On July 31st the National Poetry Foundation hosted their Fifth-annual Printer’s Ball; and for the second year in A ROW Printeresting sat by the phone waiting for an invite, eventually we ate some of that mac-n-cheese left over from Wednesday and watched reruns of Family Guy.

Here’s a blurb from Jay Ryan’s website:

Founded by Poetry magazine with other independent Chicago literary organizations, the Printers’ Ball is an annual celebration of print culture, featuring thousands of magazines, books, and broadsides available free of charge; live readings and music; letterpress, offset, and paper-making demonstrations; and much more. This year’s Printers’ Ball is co-produced with Columbia College Chicago and the Center for Book & Paper Arts, and is set to take place in the landmark Ludington Building, former home to the American Book Company. Select events during the Printers’ Ball are being recorded for Chicago Public Radio’s Chicago Amplified.

More than 1,500 people annually attend what has become one of the largest celebrations of print culture in the country. This year, for the first time ever, the Printers’ Ball features publishers outside of Chicago, showcasing more than 200 local, national, and international literary organizations and the various ways they bring print to life. Admission to the Printers’ Ball is free and open to all ages.

You can see a slide show of the ball here: printer’s ball slide show from the Chicago Poetry Calendar.

Sure sounds like a good time.. Oh well, maybe next year..

I saw this on Facebook (it pays to be connected) and thought it would be worth a quick post. I don’t have images of work from the show but it’s called Big Funny and it’s a celebration of the newspaper comic strip. The comic strip is another of  the many peripheral casualties of the dying print-newspaper industry. The show is up at Altered Esthetics in Minneapolis and features 47 artists. While the majority of the artists primarily work in the comic strip form, the show also includes non comic strip artists like Jenny Schmid.

Read Henry Chamberlain’s review of the show here.

And if you’re really disappointed that you can’t make it to Minneapolis to see it (BTW, the opening is tonight), you can always buy the show catalog. True to the comic strip form, the 2000-run newsprint edition looks like a newspaper. The format is 16″ wide by 22-3/4″ tall with an image area of 15″ wide by 21-1/2″ which is a the same size as newspapers from the 1910-30′s eras…

Even the ads in Big Funny are cool! The ads for sponsors on the back of the paper were hand-drawn by editor Kevin Cannon, with the words for “the Source” ad penned by editor Steven Stwalley. The classifieds feature a mix of original limericks, artist bios, vintage ads from old comics and more.

The comic strip form itself, the ramifications it’s had on our cultural life, and its uncertain future are worthy of future Printeresting musings.

Shopping for the type enthusiast who fancies themselves a little bit outlaw? I give you the typeface beltbuckle and money clip. Who knew? These fine hand-forged products are produced by the Steel Toe Studios and can be purchased from the comfort of own home via their etsy shop here.

Thanks to the Perfect Bound blog (simultaneously covering bridal fashion and letterpress excitement) for their enlightening Letter Press gift guide.

Sadly, the Print Center’s 83rd Annual International Competition: Printmaking just came to a close. For those of you who were not able to make the trip into Philadelphia to see the show during it’s run from May to August run you missed quite a strong show, featuring 33 prints by 29 artist’s from all over. The Editor’s of Art on Paper and founders of Triple Candie, Shelly Bankroft and Peter Nesbett reviewed submissions by nearly 500 artist’s to choose the work selected for this exhibition. I don’t have room here to post images of all the fine work in this exhibition but I will post as much of it as possible.

Stella Ebner, Chinese Restaurant

Much more after the jump.

Andrew Kozlowski, The Last Survivor, A Great Gift

This picture of Rebecca Foster’s minimal etching, Longing We Say Because Desire is Full of Endless Distances, doesn’t begin to do justice to it’s spooky simplicity.

Jason Snyder, Go Outside, Go Camping

Jeffery Dell’s striking screen print The Ravishing is red hot and (mythically-speaking) naughty.

Edwardo Fausti, Tang Taiwei

Aspasia Tsoutsoura’s beautiful and subtle photogravure, Punched and Softer, appears to be from a photograph of take-out foil wrapping and must be seen to be believed.

These next two Untitled works are by Graham McDougal and it seems important to the content to note that they are screen prints over various White Columns Newsprint posters; whether it’s a transgression or improvement you must decide.

Christie Ginanni, Diorama 1

And this last collection is by (-full disclosure- occasional Printeresting guest-contributor) Kevin O’Neill working in collaboration with the very talented Karisa Senavitis under the monacre

Will Work For Good. While primarily a art/design concern, these projects represent a good representation of their non-commercial whimsy. I love the limited edition bank receipt.

I’ve made every effort to properly attribute the work from this show if you see any errors please email me, or if you would rather you work not be shown on this site let me know and we’ll take it down directly.

If you think you can handle it, there’s more here.

