"Spill," variable edition of 15
-etching, aquatint, marbling
This is the last of the work I'll be making until I reach South Dakota. It feels good to be at a complete stopping point, but at the same time, difficult to pack up my everyday art materials and stop creating for now. When I arrive in Vermillion and unpack, I'm sure it will feel like a new beginning.
I've been organizing and packing, and I found an old CFE for a portfolio exchange, which I think was called "I am a Serious Artist." The intro goes like this:
And after fooling around with 3D constructions, I've found today that I'll have a print shown in the Minnesota Center for Book Art’s exhibition “Prints: Now in 3D”. The show runs July 9 through October 31, 2010 and coincides with this year's Mid America Print Council Conference.
Just goofing off today, I constructed the above 3D pyramids out of a 2D print. Thanks, mathematics!
I'll be starting graduate school this August at The University of South Dakota in Vermillion! I was accepted last month, and I very much look forward to spending the next three years focusing on my work. Not only aesthetics and imagery, but strengthening the theory behind the prints by being exposed to different artists, art history classes, and new ideas. I've really missed this about the academic environment.
"Marking the Spot," variable edition of 13
-collograph, relief, stamp, handsewing
-X stamp and sewn circle are different on each
So many things have been happening that I almost haven't had the time to write about each experience. This is my post to break the silence, and a promise to update this site with new info and photos of the things I've been doing.
But without a doubt, things have been absolutely fantastic.
Last night I met Master Printmaker and founder of Hand Graphics, Ron Adams.
I went with my husband to the opening reception of his show at StoneMetal Press. Ron is a very congenial man, and easy to talk with about a great many things. Studying his work, you get a sense of the technical and 3-dimensional interest he has in the human form. He said that he approaches figure the way the Greeks did, by using the geometry of the body instead of the science of dissection that was available to Renaissance artists. It's truly a pleasure to talk to him about his thought process, what interests him as strong subjects, or how he titles pieces. "Neptune Washington" features the portrait of a muscled black fisherman, standing on the deck of a boat in the rain, his face upturned and full of that dimensionality that makes Ron Adams' figures so recognizable. I was drawn to "Blackburn" as I immediately recognized its iconic imagery, and I asked if Ron wouldn't mind taking a picture with me.
Really, really great evening.
The picture above is a portrait of myself from 1990. I think most of the info is actually still the same (except the height and weight of course). Maybe I'm not head over heels for pink as much as I used to be when I was nine.
Click to see my crazy.
This post is a little late, but last month I had the chance to visit the Herron School of Art at IUPUI, one of the schools I am applying to for graduate study.
The visit was really illuminating and I showed some of my current work to Dave Morrison and a few other teachers, which helped kick me forward out of a slump I've been running around in. I was shown around the facilities by a great grad student named Rebecca Clune, whose energy level and friendliness is to be worshiped. She also makes brilliant printstallation pieces.
This is a vast summarization, but the trip was well worth the money, and to any other prospective grads: I would strongly suggest visiting any school you can if you are intent upon applying to its program. The information you get from meeting people and being able to actually feel your way around the campus is worth the effort.
Below are some of my new friends in printmaking, discovered via twitter. Each one is fantastic in their own way, delving into a separate and unique exploration of print. You are bound to see something you like amongst these fine people:
Andrea Starkey
Annie Bissett
Jeremy Cody
Jennifer Hughes
Melody Knight Leary
Nathan Abel
...and plenty more where that came from!
"You are making art for artists. Nobody else could ever appreciate the effort."
- Alex Starkey (age 14) submitted by Andrea Starkey
Another update to my website!
Click on the printmaking events button and you'll be able to see pictures from some of the conferences I've attended. As the holidays approach, I hope to be able to scan in old photos and add more stuff to this page.
Enjoy.
Catherine Kernan from Mixit Print Studio in Somerville, Massachusetts is offering the t-shirt below in small, medium, and large for $20, including shipping! (Please contact Catherine at catherinekernan.com with any questions, or to order a t-shirt.
In other news, I'm having my portfolio shot today! I've finally sorted it all out, so that ever-present anxiety has begun to melt. I'll be very glad to have this phase of the process done.
I had a great session in the shop Friday night.
