Things a changin' 'round 'ere

Check out the new print pod with short videos of printmakers, techniques and exhibits.

Blogger is now new and improved. I like the new additions to the new blogger. I finally get to add labels which was my biggest complaint of all. Plus now they have new fun"widgets" to add and I love that blogger and Google have merged (even though I oppose merging). I like googles feature, reader labs, which allows me to receive updates from all my favorite blogs onto one area so that I don't have to keep looking for updates on blogs all the time. I also like that I can post blog articles that I liked to the side bar. I even went so far to update more links on the side bar. I'm done with adding all the US print shops, I've added a couple of Canadian shops but there are a lot more. Soon I will do more, but I'm really tired. I learned a lot about the Canadian territories which I knew so little about before.

Hey I just felt an earthquake. I've been feeling them a lot lately.

I had a lot of fun looking at all the websites for print shops. Some are really badly designed, but a lot of them are really cool to look at. I'm surprised by how many Print shops are in California, Texas, and New Mexico. Wisconsin looks very sad, actually the Midwest looks sad-I wonder why there aren't anymore, but there are so many states that don't even have one print shop. New York has a lot of print shops, but that doesn't surprise me non. There are a ton of print shops in England. A lot of them don't have websites so I didn't add them. Perhaps I'll add them in the future when the Internet becomes more a part of British life and when it becomes more economical.

-Happy Printing y'all

Magical Secrets about Line Etching & Engraving: The Step-by-Step Art of Incised Lines

Available March 27, 2007

It looks like Kathan Brown of Crown Point Press has written another bookMagical Secrets about Line Etching & Engraving: The Step-by-Step Art of Incised Lines. This time it is more about technical skills rather than creative thinking (Magical Secrets about Thinking Creatively: The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life). I was browsing through Crown Point Press summer courses and would love to take and etching workshop. I really don't know what my schedule will be like this summer, so it's hard to plan for it. I guess it's sort of hard to get into the workshops. They select people by pulling their names out of a hat. One of the printmaking professors from CCA actually used to work at Crown Point Press, and he does things a lot differently from the way I've been taught. I'm a get down and dirty printmaker while he was a more orderly, scientific printmaker. Still I would love take a class and use the facilities.

Magical Secrets are sudden flashes of insight that help you make sense of something you care about. If you care about etching, engraving, and drypoint (a form of engraving), you will find revelations here. Author Catherine Brooks is a master printer at Crown Point Press, printers and publishers of etchings since 1962, and she draws on the venerable history of that institution to create an inspirational and highly usable how-to book. Crown Point Press founder, Kathan Brown, adds an appendix on hand-wiping and printing that teaches you to ink and print etchings with Crown Point’s superlative quality. The practical information is artistcentered, with illustrations and discussions of line etchings and engravings enhanced by quotations from the artists who made them. The book includes a DVD on which Catherine Brooks and Kathan Brown demonstrate the processes and artists are shown using them. On the accompanying website, you can join others in discussions and find ongoing information and ideas to increase your pleasure in the printmaking world.

Top 10 Grad Schools for Printmaking

According to U.S. News the top ten best graduate schools for printmaking are:

1.University of Wisconsin-Madison

2.University of Iowa (#1?)

3.Arizona State University

4.University of Georgia

5.University of Tennesee-Knoxville

6.School of the Art Institute Chicago (pardon moi...printmedia)

7.University of Texas-Austin

8.Cranbrook Academy of Art (MI) (excuse me...print/media)

9. Rutgers State University-New Brunswick New Jersey

10. Rhode Island School of Design

Lisa Kokin

Lisa Kokin is a bay area artist of whose work I really like. I especially like her book collages. If there was ever a way of showing you what hip bay area art is, it would be this lady's work. I have been noticing for a couple of years now that the most fashionable art is made up of junk from thrift shops.
You have to check out her webpage because it is one of the best artists web page I have ever some across.


"In my never-ending quest to find different ways to eviscerate books, I stumbled upon the book collage. First I find a book which interests me, either for some element of text, image or marginalia, or for the look of the book itself. Sometimes I remove some of the pages and glue and/or sew the book open to the particular page of interest. Other times I remove all the pages and use the inside covers as the collage surface. I build upon what initially interests me by layering images and text from the same or other books, found photos, and other small objects, using a variety of collage and transfer techniques. Often I scrape away and dig into the surface as well. Many of the books have sculptural protrusions and extensions because I feel that the shape of books shouldn't be limited to a rectangle"-Lisa Kokin

Animals in Art

"I am trying to intensify my feeling for the organic rhythm of all things, to achieve pantheistic empathy with the throbbing and flowing of nature's bloodstream in trees, in animals, in the air."

