I like Igor.

As time winds down straight to the wire and I fail repeatedly to get a hold of 12x12 frames for my second exhibition I do what I should have done a month ago. I go 2 blocks down the street to Masterpiece Framing. After AI Friedman saying ‘Ja, it’ll take a month’ and Michael’s ‘sure that’ll be $500’ I was feeling like a cornered rodent (preferably a mouse or squirrel). I expected a privately owned shop to cost way too much and refuse the time restraints I had, which was now 6 days.
Igor saved my life, or at least my sanity. Even as a fidgeted about, hopping from foot to foot and waving my arms frantically like a baby bird ready for take off, he remained calm and went through my options. I hope everyone has an Igor in their town imported straight from Russia and ready to wrestle the craziest of us artists into a more reasonable state of panic.
The newest panic being, how the heck do I get to Nyack without a car?
The Moral of our story:
Never overlook the little man, small businesses rock. Also, Russians seriously rock. And lastly, getting stuff done ahead of time (for instance, having your work framed and ready before submitting to open calls) is really the best way to go.
Happy printing!

Invisible Threat

The Paper Panic

I’ve been in and out of the studio for the last two weeks, still struggling with the issues I’ve been having with my Doll Head series. If you read ‘a serious departure’ you can see the change in the prints over time. The water color simply won’t come off the darn plates anymore. Anyway, I was slowing closing the edition of my 'Forgotten Aunt' print, the largest I’ve done in a while and I had to order a 100 pack of Rives BFK straight from the US distributor. The paper was dumped unceremoniously by the FedEx Ground jerk that delivered it and rescued from sticky fingers by Greg. Luckily, the paper was so thoroughly packaged that nothing was damaged and I began tearing sheets of it down to size.
I’d torn 6 sheets before a sudden panic struck me in the throat. This new paper seemed lighter and thinner than the stock pile of paper I’d been using since my senior year at Purchase. I pulled out the prints I had left on my drying rack and laid them out next to the new paper. Heart fluttering in panic and mind rampant with all of the consumer reports about corporations making they’re products smaller without changing the price, I flipped the paper about. I could feel a clear weight difference between them. The old stuff had to be nearly an ounce heavier than the new. Maybe I had gotten a bad batch, maybe I had ordered the wrong grade of paper? How could I edition a suite with varying paper weights? Panic. Panic. Panic. I’d already torn 6 pages I couldn’t demand a refund! Panic...
Then the light bulb went on.
The new paper was vacuum sealed and freshly opened. The old paper had been sitting out in the studio for months. The old paper was heavier, but not from manufacturing. It had absorbed all the water from humidity in the basement! How could I have missed this important element? It was a week later at the Blue Door Gallery Heritage opening that I realized in another light bulb moment that the same humidity that made my paper heavy was the only thing different in the studio. Therefore, it was the only logical reason for my Doll Heads not to be printing!
The moral of our story; never underestimate the power of environmental factors! Keep a barometric and temperature gauge in your studio space if you are a printer. And get a dehumidifier.

The June Flood

Thought I'd post a few pics from the 4th flood, since it happens every 4th month. I think the pic on the far right would make a god painting, don't you?

And the moral of the story is.....

Blue Door Gallery

I’m very excited to say that I will be showing three (count ‘em 3) of my prints in the “Inspired by Heritage” show at Blue Door in Yonkers. I was caught completely off guard by the acceptance letter. After months of regular rejection I had hardly even summoned the flutter of anxious tummy butterflies when seeing the notification in my inbox. Upon reading that all of my entries would be required for the exhibition I leapt up from my seat and did a Snoopy dance in the library stacks.
After the initial explosive joy wore down a bit the panic set in. Here is the moral of my story for anyone just starting out. For the love of whomever you pray to, don’t send images of proofs or of work you haven’t made gallery ready out to open calls!
Why? Because those few pieces will be the ones that are accepted!
Explanation; I had only just perfected the printing method for my new series (Attic Cameos) and only pulled 5 proofs of a piece called Forgotten Aunt. Carried away by the excitement of having a new series after a month of stalemates, I sent images of it to the ‘Heritage’ open call. When I received notice of acceptance I discovered I had one week to wrangle frames for the odd dimensions of two of the entries. After five hours on my knees with a mat cutter in the emptied apt we were moving out of and the only 2 sheets of whitish acid-free matt board I could get a hold of I seriously considered how underpaid framers are. I was only just able to get the proof and other prints set properly before setting off in the pouring rain on a 2 hour commute to Yonkers. I’m rather pleased to say that while I was soaked through the work was perfectly safe in the reused framers plastic from other work I’d had done a year ago.
There’s a mini lesson right there, I never throw away plastic bags, bubble wrap or clean cardboard and it saved my chochskies this time around. So recycle repurpose reuse peoples!