A few experimental intaglio plates that I tried turned out really well, and they got me thinking about all sorts of things I can try next. I proofed the aquatint I was working on this week and it was almost completely different than I expected, but overall not bad. I think I can tweak it and bring it under my wing.
I just need to concentrate now on refining my artist statement. No pressure...
Greetings from (just one of the) Ohio University print shops!
I got the grand tour of the art buildings here, compliments of the graduate students. I spent all morning watercoloring some yupo plates that I brought with me, and I pulled a print in the studio. Actually printing in the shop helped me "see" more of it, like the types of ink they have, and how they sort things, and on and on. Their AFT press works like a dream.
Last night I met possibly my favorite artist of all time, Mark Dion, at his exhibition opening at the Kennedy Museum of Art, so I'll check that off my list of things I've always wanted to do! Tonight there is a big school of art dance, with a d.j. and fried chicken! It's a really fun place to be, and the campus is beautiful.
These past few months, I've been using Yupo paper to make collagraph plates. The plates are pretty durable, and can also be watercolored before being inked.
I typically watercolor the plates liberally, then apply intaglio ink a la poupee to the plate, and pull the print from the plate. The results are often really vibrant, and vary with each pull.
I'm working on a series about imaginary worlds and maps-- about the worlds we create for ourselves to obfuscate reality. I'm still fleshing it out, but the prints are immensely satisfying.
For the printmakers in the house with access to a letterpress - this sounds like a great opportunity to make new work, and something meaningful:
A Call to Action for Letterpress Printers!
Deadline for the broadsides: 30th November 2009
"To protest & commemorate the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street, the centre of bookselling in Baghdad, on March 5th 2007...
Al-Mutanabbi Street is in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic centre of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community."
My beloved computer is pushing daises. I definitely can't turn her on anymore, so access to all of my photos and most of my work on the grad school apps is, for the moment, inaccessible.
To entertain you, I thought I would share with you the most wondrous thing I've seen this month: Jason Urban's Tron-inspired press. I hope you are as gleefully excited about it as I am. (link via Printeresting)
So, our wedding is over, and I just returned this morning from my vacation in Chicago with my "new" husband. Everything feels normal again.
Of course the excitement of the wedding was unmatched, and the fun of wining and dining in our favorite city without any cares or responsibilities was exhausting (when will that happen again?), but I have anticipated this moment for awhile. Being able to be regular Nicole again-- not the "bride", not the person with all the answers about how things will be for just one day-- that can get really stressful.
I'm going to be assisting Margaret with one of her intermediate printmaking classes this summer, working on two portfolio exchanges, and taking Sandra Murchison's "Printed, Sewn, Collaged, and Hand-Bound Boxes" at SSAC. I've got a lot of stuff to organize and write for my grad school applications, as well.
Finally, back to routine.
Travis's iPod needed some dressin' up, so I gave him the Chicago skyline in honor of our upcoming honeymoon.
I'm trying to stretch my drawing muscles and keep "doing something creative" every day, especially because I spend my workweek at a desk, during my peak time of the day for idea-making. Mornings have become my new 10pm-coffee-chugging college-era hunting sessions of yore.
Tomorrow night is the opening of Southwest School's All School Exhibition, juried this year by the department chairs. I have a recent print in the show, and am hoping to sell it, baby!
I'm sending work off for the upcoming Mid America Members Salon at the Morgan Conservatory in Akron, Ohio. It runs from May 1 through June 27 and sounds like a perfect opportunity to get work out into the ether.
I must also say, I really dig MAPC's new site. Navigation tabs that are backward-reading typeface but flip like a print when you hover over them are an excellent concept for a printmaking site!
I'm still in love with this city.
The portfolio exchange was great, the panels were really stimulating, and meeting people, as always, was fabulous. The only thing new to me this time was the wait to get into demos. Since I wasn't able to make last year's conference, I'm not sure how new this is... I didn't have a problem in Kansas City, as I recall. For me, it's all a game based on the timing. In sum, this conference has given me a lot to stimulate productivity, namely a portfolio next year and hopefully my participation in a demo in Philadelphia next year.
This month has almost completely vanished!
