10 Days until Oxbow Press Opens!

The race is on to get everything finished in time for Oxbow Press' big opening. The clock is ticking to get everything complete and hopefully we will have a good looking print workshop to show our guests and new members.

We put the walls up in my studio space and I have been priming them today. I had the help (is that the right word?) of my kids and hubby in the wall construction and so far they are still standing!

The door painting is now finished (yes, it IS supposed to look " aged and rugged"), and just awaiting the logo.

I have to find some more prints to frame for the opening and hand-tint them. I would also like to find some paintings to hang, but I am not sure I have anything I can find in time.

On the home front, I have two birthday parties to arrange for my daughters, the first is coming up on Saturday. Timing is tricky as another daughter has two birthday sleepovers in succession this weekend and yet another daughter has another birthday sleepover the night before. I wish my social life was half as interesting as theirs!

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Blockprinting

One of my favorite forms of printmaking is relief carved blocks. I generally use soft blocks such as linoleum, for the simple reason that it is easier on my hands. The last time I carved wood I ended up with 3 herniated discs, so I might make wood a special occasion choice! Carving wood can be an almost spiritual awakening of sorts, as the consious mind is on full focus of the task of the hands and the subconsious is resting on the creative nature of the image being formed. Once the block or blocks are carved, inking and printing requires a rhythm of motion that brings a level of peace. Here is a Japanese master printer at work printing, just watching him at work in his studio has me taking deep mediative breaths!

Victorian Influences

My head is buzzing with the Printmaker's Conspiracy's upcoming exhibition title. The exhibition is to be called "Secret's Revealed". I am thinking about Victorian Burlesque figures, peep shows, showgirls, keyholes and movable parts on the print to see through the keyhole. I also have another related thread of thought about fortune tellers, maybe the machine "Zoltar" type or an old gypsy with a crystal ball. I like the idea of printing then folding one of those playground fortune tellers (coolie catchers???). I will start some sketches to see what happens. I am halfway through a drawing that I though might translate well in a solarplate etching.

A Sort of Artist's Statement

This is a sort of artist's statement, but far more boring and long-winded. My current form of blogging is to limit the text to as little as possible. I am lazy when it comes to writing and the blog tends to trickle off when I feel the pressure of having to add words to the pictures. I hung my exhibition yesterday, so today I will ramble a little about the reasoning behind it (and to help me get over the guilt for hardly writing anything in the last couple of months). Please feel free to skip the words and look at the pictures! For a long time after moving to America, I found it difficult to process who I had become and the new meaning of home. I was English, yet found the American "English" language a challenge. This culture that in many ways was similar to my own, is in other ways completely opposite and confusing. I still often experience a shock by a sudden feeling of otherness and a perhaps a reminiscence for the past, yet I relish the possibility of ne...

Cricketts Inky Art Blot

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