Franz Marc was born on February 8, 1880
Me was born on February 8, 1980

Besides Franz Mark and I having a similar birthday, Marc was an influence to me as an undergrad. He was introduced to me by Prof. Joel Elgin as one of his most influential artists.

Franz Marc is best known for his paintings of animals in non-realistic hues, such as blue and red horses, believing that color had a symbolic and spiritual force all of its own. Blue is the male principle, astringent and spiritual. Yellow is the female principle, gentle, gay and spiritual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the colour to be opposed and overcome by the other two. He liked animals and saw in them innocent beings in harmony with nature. He wanted to paint the world out of the perspective of the animal. Marc was a very sensitive and spiritual man. Today, only hundred years later, it is not quite easy to understand the ideas of this artist and others, although they were documented in articles, books and letters. He met Kandinsky and joined the New Artists Association from which his Expressionists group Der Blaue Reiter later evolved. His work had a mixture of Romanticism, Expressionism and Symbolism
Associated artists: R. Delaunay, Gleizes, Gontcharova, Kandinsky, Kirkeby.



William Wegman makes playful photographs which provide a wry and sophisticated commentary on the absurd elements of contemporary life and human behaviour.



Mark Dion is one of the leading contemporary artists whose work is about animals.
Using props from the natural and man-made world , Dion has constructed an installation that explores contemporary attitudes to science and the environment. He has created a fictional and hybridized situation in which the trappings associated with knowledge, learning and classification-such as books and photographs-are juxtaposed with natural elements including birds and wood. The representation of nature is a fundamental subject in Dions art, and here he takes the role of sociologist/anthropologist and blurring the boundaries between authentic and fake, representation and parody. Dion questions the values of the Western world.
Haunted by the Animal:An article on how Art is continually haunted by the animal.


Arthur Dove liked to paint bulbous forms in strange landscape fantasies while simultaneously resembeling animals and abstract shapes.




Paul Urich 2005



Kiki Smith


Amy Ross 2006

Going Ape: Confronting Animals in Contemporary Art

Going Ape is not the only, first, largest, or last exhibition on the theme of animals in contemporary art. Such shows have appeared throughout the country with increasing frequency over the last several years. This trend reflects two complementary phenomena: a growing set of artists who address animal themes in their work, and an avid audience for animal imagery. Everyone seems to be “going ape” for animal art.

This should come as no surprise. The history of art teems with animals, and may indeed have begun with images of beasts painted on the walls and ceilings of caves. Since that time, animals have appeared in the visual arts in everything ranging from decoration to symbols and allegories. The current interest in animal imagery, as expressed by both artists and viewers, seems intensified by our increasingly uneasy relationships with the natural world and its denizens. Our positions vis-à-vis animals are marked by confrontation and confusion. We gaze with wonder at them in the zoo, yet try to avoid them on the street. Meanwhile, our pets are practically people, since we ask them to be life-long companions and child surrogates. People don’t seem to know animals well anymore, or understand what our interactions should or could mean. This anxiety informs most of the artwork in Going Ape as artists try to find ways to figure out what it means to be animal, human, and both simultaneously.

Among the several themes that run throughout this exhibition are a questioning of the age-old wild/tame dichotomy and a confused duality between human/animal. Artists also use animal imagery to express anxiety and guilt about the wide variety of crimes perpetrated against animals and nature by our own species in the name of Science. But not everything is doom and gloom. Many of today’s artists, like artists throughout history, create images of animals to celebrate their sheer beauty of form, shape, surface, and variety, as well as their animating spirits.

So, even though the art in this exhibition is ostensibly about animals, it’s really all about us: what we think and how we feel. We ultimately confront animals to see ourselves.

Going Ape also heralds the planning, fundraising, and implementation of the Sculpture Zoo, the third phase of DeCordova Museum’s master plan. The Sculpture Zoo will be an area within the Sculpture Park permanently dedicated to the display of contemporary animal sculpture—a new opportunity for children and families to learn about the art of our time.

Going Ape includes work by the following artists:

* Deborah Brown
* Catherine Chalmers
* Walton Ford
* James Grashow
* Catherine Hamilton
* John Harden
* Henry Horenstein
* Mary Kenny
* Vitaly Komar & Alex Melamid
* Neeta Madahar
* Barbara Moody
* Josie Morway
* Gwynn Murrill
* Frank Noelker
* Barbara Norfleet
* Shelley Reed
* Amy Ross
* Peter Smuts
* Brad Story
* Kitty Wales

