#textbook studio

Yuck Print House will be opening the doors to their permanent gallery space in Chorlton, Manchester this Saturday the 26 July 2014. Promising to provide “contemporary and beautiful eye-food from a friendly and relaxed setting” Yuck have a range of prints from local and international artists, including our Fred Aldous Sketchpad artists Steve Hockett, Aliyah Hussain, John Powell-Jones and Textbook…

Last weekend I spent Saturday on a Printed By Mono risograph workshop run by Textbook Studio & SAVWO. I brought along my design for PRINT FORWARD to work with, and chose blue, black and orange as my 3 colours. I was extremely happy with the result! 

I saved a few prints to be 'winter trees' and the rest had the 3rd layer of colour making the 'autumn leaves' or 'summer fruit'.

Having already mentioned The Raw Material, amongst the (immaterial) things, which I brought from this event, was an email contact to John. He is a former Stockport College student, and together with his classmates Vicky and Chris they presented their Textbook studio. During the snack break, I asked John about few things, such as Bombay mix or portfolio visit. He agreed, so I asked him for writing his email address down, while I was gobbling Taryn's home made cookies.

Later, I browsed Textbook's presence on the internet, reminded myself, and then after few emails, we agreed on the date of my visit. It was going to be Friday, a day after my 23 hours London Trip. It went easy to find their place, as well as smooth parking. It was more difficult to realize that building was their place. I'm glad I could visit the building which I have been wondering about since my first days here in Manchester. Its  signage, and the fact it used to be a big print shop keeps fascinating me, even now. Hotspur house with the wooden letters on their facade. Four floors of wooden steps up to their kingdom built on palettes. There is a small, carefouly insulated wooden unit in the middle of the shared space. There is another design studio, screenprinters, filmers,  etc. within  this building. A creative hub. Their cozy room contains two desks, book shelves and some source of music, which I was not able to recognize. Sorry guys, if forget anything important. I welcomed a coup of black coffee and started expressing my impression from RCA & V&A. Good, let's move to my book.

I already implemented advice, which I think is quite useful. I keep the pages of my portfolio loose, even though there the clips inside the jacket. People can grab the pages, look closer, be closer to the artwork. From my last portfolio visit I reduced number of the pages dramatically. Today, I planed to present just five of the projects, which I thought were the strongest. Most of them were recent, apart of the work from my BBC placement. Even though there are some brighter moments, I should get rid of them, and not keep them there just to show off. There is the information about that placement in my cv. The work will end up in one of the blast from the past section.