Print-Bot

Yes, here it is, the best DIY hack/mashup i've seen this morning. The iRobot mashed up with a dot matrix printer. This little thing is no master printer and the images are very rudimentary...but think of the possibilities! This one is printing with talcum powder on a carpet.

From the instructables website located at www.instructables.com

Carvin' Block

Visit ArtintheAge.com for more info

Space 1026 member, Bill McRight is a hardworking printmaker - he's at it daily, I like to think of him as part of the blue collar artists, whose practice means constantly working without pretension--just because he can. His fellow studio mate Ben Woodward, filmed him carving a block in their studio over the course of a day and posted it on the Art in the Age website. I like his unique carving style - he lays out a patch of black and slowly builds up freeform patterns to create his fantastic lurking creatures, criminals on the lam or whatever.

Shades of Forgiveness in Multiple

THE THING is a quarterly editioned object offered by two editors, Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan. Each year, four artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers are invited by the editors to create an everyday object that somehow incorporates text.

The first edition was created by Film maker and writer, Miranda July who created a silkscreened window shade with the text: "If this shade is down I'm begging your forgiveness on bended knee with tears streaming down my face."

An object such as this could easily be trite, but the theatricality of the language plays off the whimsy of the action of pulling the shade, with a balance of humour that I find intriguing. Or perhaps it is the irony of the bathroom setting?

See more about this editioned multiples at www.thethingquarterly.com.

I've recently been thinking about how artists other than visual artists might approach printmaking - and this is a great example of a project that expands out the medium of print.

I'm looking forward to seeing more by this group.

Caitlin

The Senate has a graphic art collection, who knew?

Shown here is a very large (for a mezzotint) - over 26 by 36 inches!

United States Senate Chamber by Thomas Doney, 1847

Senate Graphic Art Collection

Letterpress is everywhere these days - and even the cover article on the December/January issue of ReadyMade Magazine. This issue has a step by step instructions for constructing your very own letterpress using simple lumber and a bottle jack. You can find the instructions here Press Kit there are also instructions for making simple polymer plates.








And, if building your own letterpress just seems a little too daunting - and you'd rather sit around and eat bon bons - check out these typographic chocolates which I found out about the blog courtesy of Art in the Age blog.

Creature Comforts USA - Art

Philagrafika friend and supporter Shelley Langdale sent me this animation - and yes, there is a printmaking reference. If you need a little cheering up - and a reminder why we do what we do...here you go.

I was just recently reminded how cool this interactive demonstration of how to make a print done in 2001 as an educational and very cool tool to go along with the exhibition of the same name.

MoMA's What is a Print interactive demonstration - check it out!

Speaking of cool tools, check out this youtube video of laser engraving a macbook, inspired by a MAKE magazine article.



Finally, for affordable prints you can put the gypsy sale at Space 1026 on your calendar for the weekend on Sunday, December16 from 12 to 7 pm.

Printmaking, often used as a political medium, is causing havoc in the New York Public Library's walls. Check out the New York Times article here:

Politically Charged Prints Cause Talking in the Library

By KEN JOHNSON

Published: December 4, 2007

Controversy has erupted from the sleepy third-floor hallway galleries at the New York Public Library, where a modest exhibition of contemporary prints called “Multiple Interpretations” is on view.

This exhibition organized by the library’s curator of prints, Roberta Waddell, has raised concerns and has appeared in Fox News along with other press. Among the artworks are prints by Philagrafika member and board of director Daniel Heyman from his Amman Series.

Fox News Story

Art in the Age of Appropriation

This recent article in the New York Times focuses on the art of Richard Prince and his appropriation of work from the Marlboro ads shot by Jim Krantz. And in light of the discussion, I will copy the image, adding yet one more layer to the copying conversation - and another facet to our debate and the necessity to constantly educate the public about the difference between the reproduction and the fine art print.

Arts / Art & Design

If the Copy Is an Artwork, Then What’s the Original?

By RANDY KENNEDY

Published: December 6, 2007

What do the photographers who took the original pictures think of these pictures of their pictures, apotheosized into art but without their names anywhere in sight?

A Copy is Art slide show in New York Times

I was researching artists yesterday and came across the work of Gert and Uwe Tobias. They are twins from Romania who live in Germany and just happen to have work that opened at the Moma this last month which runs through February 25, 2008.

They do large scale woodcuts with immediate whimsy and an undertone of darkness that is very mysterious. Check out the Moma website and it features images and installation video.

Moma Exhibition Projects 86: Gert and Uwe Tobias

Hammer Museum in Los Angeles exhibition in 2007

Team Gallery featuring an exhibition from March 2007

The Team Gallery website includes these images: The Devil is Not Mocked and The Funeral which shows that dark folk tale feel fostered in their native Transylvania, but updated by their use of typology and graphic design.


Makes me want to go cut some block!

Best,
Caitlin