The Making of a Small Plate

I've been busy these past few weeks completing the edition for The Last Color, my book for the San Francisco Center for the Book's Small Plates Imprint. Above is a photo that Cheryl took of the Small Plates artists and Chad: me, Andy, Chad (SFCB Studio Manager), and Patricia. This Friday, June 26, is the release party for the event - and everyone is welcome! The Facebook page for the event is here.

Making this book at the Center has been such a thrill - some photos of the journey below.

Printing many shades of blue:

Folded accordions stacked neatly:

Assembling the accordions with the flags:

After casing, an interesting weight solution that accommodates the accordion:

The books:

I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge all the assistance, advice, and problem solving by Chad Johnson, as well as the binding help from Jillian Bruschera and Lynn Prather.

Hope to see you on Friday!

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!

Sneak Peak: (Re)Appropriate at Market Street Gallery

Last night was the opening for the California Society of Printmakers exhibition (Re)Appropriate at the Market Street Gallery. Above is a panorama of the show.

Colleen Terry of the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts curated the show. She states, "Re/appropriation" can be read in myriad ways, and...speaks to historical as well as contemporary concerns with the creation of artistic content (whether by the first artist or by subsequent artists)."

My piece, Leap, was selected. In this piece, I was trying to bring some of the design impulses I've developed in my recent collages into an editioned form - breaking an image up into registers, playing with patterned elements (the blue bars in the image are fabric inclusions), as well as reduction blocks.

Actually, the most impressive thing to me about the gallery was their cat, Mo, who, despite the door being open all evening, does not leave the gallery.

The show is up till March 30, with a closing party on March 29, from 5-9 PM. It was also be part of the number of exhibitions during the 2014 Southern Graphics Council International Conference in San Francisco!

New Artist Book: Tamalpais

A new little book made out of waste prints from this. For anyone unfamiliar with the term "waste print" - when a printmaker pulls an edition of prints - often some are discarded from the final tally because of slight irregularities. Traditionally, these were discarded or destroyed.

However, as an artist, I find opportunity in these waste prints. I figure, I've already messed it up somehow, why not use it for a basis for experimentation? I can only make it better. So I draw on them, or use them for collage, or in this case, cut up them up and fold them into an artist book.

For larger views, click on the images.



I was a little unsure what to do with the repetition of imagery, and decided to make the book a sort of meditation, with the mountain being a visual focal point as well as a metaphor.



With this new work, I'm trying to be be less linear in narrative, to leave open up the stories I tell visually, and actually, leave some gaps for viewers to fill in with their own intuition or background. Some older imagery is returning in the prints I'm working on right now, I'm circling back while entering a new phase at the same time.

Homage to A.W.

A printed nod to this, a self portrait (instead of cavalier boots, I'm wearing my papermaker/rain books and apron), and the weed has been carved away mostly, to reveal the paper (the plant is the paper - and thus, the paper is a character in the image).

Part of this print was printed at the San Jose ICA Print Center, which I hope to cover in a future post - I mean to post so much more on here than I often have time for. But the ICA Print Center is awesome, and totally deserves a quality post, rather than something dashed-off. I was there working on this print in late January, I can't believe it's mid-April already.

Still looking for shareholders for Carbon Corpus! Please message me if you are interested.

Becoming - new print for Lost Coast Culture Machine!

This spring, I was asked to be part of an invitational portfolio to support Lost Coast Culture Machine, this totally awesome, amazing, alternative exhibition and papermaking space up in Fort Bragg, CA. Book Bombs was part of an exhibition with them a while back, and since I've moved to California, I've been meaning to visit. More on that later.

For this portfolio, each artist was given some paper (see mine above) made at LCCM, to which they were asked to respond to this following quote by Giles Deleuze, One should seek to create a foreign language from one's own language, to be spoken by a community that does not yet exist. Not being too familiar with Deleuze, my first step was to sit down with my knowledgeable friend and philosopher Phil King (who currently has some paintings up at the Bay Area Free Books Exchange - go see them!).

My first response to the quote, before even talking with Phil, was that Deleuze spoke of a form of rebirth. As I came to understand, Deleuze was interested in breaking free from convention, reality, the mundane, but rather than attempting to reach a higher plane or truth, he felt that truth was found in the act of escape itself. The in-between interval, the interstice, was where he wanted to stay. When talking to me, Phil mentioned Heraclitus's concept that it is impossible to step in the same river twice, and how Deleuze would answer this by saying instead of stepping into and out of the river, or across the river, try to place oneself within the constantly changing waters.

I liked this idea: constant change, constant becoming. As an representational image-maker, I also liked the idea of the river. When considering process, philosophically the idea of reduction block, something that is constantly carved away to make the next image layer, seemed to reflect the ideas of the Deleuze as well. I started with this layer of very transparent blue:

The second layer was a rainbow roll of two different colors - below you can see how it was rolled, and then the print:

I was originally intending to carve away the mountain shape down to the border of the water, but I felt the image would flatten out too much without something to imply depth. So I cheated. the next layer (the darker green mountain shape) was not part of the original block. In the interest of time, however, I printed the sandy beach at the bottom in the same run, which was.

I almost left it at that - but I wanted the water to feel more watery, so a very transparent bluish silver was printed next:

Finally, reducing the block to almost nothing - the completed print, Becoming:

For those who might not recognize the scene, it's based on the view from the beach at Miller-Knox, looking towards Mt. Tamalpais. Instead of Heraclitus's river, I have the waters of the San Francisco Bay. Hydrologically, the estuarial waters of the Bay are part ocean, part fresh, and their salinity changes depending on the amount of rain the region receives. With their currents and rising and lowering of the tides, they are a state of endless flux. I see the figure in outline dissolving into their state of constant change.

For an six-color edition of 50, not counting extras printed for mistakes, the block ran through the press around 300 times. I can't even imagine how many passes of the roller I did. As it neared completion, Robert and I decided to use this print as an excuse to finally head up the coast to visit LCCM and see the Fort Bragg/Mendocino area. More on that to come - check back!