Before I know it, April will be here, and another countdown will begin anew to making another round of work, and to the wedding. I have to say that although deadlines have a connotation of doom and inherent anxiety, I am often most productive when given a goal or target date by which to accomplish something. My wedding is like the ultimate deadline.
Here's a great thing I stumbled upon at Glasstire while looking up the listing for a show: an article about artistic freedoms.
Hats off, Darryl Lauster. The Ten List: Freedom Isn't Free is a short and poignant look at the history of art's top ten creators and critics that have, in Lauster's words, "lowered its entrance requirements and raised its cover charge." Succinct.
While I agree with most, I feel opposed to a few. (Tracey Emin! I looked to her work when I was a blooming feminist artist, noting that my body could be my tool, that simply words could be a beautiful expression in light.)
In summation, I don't know a thing about Emin the person-- don't care to-- but I like the work she creates as an artist. I need work like that to continue. And even if We The People later had the Tilted Arc removed, I think the temporary statement Serra was able to make regarding acknowledgment of art and its presence was remarkable, if not a little cocky.
All in all, a pretty tasty list!
In two weeks, I'll be headed to SGC in Chicago! I am also getting married in three months, but let's try not to scare me into a tizzy.
Last month, I had the great fortune to attend two artist talks that were quite inspiring in their own unique ways. The first was by Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor, two artists that live and work back in Gainesville, Florida-- my homeland. I was glad to see something familiar, let's just say. Something I could hold onto in this time of personal disquiet.
I was also in attendance at the artist talk given by Bettie Ward at Blue Star, which was very cozy and illuminating. I was able to go to her studio that weekend and see the plethora of her work, including prints, paintings, and paintings on prints. I watched as she interacted with her viewers. It was truly a new experience. I looked at her work and felt as though I have been making prints inside of a box.
I had the opportunity to buy one of Bettie's small paintings, and I'm quite glad.
I have been busy collecting quotes!
Below is one from Bob Lazuka that I think is just... funny. I had to put it on the front page, as a sort of reminder as to why I asked the MAPC list-serv for quotes in the first place.
The rest of the genius can be found here, and if anyone out there can think of more appropriate printmaking sayings, please, send them my way. I'd love to add more to my resource of quotes.
- the Printmaking Studios at Arizona State University submitted by Robert Lazuka
The graduate school search and a recent call for submissions to a print exchange has given me many chances to consider my studio practice lately.
What strikes me at first is that lately I seem to need multiple projects to move through. In this way, I feel that if I reach a stopping point with one, I can look to another for a fresh start, without the sense that I've hit a brick wall. Secondly, I notice that I carry a LOT more electronics to the studio than ever before. I am documenting things digitally that may yet surprise me later in my work. This is... kind of exciting. The Nicole of 5 years ago would be shocked by this.
These are the little guys I've been working with the past month or so. A few little aquatinted copper plates that I want to print using a la poupée techniques, which I've never quite been able to master. Here is my chance to tweak it! But these guys need an environment to live in, and this is my dilemma.
At first conception of this work, I envisioned large pieces of cotton rag (perhaps the usual 22x30), printed in some light and airy fashion so that the aquatinted plates naturally moved across the foreground. But now I have run them through the press onto a canvas, and it was quite enjoyable. Now I'm pondering a sort of combination: paper that looks light and airy, and moves like fabric, perhaps something like a long stretch of mulberry.
Nine years ago this month I pulled my first print.
I still remember the way that Bob walked our Monoprint class through the printmaking studio, showing us the etching press, the blankets, the sink and inks. It was all perfectly new to me and, instead of letting us take notes, he said, "Don't worry about it, you'll remember how to do this."
He was right, of course, but I couldn't believe him at the time. This was one of my first university courses and I had never so much as heard of printmaking. I wasn't one of these cool kids that got to do linocuts in high school! I was scared that I would do something absolutely mornic.
But my first print gave me what I still call "the butterflies" when I pulled it. Just a simple 1 color reduction monoprint, but the idea was lodged into my brain then. I could see where this was going.
I've been working my way through a variable edition double-drop print these past few months. The print started out as one plate, but was in need of something more to really make the imagery stand out. Along came a seriously sweet aquatint to balance the equation.