If you somehow ended up here, you’re in the wrong place! You can see all our new content if you follow this link:

VISIT THE NEW PRINTERESTING.ORG

Cultures, 2009. faces lifted from newspapers with Silly Putty, petri dishes, metal cart

I know. What the…?! Has this really been around since 2005 and we’re not finding out about it until now? GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! by Scott Brown & Anthony King is a two-man, two-act spoof about two playwrights making a pitch for “their new project – a big, splashy musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg.” So the old irony-laced-postmodern-tale-slash-sweeping-historical-epic-set-to-music formula?

And they say musical theatre is dead. Come to think of it, don’t they say that about printing, too? The script is available for less than ten bucks. No telling what the production rights cost but if Philagrafika gets on this soon, they should have a performance ready in time for next year’s Southern Graphics Conference in Philadelphia!

]]> http://printeresting.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/thespians-get-their-print-on/feed/ 3 jasonurban Gberg http://printeresting.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/printmaking-a-complete-guide-to-materials-processes/ http://printeresting.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/printmaking-a-complete-guide-to-materials-processes/#comments Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:22:52 +0000 amze http://printeresting.org/?p=6342 ]]>

It was like one of those gift-giving holidays when my mailman arrived with my copy of Printmaking: A Complete Guide to Materials & Processes by Beth Grabowski & Bill Fick published by Prentice Hall. When I  heard about this book several months ago, I figured with two authors of such diverse print talent: this was one to put on the wish list. Since the volume arrived only days ago this is more of a first look, rather than a full blown review.

My first thoughts are as follows: Go Buy This Book! It’s the one you’ve been waiting for!

The rest of the review after the jump.

Clean/Dirty.. who knew that was my problem all along?

It meets all the requirements I’ve been looking for in a handy shop reference both for teaching and my work. It’s comprehensive, the table of contents runs the gamut of all the major print processes, including: Screen Printing, Relief, Intaglio, Collagraph, Lithography, Monoprint, but it also includes chapters on digital processes, mixed media (mainly focusing on using multiple print processes on one image) and a smart chapter on “Practical Matters” that goes over the basics of setting up a shop and current best practices for safety. Even the introduction is an interestingly readable treaty on the value of working in the multiple.

Some snappy illustrations of digital print work by Randy Bolton (left) and Shaurya Kumar (right)

There is a ton of art work through out the book, often in context with the process being discussed in the text. And.. it’s really good work, inspiring even. There are the familiar print legends that we all love to see, but the vast majority of work showcases newer voices in the field. The artists included cover a range of well established print artists, like, Beauvais Lyons, Randy Bolton, Endi Poskovic, Tom Huck, Sean Caulfield, Michael Krueger, Jenny Schmid, Kevin Haas, and Swoon. There are also a large number of more emerging talent, whose work holds up next to the heavy hitters. Surprisingly, the book breaks with print manual tradition and includes many great illustrations from artists whose print work is published by master printers including the likes of Beatriz Milhazes, Carl Fudge, James Sienna and Polly Apfelbaum, to name a few. The bottom line is that this book is full of good looking art, which means that if you are like most people and only actually read the technical writing when you have a problem  you will still have something great to look at for inspiration.

Easy to follow steps that show you how to engrave your own Chinese five RMB note.

By the way, the process descriptions are easy to follow and informative. It seems that Grabowski and Fick  did their homework on the state of the american attention span, their writing and layout doesn’t get bogged down with too much information, is full of informative ‘pop-up video’-style printing tips and clearly understood charts. And if that proves too much, there are great step-by-step photos breaking down the steps into easy to follow.. um, steps.

Some big relief printing and installation by the german artist, Thomas Kilpper.

In addition the authors included ‘Profile’ pages, that include a brief bio and interview with an artist or master printer, photos of their work or them working in their studios.

Jenny Schmid, making it look easy.

In closing, this book rocks.

My only complaint: 60 bucks for a softcover? Prentice Hall must think that we really can print our own money. Buy a copy if you can swing it and/or get your local library to pick up a copy today.

“Handsome Boy Printing Club” is a video/print project by Patrick Wagner & Samuel Seger, two German sculptors who operate Handsome Boy Press. Half of the project is video documentation of process- experiments with steel and zinc plates. The second half of the project are the resulting prints.

Patrick responded to a Printeresting inquiry…

…you know how you sometimes walk around seeing things and then you wonder how they’d print, thoughts probably a lot of printmakers have all the time. Then you come up with this elaborate way to scratch a plate, print it, and damn, it looks just like almost all the other plates you’ve experimented with before.

So during one of these experimental sessions, it became obvious that the only way to transmit the fascination behind the idea “I wonder how this would print” was to show both, experiment and result, hence the video.

And here are some of the prints. They are untitled so as not to give any direct clues regarding process… the viewer is left to watch the video and speculate.

A few more pics after the jump…

Nerd specs:
All works on steel and zinc printed with Charbonnel 55981 black and Charbonnel RSR black on mouldmade paper from Zerkall, 350g/sqm.