Storm drains should not, ideally, drain into the house.

In May I had a total shut down of art. Couldn't seem to make any of my prints work and so, I changed direction and started in one my Collagraphs. Then it started raining...
This was the 4th leak in the basement studio since we moved in last Nov. I was so angry. And then I was a bit worn out. Then I spent the next 3 weeks rearranging my studio and it's hundreds of pounds of paper and shelving so they could fix the leak. Then I felt defeated.
It's hard dealing with the constant set backs that come attached to being an artist, but I had to step back and remember that it's all one big package. Shortly after the mouldy water wave-o-destruction, I proofed the first of my new series; the Attic Cameos. After that I was accepted into the 'Inspired by Heritage' show at Blue Door in Yonkers.
Ironically, I had to deliver the 3 pieces in the pouring rain and spent Sunday last soaked to the skin. It 'has a kinda' poetry to it' as Zoey might say.
Moral of our story? When it rains it pours, and that's not so bad.

Pictures for the Akua VS Graphic battle

Here we are as promised. On the left you can see we have the carbon black Akua water based ink used on a very simple Ktype Collagraph. On the right I used bone black from Graphic Chemical. I took this picture of them side by side in the same frame so that it would be clear that the left isn't out of focus, the ink is doing that fuzzy thing all on it's own. It has a certain appeal, I'll admit, but maybe in a different application.

Here on the right I printed Ktypes with far more relief details for the ink to respond to. I feel the result is not surprising after the above out come. It does make me think that the Akua ink is more about color than depth and maybe would be better when used in full color prints. Now that I think of it, the adverts were all about multi colored prints that looked a bit silk screen like (ref. Dick Blick).

What can't an artist live without?

Okay, here we are in Sliced Bread Studios. What is Greg doing? Here are a few clues : It's early morning, he's holding a power tool called a dremel and he's using it on something he's not gonna use for himself. You get three guesses and the first two don't count!

Yep, this is how artists open a can of coffee.

Akua Water-based Ink by Rostow & Jung: First Attempts

Gray? Why is My Carbon Black Printers Ink GRAY?

I feel artists are the best at reusing/repurposing wasted materials while simultaneously creating toxic waste products. Just the tiny amount of mineral spirits I use to clean up my etching ink is environmentally unfriendly. Yet, we use every glass jar, every emptied coffee tin and any expired phone book/magazine/newspaper we get our hands on. For a while I thought that was enough of a trade off and I didn’t feel too guilty about the sparing use of solvents and the scant bits of oil based ink I tossed in the trash.
Then I found Akua Water Based Ink in a catalog. A good range of colors and mediums made for intaglio and monoprinting. I ordered them up and got excited.
I love that this stuff takes forever to dry. I’m not being snide, it’s easy to clean and monoprinters will have plenty of time to do their thing before actually printing. It wipes fast on copper plates, so fast you wouldn’t even believe it. It does in fact wash up with soap and water just as advertised.
Down side, I simply can’t get over that this stuff looks and smells like children’s finger paint. After using Charbonel and Faust and Graphic Chemical, the loose consistency of Akua is a turn off. The softness of the ink made a mess of my high relief collographs, but I have yet to test it on more traditional collograph plates. Also, perhaps carbon black always turns into a watery blue gray plate tone because I have always used vine, bone and pitch, but…yuck! The umber is the same consistency and blending the different colors is predictably smooth, but the plate tone is also very cool.
I will upload pictures for comparisons sake and test the ink on my “K Type” prints and a copper plate with heavy aquatinting.