This kind of work has really been freeing and explorative, yet at the same time given me a chance to work in a clean, uniform way as I actually pull the prints. I'm glad to say I only have a few that need minor curating, and just one that suffered a serious trauma due to placement of the key first instead of last. (I labeled the plates after that run.)
View my page on INKTERACTION!
Inkteraction is like a facebook for printmakers. I've been having a ball on there, goofin' off and whatnot. The wealth of knowledge in one place is pretty amazing. It's been really fun trying to find old friends, also!
My portfolio is updated with some of my recent work.
I'm in Fargo right now for a wedding and next week is the Mid-America Print Council Conference. My schedule is almost vacation-like this week and I am enjoying it!
I participated in a workshop over the weekend with Radcliffe Bailey. The total goal of the workshop was actually to edition a set of prints that would be divided between the artist, the Southwest School of Art and Craft, and the McNay Art Museum.
Radcliffe utilizes heavy symbolism in his work and I love the way he layers his prints to build up a final image. Also, a lot of the topics regarding personal symbolism and memory were very dear to me. The project was hard work this weekend and I was exhausted when it was through.
I've been stressing lately, working on a few different printmaking projects. A new sketchbook has also kept me busy, but I had to share these MIA videos that demo the four big printmaking families (monoprints excluded):
Lithography
Intaglio
Relief
Screenprinting
Enjoy!
An exhibition hosted by the Planned Parenthood Trust of Central and South Texas entitled The Many Faces of Women is on July 21-27 at The Southwest School of Art & Craft.
I have a piece in this show and am delighted to be a part of this group of artists. The reception is Saturday July 26 from 6-8pm and I'm looking forward to meeting other folks in the show. All sales from the show will have a portion of the proceeds benefit Planned Parenthood, so the art is definitely worth it!
Recently, Self Help Graphics and Art took a major blow when their building was sold without their knowledge by the LA Catholic Archdiocese. Self Help Graphics is a non-profit organization that not only promotes upcoming artists in the Chicano and Latino communities, but is a vital printmaking center as well.
If you live in or around LA and can afford to do so, please consider attending the Self Help Fundraiser on July 24. Donations can also be made to SHG via PayPal at their homepage, selfhelpgraphics.com. You can also choose to show your support by ordering a Save Self Help t-shirt for $15. (I hope to receive mine in the mail ASAP.)
If you have read about this incident and want to do more, please consider writing a letter to the LA Archdiocese that explains your feelings on the subject. The staff at Self Help has provided a template that you can modify to fit your needs.
My new work is up at Fiber Artspace. The show is Innovation: A Collaboration and consists of three fiber artists working with different kinds of artists to create new and collaborative pieces. My chosen artist was poet and friend Tina Misite. You've got to check out the show, but here's one of my favorite pieces:
Type
relief, screenprint, and handsewing
available for purchase through the gallery
I've finally registered!
Mid America Print Council Conference, October 1 - 5, in Fargo, baby! One of my favorite cities. With my all time favorite burgers.
I got a cool opportunity to carve on one of these blocks for 6 sides 2 every story, an international collaborative project. The cubes were sent out to artists and printmakers everywhere by Candace Nicol in Nevada. The six sides of 100 cubes will be carved by different participants... leading to 600 different 2"x2" prints! Each cube tells one story six ways.
I have my cube this week and am pondering the story my cube was given by Margaret Craig. Each participant will eventually receive one of the edition of 8 from their block when all the carving is complete. Check the 6 sides blog for updates on the progress of all the cubes.
Here's an interesting Florida-born artist by the name of Lee Stoetzel. His sculptures are absolutely appealing due to their use of innovative materials and large scale. I'm personally quite intrigued with the citing of detritus as the impetus for creation.
Also, I really like the Jeep.
If you live in San Antonio, pick up this week's 210 SA and check out the incredibly cool full page article on my show at Fiber Artspace.
Many, many thanks to Jessica Belasco for the interview and for making me sound coherent!
Robert Rauschenberg has died.
No limits on art, a story from the Chicago Tribune.
I had a great opening reception thanks to all my wonderful friends. In fact, I had the best opening reception night that Fiber Artspace has seen since its inception! Also, having sold 2 pieces on my opening night was beyond awesome. Thanks, J & L. You dudes rock, too.
