PRINTMAKER EXTRAORDINAIRE

new bbs

Kid art inspo.  You’re killing it, Seraphine.

Research.

Has anyone ever made you feel like less of a woman because you do not conform to their gender stereotypes/ideals/beliefs and have you ever wondered why there isn’t there a word in the English language to describe that feeling?  Me too.

If you’re within day-trip radius to Washington, D.C., come to the Ink it Up! Print Symposium at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center on November 14th and listen to me talk about why my soul dies a little every time I put a print I made in a frame.  Early-bird registration is crazy cheap, so get right on that.

Sometimes it’s really difficult for me to listen to printmakers, photographers, ceramicists, sculptors, etc., talk about making art.  I feel like I get closer to some kind of understanding and empathy when I listen to people who make art less closely related to my own: filmmakers like Greta Gerwig here, or writers like David Sedaris, or even some guy I met in Lancaster talking about making coffee.  It isn’t really about the medium, but the act of creating.  This probably explains my impatience with the endless “shop talk” printmakers are so prone to.

(Just kidding.  Maybe.  I can't decide.)

The Incidental Insurgents // Basel Abbas and Ruane Abou-Rahme Some more inspiration, this time found at the ICA Philadelphia. And then afterwards we went and got hot, fresh donuts.

The Hirshhorn is on my list of DC happy places.  I take comfort in its sinister architecture, narrow escalators, and patrons saying "I don't get it."  I always find some inspiration in there, and right now it's this Jannis Kounellis piece.

Collagraph and letterpress

A little jog to Tempe for my sister's wedding meant a visit to the gorgeous basement type shop at Arizona State University.  A windowless studio with a distinctive smell and a palpable creative energy, it was my home for the last year of my undergraduate career and holds a very special place in my heart.  I can print!

While passing through Tennessee at the end of June I stopped by Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.  There I was lucky enough to see both my friend Amy Masters (who will be there as a resident artist for one year!) and some Ann Coddington Rast work up close and in person.  Ann Coddington Rast is one of my hair art heroes, and I was so pleased to finally see her work.  I was also in awe of the wall of tiny baskets produced by her students!

I finally got to use the smallest itty bitty baby squeegee we have at Pyramid Atlantic while screenprinting some t-shirts and totebags for brooklyndolly.  Tiny layers forever!

If you find Art:21 a little "low energy" (as my public speaking teacher would say), you might instead prefer this lovely five minute bio of John Baldessari, narrated by Tom Waits.  If you're in the DC area, don't miss the Hirshorn exhibit Damage Control: Art and Destruction since 1950, which features some of the work Baldessari created following the "cremation" of the paintings he made between 1953 and 1966.

I want my own art to reflect my new surroundings, but first I have to process everything I am seeing.

This is the perhaps the most honest, entertaining look at intaglio printing the Internet has produced--particularly the part where prints get punched.  Etchers know.