In summation; Easy clean, no annoying dry out issues, wipes fast off glass and metal, and loves Mommy Nature. Carbon black leans toward gray, can I get some vine out here?
Ready, set, print!

A Serious Departure

A Serious Departure
May 18, 2009

It is natural for an artist’s style to change as time goes on, but how does one back track? After graduation I had a lovely emotional roller coaster ride during which I quit my retail job and built my little slice of Sliced Bread Studios into a cozy (as in cluttered) printmakers hidey hole complete with Gustav, my tank-like press. When I started printing again my work was darker, more layered, slightly gritty looking.
Here is the first Doll Head, far left; I call her my Surma Princess Prequel. I followed that with more delicate work, most of which were destroyed in an adhesive Armageddon I don’t like to think about and a few were parceled out to friends and teachers. To the right, Watercut Joy is one of the last from my senior show.

Below are darker, layered works that I’ve made at Sliced Bread Std. in the last five months.

And now I have a bazaar departure that I am not sure what to do with. I call it ‘Abstracted Shyness’ (on the far right). All the while, I’m struggling to return to the light, simple style I used back at Purchase. How do I do that?

कामे ओं इन एंड जम विथ उस

Paper Jam at the Neu

When Greg (my SO) recommended that I donate a print to the Neuberger Museum’s spring auction, I didn’t give it a second thought. I picked out one of my favorite new prints, scoured the stores for the nicest frame and sent it in. It wasn’t till later that I realized my work would be hanging on the same wall as a Judy Chicago, April Gornick and so many other talented and big name artists. I had second guessed my price point for the piece, putting in the estimated value a full $100 dollars under what I would prefer to sell it for. I had thought it best to price it low so that it went home with someone. I instantly regretted it, feeling as if I had crippled my work with my personal insecurity.
Strangely enough, it all worked out.
My piece not only went home with someone, it was bid on by several people. When I found out it not only caught the eye of people who frequented the art scene ( I won’t name drop ever on my blog unless it has to do with a sc/fi star) but ended bidding at the price I had originally intended for it, I started jumping up and down in the lobby like a cartoon bunny. What a beautiful feeling of accomplishment! Just the shot in the arm I needed during the month of open call deadlines.
Not only did my art sell, I was actually paid to work the door (i.e., check out all the spiffy fashions the guests wore) and run bids back and forth during the live auction. Plus, can you say chocolate covered strawberries? I felt like Kaylee at the Shindig on Persephone, minus the layer cake she was wearing. Sure, I had to pilfer them from the abandoned tables post auction, but who could resist their siren call?
In summation: Wooooowhooooooo! Best Saturday yet.
But really, the most important part of the night was knowing that the person who picked up my work did it because they really wanted it. It wasn’t an investment, because I’m an unknown. The collector actually liked it, maybe loved it. And that makes me all weepy with happiness.

A statement from an artist, not an artist statement.

A statement from an artist, not an artist statement.
May 14, 2009

I just can’t seem to print ‘enough’ to make myself feel like I’ve compiled a body of work. I am surrounded by piles of prints, literally so many prints I cannot put them all up on my walls to review my progress, though I have tried. Prints crowd every available surface like so many Tribbles, minus the pleasant cooing sounds, and I can’t keep them straight even through photo documentation.
Yet, I feel I have gotten nothing done.
I find myself sifting through my plastic sheathed paper stock pile and clicking impatiently over digital thumbnails, searching for the perfect images to send out into the world. I have, perhaps, three flagship prints. These prints are the ones that I might be too in love with. The ones I send out to conquer the art world.
I always go back to them when setting up a package for postage and I always think, “God, are these the only thing I’ve printed? Back to the press!” I print ten more, I curate, I corner my beleaguered studio mates, force them to give me a critique and then I start the cycle over again.
Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
Maybe I should start painting again?