During the First Friday opening, Larry Lange and the Lonely Knights announced my show several times during their set. That was pretty wonderful, and all I had to do for that great promotion was give them some cold Lone Stars. They played some really nice tunes.
Thanks, guys!
As a follow up to all this show madness, I have landed an "artist spotlight" in 210 SA, a local newspaper thing. The artist spotlights, I think, are great because they don't always do the usual folk-- it's people you might not catch if you're not a First Friday worshipper. This makes me so excited! I'm being phone interviewed.
More soon!
May 1 - 25, 2008
Fiber Artspace, Blue Star Arts Complex
From the promotional copy for the show:
Printmaker Nicole Geary has been printing on surfaces other than paper for several years. Feminist issues such as body image, equal rights, and gender discrimination often influence Geary’s work. In point, pattern, print, Geary continues to highlight these struggles, delving into personal and sometimes painful issues women have with their bodies throughout their lives. Various printed images are bound up by the needle and thread, and a new image may appear from the pieces of another.
At Southwest School of Art & Craft is a yearly juried show. This one is happening now through June 15th. I have two pieces in this show, so go check it out if you are in the San Antonio area. The SSAC galleries and studios are pretty great.
The guidelines for this one were pretty simple: Edition of fifteen 5x7 inch prints in the printmaking media of litho, screenprint, intaglio, relief, or any combination of those.
Prints to be collated and sent back out in late spring!
Yesterday afternoon into evening, I was "editioning" my stone. I use the quotes because, as I know is always possible with lithography, the stone gave me the go ahead sign, but halfway through, she decided we weren't gonna see that project all the way through. I started to get spots in my image from the chine collé paper I was using, spots that I could not snap roll out. My image began to fill in in some areas-- areas that I found critical enough to pull out the white flag.
"You win, stone. I'll call it a day."
And this is the part that's hard to explain about my weird and intense love of lithography. I've worked that stone for several months. I pulled a first state image off it in July, counter-etched and added work back into the image, and then etched it a few more times (possibly not hot enough in some areas). I laboriously cut 31 chine collé papers, tore down my editioning paper, etcetera, etcetera, and in a matter of a few hours, I lost the edition.
I understand now the phrase "the tyranny of the edition." Before, I'd always quite liked having a little bunch of something, but one stone with some wonky chemistry can quickly turn tyrannical.
Anyway, it is hard to explain an intense love of something that can so quickly turn its back on you, but I really respect this process that is, let's say, 5 parts chemistry, 3 parts skill, and 2 parts a prayer to the printmaking gods. Ask anyone with a fair bit of working knowledge of any printmaking process -- there are printmaking gods, and you dance for them.
A monoprint from June. I'm not sure that I'm expressly interested in monoprints as much anymore, but I thought this was interesting just the same. I might be more into experimentation than anything.
I didn't realize until I looked back at my pictures, but this ghost print has a vague quality about it that resembles the pictures I took of the big Texas sky earlier that day. Kinda neat.
Guadalupe Street Coffee
May 2 - June 9, 2007
From the artist statement for the show:
My personal battles in the artmaking process are not so much to give contextual meaning to my imagery, but to find the best visual vocabulary for the ideas I need to express. Sail On, Sailor embodies the culmination of several years of printmaking experiments that achieve “the best visual vocabulary.” The work represented revolves around the theme of loss and the sea: the Biblical tale of Jonah being swallowed by a whale becomes a surrogate for the incredible insignificance of one person inside the vastness of the ocean. I’ve translated the story incorporating screenprints, spray paint, acrylic, felt, and wood to create imagery with a tactile experience.
For this exchange, I hand-printed "Sweet Fortune" on rice paper with a baren instead of using a press. It probably went much quicker than trying to find the right pressure since the lino was mounted. Not to mention, I was in a studio with other people printing intaglio, so changing the pressure every time for my block would have been a pain. The ink is a little sweeter pink than I usually mix up, but cookies and sweetness are okay for this image. I got several awesome prints back from the exchange, including a fragrant woodcut from Puerto Rico.
Or at least, the best apron ever:
I tried printing one day without this apron (because I didn't know I was even going to be printing!) and I just can't. I've got to have those pockets, and it ties around my waist just right. Everything about it is perfect. Also, it's been broken in with love. You can't go printmakin' without good tools.