Audrey Niffenegger

You have to check this womans work out:
Audrey Niffenegger




The month of January was productive in that I got a lot of reading done. A way to escape my personal problems, I buried myself into "The Kite Runner", "The Memory Keepers Daughter", "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time", "Eighty Acres", "Middlesex", "Running with Scissors", "The Secret Life of Bees", "The God of Small Things", and "The Time Travellers Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger. I'm a complete sucker for time traveller books, and I loved this book. The main character is an artist who struggles through life using art as a medium to make sense of it. There are a lot of references to artists, museums, galleries, and also a lot of art school jargon which at times got on my nerves. Anyways, I was reading the biography on the back of the book about Audrey, and found out that she is a professor in the MFA program at Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. After doing research on the school, I realized that what I love is bookmaking. I am completely fascinated in the process of composing a work of art using image and text. I love the process of making books, and I'm completely fascinated with different papers. I love the idea of creating etchings, woodblock prints, letterpress, lithographs, collage to create a body of work the ties together secretly. I love how intimate the experience of opening boxes and covers of books is. The feel of the material, the turning of pages, the build up of anticipation. The book doesn't have to be bound but turned page by page. The book can hang like a sculpture, hide like a private locked box, it can be coded and abscure, it can be mutilated misused. The process of thinking about making a series of prints with or without text in a book format has unlimited posibilities.

One bookmaker I admire is William Blake. This guy was completely possessed and it is said that his wife often helped him color his prints. I'll be looking more into this guy in the future. Aparently there is a book collection near LA which has a copy of one of his books, but you need special permission to see it.

Like a complete dork, I spent my birthday going to museums and galleries, and while I was in SFMOMA bookstore I noticed Audrey Niffenegger's graphic novel the "The Three Incestuous Sisters". This book tells the story of three unusual sisters who live in a seaside house. Because of the artwork and mood, the book has been compared to the work of Edward Gorey (another favorite of mine). I started looking through the books and was completely amazed by her etchings.




So who I want to be when I grow up: a little bit of Audrey Niffenegger for her ability to write an awesome novel and create art; Kiki Smith for her ability to always be inspired and making things and have the coolest hair, Joel Elgin for his ability to inspire and create greatness, Betsy Davids for her calm wisdom, William Blake for being crazy, Kathy Neckar for her ability to keep her child-like curiosity, and love for life, Jon Stuarts humor, and Conan O'Brians ability to make me laugh out loud for being Irish.

INTERNATIONAL PRINT CENTER NEW YORK

Dasha Shiskin "Sausage Princess Dies and What it means for the Folks", 2005 Etching. Edition of 400, 18 x 24 inches
INTERNATIONAL PRINT CENTER NEW YORK
NEW PRINTS 2007/WINTER

Glad to see that IPCNY winter prints are up for viewing. It's always interesting to see what is "hip" with the "Art/Print" world. A great aspect of this web page is the ability to know who actually makes their own prints and who goes to a press to get them published. Even though you all know my preference is of course for prints made by printmakers, I still like to see how close printers get to making the prints look as close as possible to the artists original work.

My favs are: Ghada Amer, Enrique Chagoya, Nicholas Conbere, Robert Creighton, Klara Glosova, Daniel Heyman , Yuji Hiratsuka- (this guy is everywhere), Meejin Hong, John Jacobsmeyer, Max Liboiron, Serena Perrone, Carrie Scanga(really liked a lot), Dasha Shishkin(one of my favorite upcoming artists), Kiki Smith (never fails to dissapoint).

People who I wish would go away: Kota Ezawa...well he's the only one I really know about and I wish his work would go away...some people just know how to play the game right.

A lot of the other artists I don't know, and can't guess by looking at their work what they are trying to say, and quite frankly don't care enough to do research about it.

Woodblock Dreams

Final Print: Raping Darfur
I was browsing the the printblogs and wanted to point out to you, if you have not yet seen it, Annie's final woodblock print which is an extremely strong print that you have to check out. Also, she shows the process that it took for her to get to the final print.

Los Angeles Printmaking Society 19th National Exhibition

Deadline: February 10, 2007

"Los Angeles Printmaking Society 19th National Exhibition" call for entries (Posted: 1/9/07) -- The Los Angeles Printmaking Society announces a call to artists for its 19th National Exhibition, held September 15 - October 28, 2007 at the Riverside Art Museum (Riverside, CA). Open to USA and Canadian printmakers. Original work in all printmaking media. LAPS will not consider traditional photography, off-set reproductions, or art originally produced in other media. Awards: $3,000 minimum, last national garnered over $5000 in awards. Juror: Archana Horsting, Executive Director of Kala Art Institute. Deadline: February 10, 2007. $30 for 3 slides or $35 for 5 slides. For more information visit http://LosAngelesPrintmakingSociety.com or send SASE to: LAPS 19th National, 3836 Mentone Ave #4, Culver City, CA 90232. Questions? Please contact Nancy Jo Haselbacher at nancy@indeliblepress.com or call (310) 633-0296.