Mentorship Project, part II

Here is the second half of my notes on Heather and my sessions in the studio as part of the Guelph Young Artist Mentorship Project through the Guelph Arts Council, the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph and Ontario 150. The young artists will be having a show the end of August at the Boarding House Gallery- I will post some notes on that as well.

Mentorship Project- (Part II)

June 28th 

We were not sure if we were going to meet this day or not as Heather would only be able to come if she passed her drivers test the day before. She was successful with her test but did get a bit misdirected when she found herself heading for the highway by habit and had to turn around and get on the country roads. She arrives completely unfazed and dives into printing, completing the next three colours of the print, with an  edition of 12. (I am in awe here as I remember my first drive alone with my new license, it wasn't far and I was frazzled.)
All the while, we are chatting about the many aspects of showing, selling, promoting print work and the application process for shows, residencies and grants. I pass on some valuable knowledge that I received years ago when I found myself discouraged to get my first refusal letter after spending much time on the preparation of an application. I was told that once you prepare a good application, duplicate it and send it out everywhere. If you send out 10 proposals or applications, you might hear back from 3 and might have 1 successful. If you stick to this practice, you won’t find yourself so attached to one call for entry and then completely shattered when it is not accepted. Another good thing to remember when applying for shows (grants, etc.) is that the jury are one group of people who have come together to find agreement in choosing. What one group chooses on one occasion is not the same as a slightly different group on another occasion. So it may not be that your proposal itself is unsuccessful but simply the time and place and within the context of the other applicants, etc. Try, try again. Of course it is important to have let someone whose opinion you appreciate look over your applications first!
Heather is interested in something I show her and call a ‘brag book’. This is a portfolio with clear sleeves that is handy for keeping a copy of your bio, statement, CV, installation photos, awards, show posters, invites, etc. Not only is this a good way to protect these papers and keep everything together but is an easy way for someone to find out quite a bit about you at a glance.

July 9th Sunday 

This is our last formal meeting as part of the mentorship program. Heather arrives and gets to work cutting her printed gampi pieces to prepare for chine collé. Her 4 colour registration went very well, especially because the plate and the paper were semi-transparent. I get the feeling that Heather is a meticulous and precise printmaker who has had to let go of her strict habits for this print, not so much with the new technique but definitely in working with the gampi. This last part of the project proves more difficult but she moves through with a willingness to screw up a few pieces for the sake of learning. In the end, the work is lovely and Heather and I both feel it was a worthwhile accomplishment for her. Of course the teacher always learns a bit on the journey with a new student and I am grateful for the experience to work with such a talented and positive individual.
Today we discuss the mentorship group and their attempts to work together at a distance in preparing their exhibition at the Boarding House Gallery. Luckily the date has been changed to August, which will give them some much needed time to prepare.  We chat about travel and far away residencies and wonderful ways to learn and adventure within the printmaking community. Heather shows me the brag book that she has put together and I am very impressed with how much she has accomplished so far in her short career. I make a few suggestions to make it more visual and suggest the addition of a CV at the front. She announces some very exciting news that she received recently (She is the recipient of Open Studio's Don Phillips Scholarship!!) and we chat about what a great opportunity she has been granted. The next year looks very promising for Heather and her printmaking practice. I feel fortunate to have been able to spend this time with her in my studio and I look forward to following her print adventures at Paper, Sweat, Ink.

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition

I am four days away from packing everything up and taking it on the road to participate in the 55th Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. It has been 12 years since I last participated and I am feeling a bit nervous and lots excited. I am 12 years older and hoping my endurance can still make it through 3 long days of showing my work to the public. In the past, meeting all the wonderful people at the show has definitely been the main highlight. Loading and unloading artwork each day, I remember as a type of boot camp. The weather is always a wild card, so will just prepare for everything and remain flexible. I have lots of work prepared and quite a few in the works, the editing will be the hardest part.  Maybe I can post some of the works that I am taking with me to get an idea of how it will all come together. Overall, I am feeling it will be a great show- and I hope to see you there!

