Banff Recollections

I've been enjoying my holiday break, catching up on some studio projects and starting a few new ones. The piece above is an in-process shot of the center panel of a print triptych I'm working on, based on my experience at Banff for the Dard Hunter Conference. The final piece will be a series of reduction linoleum blocks on handmade paper with pulp paint - the blue in the image above is actually a pulp paint stencil.

As the print progresses, I find myself remembering not only the mountains there, but the studios as well, and the integration between inside and outside as an artist's space.

All the studios at Banff either have skylights or large windows that look out towards the mountains. Even the studios for individual artists. It was so bright that the view from the windows in this pictures is overexposed, but the mountains are there.

The print shop is divided into multiple rooms. Below, the screen print area:

The screen print area is part of a long room that also houses the etching area, divided by some enclosed rooms for screen exposure and for acid. Along one side are windows that bring the light and mountains in.

I loved this guide to their ink colors:

A door in the etching area leads to the litho room:

Passing through the litho room leads to letterpress:

Next to letterpress is a clean room that can serve as a bindery or print curating space, which I neglected to photograph. Off of that room is the digital printshop - please excuse the slight blurriness.

The paper studio is in the basement. Radha Pandey was doing an Islamic papermaking demo during the tour, I'll dedicate a post to that soon.

The beater room.

The studio building is built into the side of the mountain. In the paper studio, there is still one wall of windows, but on the other side of the room, the mountain literally comes into the studio.

Raw fibers, half stuff, linters, and odds and ends on the wall of the paper studio:

The print and paper studios are coordinated by Wendy Tokaryk, whose work I was fortunate to see while in Banff.

This is just the studios I saw. The entire three days was so full of energy and revelation, it would be too long a post, so I will have to share the rest in other posts.

Sneak Peek: Kala Artists' Annual

My piece, Solastalgia II, is currently on display at the Kala Art Institute for the Artists' Annual. On display till December 13!

New Print: Listening

This new print combines etching and linoleum block printing! I haven't had much opportunity to really explore etching since, well, undergrad, and I missed it. Aquatint, grounds, stop out, spit bite, scraping...there is just nothing like working a plate. It's like working (developing) a drawing, but the history and palimpsest is in the metal, it has a palpable presence in three dimensions (albeit, a low-relief sort of presence).

But I can run my hand across the surface and feel the drawing. It has dimensionality. When printed, that dimensionality is transferred, so the ink manifests the corporeality of the drawing.



I love contrasting processes - the flat planes of relief printing on top of the more atmospheric aquatint. Layering these contrasts, to me, is the most exciting. It is where the image becomes the most exhilarating and tenebrous.



God, I've missed etching.

This print is actually on paper made from the first test batch of pulp I made in my beater! It was just some cotton linter I beat to test Dulcinea out, found it sitting in drawer over the winter and thought it was the perfect size for this plate. Which is another thing I love to do, use something that I've been saving because I didn't have a use for it yet.

In other news - I've been updating the website. Check out here for my new prints section. More to come!