Philagrafika Blog

So, I wanted to invite anyone who might be interested to come to my little side project at Space 1026 next week. It is an exhibition about collaborative printmaking.

Space 1026 is located at 1026 Arch Street featuring several different makes and models of print collaboration with projects by local and national artists.

Cannonball Press and Howling Print Studios are brewing up a highly caffeinated, giant relief print mash up, served strong and black, of course. Cannonball Press is the gnarly, but lovable print dudes from Brooklyn, New York--Martin Mazorra and Mike Houston, who crank out more prints than you can shake a stick at. Their co-hort, and partner in crime, Dennis McNett of Howling Print Studios, also of Brooklyn infamy.

And in the opposite corner, facing off against the stark black world of Cannonball and Howling Print will be the tie dye musings of hippie love, featuring an evolving oversize screenprint featuring image casualties from the summer of love, what printer, O. Roman Hasiuk has been describing as "a dynamic collaborative print. It's an organic, process oriented, ongoing large-scale screenprint that features the imagery of many different artists, with no set beginning or determined end." Lucky gallery visitors will be treated to impromptu ink slinging sessions in October by Hasiuk using screenprint printing and his forearms of steel.

Next, a Broadside Battle will be raging on the big wall in the gallery! This "battle" is an open competition for printmakers and artists, featuring single sheet printed matter. The battle promoters are expecting a slew of gig posters, public notices, wanted posters and more. That's when the competition begins...a "printoff," sort of like the NFL playoffs, but no pads or mouth-guards required. Each week the best printed matter (determined by a rag-tag team of judges) will advance until a winner is declared. That lucky winner will receive all of the prints as their prize!

And, Drive By Press will be cranking out the prints, in the gutter outside Space 1026 on Friday night, and Saturday, too. Drive By Press is a traveling print shop housed in the back of a pickup truck based in Wisconsin. Drive By printers Gregory Nanney and Joseph Velazquez will be stopping in Philadelphia on their east coast tour. They bring printing to the streets with their very own brand of print pulling action!

Hope you can make it out!