These three are new mixed print pieces with lots of different beautiful Japanese papers. They are a departure from the traditional chine collé technique, pasting fine papers to a heavier paper when printing (which I still do with my edition works). These pieces are mostly sewn together to allow the delicate textures of the lovely papers to play as fine layers. I float mounted them and used 'invisible' glass, which is pretty amazing but a bit fussy to work with. All is good, if you do not touch it : )

Still working with some silhouettes. I have a series of gestures in socks and gloves that I am hoping to show some of.

This is one of the works framed in the top photo. I am having a lot of fun, and learning lots, while experimenting with taking prints apart and rearranging with new papers into fresh compositions.

And a really rough snap, fresh off the press, from my instagram of an etching that I am working on and hoping might make an appearance next weekend... fingers crossed. This year has seen lots of work inspired by lilacs. 
Off to finish a few more things started here. Will post some more photos soon.

Barbados Again!

We loved Barbados so much, we went back! This time with some days set aside to do some printmaking with students at the Barbados Community College and artists from the community. 
Heidi Berger put together the list of artists and met with the all the right people at the college
to make sure that everything would work out for all involved. We were a big group and excitingly diverse in art practices. I convinced them that monotype would be fast and fun and help to open up any areas in your creative life that were maybe a bit stuck. It did not take us very long to get going and the response for anyone hesitating too long was, ' just dive in'. We completed 160 monotypes (most with chine collé) in four days. The whole experience for me was breathtaking. I think it revitalized so many good feelings I have about printmaking, through the sharing- and with such a diverse group, we covered so much!

Much thanks to Allison for helping to make it happen, Terry the technician for making sure
everything was just right for us when we arrived and Aurelia for hanging out and making sure everything was just right every day! Last but not least, our most wonderful super assistant (and my husband), Chris. 

These are some of the photos Heidi and Chris took of the process, prints made and of course lots of happy artists. 

Reduction Monotype with Chine Collé

I am sharing all my how-to demo slide shows with you here. One after the other...is hopefully not too much. There will be lots of real news soon. Almost have all my Barbados photos edited and organized. There are a few exciting things I want to tell you about soon as well. So stay tuned...
Here is a step by step, reduction monotype with chine collé. I usually use a copper plate so that I can etch it later, or the other side might be etched already. In prepping for Barbados, I made lots of monotype plates out of matt board and acetate. The acetate is adhered with double-sided tape around the four sides. These were great, held up well to all the printing we did, were light (for travel) and inexpensive to make. I have used vapour barrier plastic when I could not find any acetate and it worked well, though it did stretch a bit and needed trimming after a few prints.You can use this type of plate for hand printing as well. The image might not be as crisp as with a press, but you can get some good information with a light weight paper.

Ta- da!

This last image is a reduction monotype in progress on the plate. Thought I would include this photo as it is more graphic with the black ink and maybe a bit easier to see.

Chine Collé Slide Show

I often get asked about the printmaking technique, chine collé, what it is and why to use it. It is printing on a fine grain paper (traditionally a washi- or handmade Japanese tissue) while pasting it to a heavier support (traditionally a cotton rag European paper) all in one pass through the etching press. It is a technique I use every time when printing since I first discovered it over 20 years ago. A very lightweight gampi is one of my favourites, though there are so many different ones I use as well (thank you Japanese Paper Place!) I love the semi-transparency and the way the very fine grain of the paper picks up so much more information and subtle plate tone than a heavier rag paper. Some people are not fond of plate tone and tiny scratches, but I find these sometimes unintended marks part of the surprise and what I enjoy most about printmaking. 

So while I continue to put together my photos from Barbados...

here is another wonderful slide show for you. This one is vintage and is from slide film that Chris shot many years ago now. I like the feel of the photos and seeing how my studio used to be set up (things have moved around a bit since then).