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.

SGCI 2014 Photos

March was also so busy due to the Southern Graphics Council International Conference here in SF. I was on the Steering Committee, in charge of the Vendor Fair. We had 60 vendors, from the USA, Canada, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and France.

During the event, I met the gentleman who had been in charge of the fair for 25 years. When he started, the fair had six vendors.

Click on photos for a larger view.

Below, Conrad Machine company helps convert another printmaker:

Wee little barrens for sale at Graphic Chemical!

Maddy Rosenberg of CENTRAL BOOKING at the fair:

An intriguing vendor, Halfwood Press. Elegantly built, and you could plug in a USB into some models.

The second evening of the conference, the Friends of Dard Hunter had a meetup in the hotel bar. As the photographer, I'm not in this picture, but you can see Eli, Rhiannon, Rebecca, Jen, Peter, and Colin. Not pictured, but John and Anne were also in attendance.

I didn't get to attend as many panels as I would have liked, but I did see Paul Mullowney's talk about multi-panel prints assembled with wheat starch. Below is a slide from a 16th century diagram of how to assemble a map. Despite sounding completely esoteric, it was fascinating.

One of my favorite things about SGCI is always being introduced to printmakers whose work I'm unfamiliar with. Three artists received lifetime achievement awards, Don Farnsworth, Juan Fuentes, and Silvia Solochek Walters. I didn't know Juan or Silvia's work before, so glad I got a chance to see some of it in person.

Didn't manage to get a shot of Silvia receiving her award, but here are Juan, and below him, Don. A little blurry due to low light.

The whole conference ended with a dance party. Break dancing, conga lines, and even printmaking-based dance moves ("whipe the plate" etc.) made an appearance.

This was the first SGCI on the West Coast. The Bay Area held up as a great region for printmaking, naturally. And these pictures are only a fraction of everything and everyone I interacted with. Fingers crossed I can afford to go to Knoxville!