out of foreign cultures, or very old things, or stylizations that seemed to make more sense to me than other kinds. I was incredibly proud of the collection through my elementary school years, identifying it as a signifier of my interest in art.

But by the time I reached middle school, I began to realize how contrived and artificial and mass-produced many of the shiny ceramic items on my shelves were. I began to notice the off-center airbrushed glaze on some of the gnomes' rosy cheeks, and the badly cut edges at the bases of victorian ladies' dresses and bunnies' feet. Out of something like habit, though, I kept seeking, finding fewer and fewer things that fit nicely on the three-inch cherry wood shelves. But I was finding more and more things I was interested in that no longer fit into the generic concepts of nostalgia and self-indulgent sweetness invested in the word "kitsch." And all of these new things had one thing in common--they were not representations of things the makers knew nothing of, they were not created to exploit nostalgia, they were real.

So now, at home, I still have all those nice little figurines packed away somewhere in the basement. But they're not going back up on my wall anytime soon. In their stead I have japanese lucky cats, and thai hand-embroidered purses, and indian hand-carved wooden figures, and way too many graphic novels to fit pretty much anywhere, and a lot of artbooks and some prints.

I think there's a lot of cool things you could make art about, to do with kitsch. I keep thinking of Jenie's frequent references to what she termed "excess." The hugeness of our excess in daily life, just as regular human beings, is more than real enough to make a whole lifetime's body of work. But I figured out it's not for me, even if I'll always sort of half smile when I see a garden gnome are a plaque with a cheesy saying curling in cursive on its surface. It's something I could comment on, but not something I would ever emulate.

Appropriation

Appropriation is everywhere, in some form or another all through history. Dada, cubism, pop art, conceptual art, modern, and contemporary art all contain cultural borrowing. Appropriating is taking someone else’s imagery, usually without permission (other art, photographs, symbols, objects, etc) and making it your own by putting it into a new context. Many artists work is conceptually based around appropriation. Some of the most popular examples are Duchamp’s readymades and Sherry Levine’s appropriation of Duchamp’s readymade.

After artists like Duchamp and Levine, “stealing” images is not the controversy it once was. Still, appropriation always brings up the question of originality, and we keep discussing it even though appropriation has been fairly common for the last century. When is appropriation appropriate? When is copyrighting a problem? What does original even mean?

Enrique Chagoya

Appropriation is especially relevant to printmaking because of the ease at which we can reproduce images. Over the last century artists like Warhol, Rauschenburg, and Robert Prince have become famous for their use of appropriated imagery in a print context. They exemplify a use of appropriated imagery to comment on the cultural environment at the time. I think this is when appropriation is most successful in conveying a message because it allows the artist to more directly comment on and alter something that we are familiar with. Currently in printmaking it is common (and quite acceptable) to remix appropriated images in with a variety of processes and other images to create unique prints. Anytime you take an image off google images, or a photograph from a magazine and use it in you art, you are appropriating. It’s hard to avoid when so much imagery is so easily accessible, but it also makes me think about the reasons for appropriating. Is it better to take my own pictures than to copy and paste off the internet? Does it matter?

I came across an artist in my research who appropriates in a different way. Krzysztof Wodiczko makes large-scale videos, which he then projects on to national monuments and significant architectural sites to explore how these monuments reflect the past and our memory of it. In this case it is the actual monuments he is appropriating.

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/wodiczko/

Junior Seminar Investigation: Marks

This is actually Jen O'Neill posting...my account is not working for some reason. But no worries, Erin has generously volunteered to let me use hers for this post.

So...the topic of this blog isss...Marks!

When I drew this word [marks] out of the hat, my mind immediately wandered back to my Florence sketchbook. Over the course of the 4 months we were studying abroad in Italy, we were asked to make fifteen minute sketches everyday using only short marks. We could make our 15 minutes one day be a sketch standing alone, or we could spend 15 minutes on the same sketch for a few days, a week, a month, until we felt it was a complete drawing. These are some of my favorites from the semester.

After spending 6 hours doing perspective drawings in a massive, cold, marble church, I was often relieved to not have to focus strictly on a particular subject. I would start with a certain mark, whatever came to mind at the time, and see where it took me. I didn't have a plan. I played with light and dark marks, accumulation of marks, frantic marks, careful marks, etc. I've always been a perfectionist, which gets frustrating when I'm wanting to sketch something specific like a figure or specific object. I get too stuck in the realistic. This exercise was incredibly satisfying and liberating in that I didn't have to worry about it being a "good" sketch. (and, of course, that shouldn't be what sketchbooking is about anyway). It didn't have to represent anything in particular. Yet, I still liked the end result most of the time.

Marks, I learned, are incredibly expressionistic on their own. A long, heavy mark expresses something completely different than a short, fast mark made by the same pencil or pen. Different media create different marks. In accumulation, I found that the way I made one mark could totally change the end result. I experimented with sketching the same figure using different media. First, I sketched the girl in my default mode, with a nice micron pen. Then, I ventured into markers, pastels, pencils, as well as experimenting with the different ways in which each tool could be used. As a result, each figure conveyed a slightly different feeling.

Sometimes I was slow and careful, and other times I was fast and gestural. My first sketch, done in micron pen, I felt focused mostly on the detail of the figure. The green pastel and the blue marker, on the other hand, were able to emphasize the movement and hint at a narrative. The girl in blue seems to hint at more of a sexuality, where as the gestural brown figure focuses on the twirling, dancing, movement.

Furthermore, the mark is an extension of the artist's hand, of his or her own individual expression. Were I to give this subject to a different artist, it may look completely different. It may not even look like a figure. Klimt's highly sexualized and often emaciated figures certainly convey something different than those anatomically correct (but somewhat idealized) figures of Raphael or Michelangelo. Artists in the past few centuries have learned the power of the mark to emphasize emotion and action, and often to go beyond realism as a means of representation.

The way a mark is made can change the effect of the finished piece. The mark, therefore, serves as a microchosm to the greater image.

diarization

Remember handwriting paper in kindergarten? Those dotted lines that told you exactly where to cross the t? I miss those. It was nice having a guide telling you what to do. Or at least telling you where to do it (stay inside the lines!!). These aren't the greatest prints in the world, but they came out of a nostalgia for the seeming simplicity of the past, anxiety about what the future brings (as evidenced by the third one, obviously), and a general desire for something like a Guidebook To Life.

I used to keep a diary when I was young--it was homework, actually, and I don't know if I wrote in one before I was made to. I didn't even know what a diary was! I asked my teacher what I should write about, but I must have gotten the instructions mixed up because, for my first entry, I wrote a paragraph of facts about butterflies. It's funny now because in all the creative writing classes I've taken here at WashU, they emphasize writing what you know, since you're your own best expert on what you know--and here I was, at six (?) years old, writing, literally, what I knew. I wrote about how butterflies start out as caterpillars that get bigger and then make like a little cocoon that they hatch from, how butterflies come in all different colors, how much I liked them, etc. The next day I wrote a page about dragonflies. And so on until, a couple pages on, I finally learned what I was supposed to write in a diary.

What's interesting to me is that even though I "didn't know" how to write a diary entry, I wrote pretty much about things that occupied my thoughts at the time (obviously, I was a pretty normal kid). Now it seems like keeping a journal or a sketchbook is a completely natural, and even necessary, thing to do. Or writing things down on scraps of paper and keeping them together somewhere. A diary, it seems to me, more than anything is a record of your thoughts. It can be confessional, but it is unavoidably personal. We hesitate to show our sketchbooks at times for this reason. Or we wonder about exposing ourselves in our work, because even our artwork can feel too much like a diary, too confessional or too personal (or at least this is something that applies to me), even though the viewer might not be able to guess at the story beneath the images.

I think a diary, journal, or sketchbook is more than a daily chore or assignment--it's a place for questions and complaints--a place for reflection and exploration. It's a place we sometimes turn to for guidance we can't find anywhere else. I think in our lives we're constantly looking for direction--and as artists, we turn to the blank page, and we make our mark. Our diaries are our personal guidebooks, tailored by our experiences and visions for the future. The blank page is the cosmos. That mark is us. More than affirming our physical presence, it affirms our identity. This is my hand. This is me. This is me, searching.

That's my stance on things, at least. Sorry for the long post! I've been thinking about this for a while...

Delegation

For 'delegation,' I found two general definitions for the word - either to transfer power, or to give an assignment or task to a person. Both of those seem applicable to art-making because giving someone a task transfers the power of responsibility.

Here's a delegation of doodles, starting with the word dream. First, I found a person to draw what they associated with a word on the card, then delegated the topic for the sketch by having them choose a word for the next person. And then repeated several more times. (Since it's hard to read them, the words were dream, paleontology, elephant, rhubarb, and submarine)


Delegation takes many forms in art-making, often transforming the process into a collective operation. We got to experience this first-hand when Allison Smith came to visit, by participating in a range of tasks such as research, dissecting a parachute, or making a pattern.

While thinking about this, I began to wonder what the role of 'delegator' means for the concept of an artist - or how often they are a type of manager for the implementation of their ideas? Also, what about everyone involved in the art-making process compared to the often singular term 'artist' (apologies for all the scary quotes)? Is the focus the participation of a community or reaching some specific end? Or what about delegation of tasks to machines?

Anyways, here's a link to a neat example of delegation by Stephanie Syjuco. http://www.stephaniesyjuco.com/p_counterfeit_crochet.html

Archetypes...

One link to a good source is....http://www.crystalinks.com/archetypes.html

Junior Seminar Investigation: Commoditization

Art as commodity. Is art ever free from the constraints of a market economy and the gallery setting? Crafted into the very bones of the art “industry” is a gallery structured value system, and it shapes the way art is made, valued, and considered – whether we like it or not. Despite rebellion and attempted subversion of the gallery and art market as determiner, owner, and distributor of art, it lives on. Its selections influence what the public define as “good” art – art worthy of garnering “close to the GNP of some Caribbean or African states,” as critic Robert Hughes dryly states in a 2004 speech to the Royal Academy. In innocuously molding the rubric for determining what is “good” art or art worthy of commodification (of course, one in the same), these institutions wield a mighty hand in qualifying what constitutes art. In order to survive as artists, we are pressured to conform and to make art within these standards in order to even attempt to support ourselves.

Kinda sad, right? Isn’t art about something bigger? When we dream of the biggest things to ourselves, do we ever start thinking about what the dividends will be? Does your hand turn to the brush, to the micron, to absent minded doodles because the cash register Cha-ching! sounded first in your head? For me, the truest things are always pure. It’s true that art can be defined however you want it to be. You decide the value of things. You act on your impulses or through self-made rules and make, make, make. Regardless, we can’t ignore the permeating structure of art as commodity. Commodity spreads. If it’s hot, everyone wants it – on their t-shirts, on their coffee mugs, in their living room. Value goes up. Hype carries it up farther. We look to the (art) stars and wonder if we could be them if we too shot for the moon. It makes it hard to be an original voice, to be true to oneself as a creative entity. But mostly it just raises a lot of questions that perhaps can’t be answered about how art is to be defined and valued, considered, priced, about art’s “place” in the world. It lays down a transparent grid of restrictions. Like slamming into that glass door that looked open, it’s a little embarrassing and it kinda hurts. You’re making something that finally feels real and true and then you forget the grid is there and suddenly BAM! it’s the institution you’ve ingested speaking in your voice: Is what I’m making even good? Despite how we may feel about it, art’s role as commodity influences how art is valued and defined. Perhaps the best we can do is be aware of it or play in it, to overturn what philosopher Michel Foucault calls these “regimes of truth.” Once we understand the system, we can act within it to free ourselves… (spread the word!)

Archetypes

As I was researching about the word archetypes, I had assumed that I knew the main definition of the word, as it used in more everyday language. Typically it means, "an original model of a person, an ideal example, or a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned or emulated, " or a symbol universally recognized by all. It can also apply to psychology, referring to a model of behavior. Archetypes are also found in literature, as they used to be important to ancient mythology.

However, the most interesting and artistic use of this word takes on a slightly different use. Carl Jung in the year 1919, came up with the concept of Jungian archetypes. He was a psychiatrist who believed that archetypes are innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations. He claims that archetypes are unconscious, and arise from patterns of behavior and images, and then are actualized when they enter the conscious after being manifested in someone's interactions with another's behavior. So for example, when you see a certain symbol or interact with a certain kind of a "archetypal" person, it triggers memories and forces you to question truth and reality. In essence, archetypes are visual symbols that exist in our subconscious that are actualized in certain moments to grant us understanding.

If you want to become aware of these Jungian archetypes, Jung says that they come about through meditation, dreamtime and outer body experiences. The five main archetypes are:

The Self- the regulating center of the psyche

The Shadow- opposite of the ego image

The Anima- feminine image in a man's psyche

The Animus- the masculine image in a woman's psyche

The Persona- how we present ourselves to the world

Other archetypes include the child, hero, great mother, wise old man, and often refer to stages of life such as marriage, birth, death, courtship etc. These images of people are often expressed in art through ancient times and even now are explored in a more modern context. Egyptians and Native Americans relied on these symbols often, as they were used to tell narratives that influenced their cultures. They are also expressed in architecture, as the pendulum archetype is used in St. Peters Square at Vatican City in Rome, and the World War II memorial in D.C. They have also appeared in crop circles and space observations.

Hope this gives you a better understanding of the word, even though the concept behind it is quite confusing. They are no accounts of anyone claiming that they have witnessed the process of interacting with these archetypes, however.

Junior Seminar Investigation: Rules

on the left: objects drawn with right and then left hand







on the left: a strand of spaghetti thrown onto the wall every time I made spaghetti last semester.









PAINTING FOR THE WIND
Make a hole in a purse full of seeds and put the purse where there is wind.




The concept of setting up parameters for making art is a pretty accessible way to make work. The top two examples are from Yoko Ono's display at the 2009 Venice Biennale. There was a wall filled with type-written instructions. Here, the text stands alone as a conceptual piece.



Jana Harper had an exhibit in Florence,Italy last spring with a series of "games" that she created while spending a month in an area outside of Florence. “Game One: Assemble the tiniest bouquet. Ever.” “Game Eight: Sit under an olive tree and try and catch the flowers as they fall.” “Game Eleven: Try and draw the wind the way it feels on your body.” The exhibit showed text paired with an image documenting the "game." In an adjacent room, there was a table with a book where visitors were implored to write down a "game" from their own imagination.


Setting parameters such as "make a drawing a day" allow us to maintain discipline while allowing creative juices to flow. Sometimes starting with rules and words is an easier jumping-off point since we are such verbally-based creatures of habit.

Marimekko, Durham Press, and Polly Apfelbaum

Check out this news from Durham press, with some very lovely Polly Apfelbaum prints.

Monster Casserole

Monster Casserole catalogs various illustrators, fine artists, designers, street artists, etc. for your ease of searching. A lovely online resource for the art monger's convenience.