Before I muse about the future I would like to reflect briefly on 2013 at Zea Mays Printmaking and some of the highlights of the year for me.
2013
We hosted Andrew Baldwin, the inventor of the BIG etching ground at the studio where he conducted a fantastic workshop, exhibited his prints and worked intensively with our members. As avid proponents of his etching ground, it was a thrill to have the inventor in our midst - sharing his technical know how.
Other international visitors included Marnix Everaert from the Non-toxic Printmaking Academy in Gent, Belgium and Rina Aoki from the Echizen Washi papermaking village in Japan. They both came for a visit to meet with our members, have tea and talk shop. As you probably know, these international relationships are very special to me!
Closer to home, we were the site of the September ArtSalon, which featured five printmakers and was held outdoors in our courtyard, projecting images on the side of the brick building. It was a magical evening. The ArtSalon showcases the art of Pioneer Valley artists in a creative format that rotates venues throughout the year. It's a gem of an organization in our community.
Our in-studio guest suite was built to house residency artists and workshop participants. We're open for business! See below for details.
And Sheldon Carroll and I went to Havana, Cuba to conduct a workshop in polyester plate lithography at San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts. I've just completed a blog about the experience, filled with pictures. It was a deeply meaningful experience for us both, and for Zea Mays. We will be doing a presentation about our experience and some of the artists we befriended on Sunday, January 19th at noon in our gallery.
As always, the heart of Zea Mays is our membership, and our ranks grew to 87 members. Our talented faculty conducted 28 workshops and dozens of private tutorials. It was a year of research into safer photo etching by our interns. And in our ongoing effort to showcase interesting prints we had 10 exhibitions in our gallery. Our annual raffle to benefit the Ruth Chalfin Memorial Scholarship fund raised over $1500 to give out to artists seeking assistance paying for workshops.
What's in store for 2014?
I am honored to have been selected to be the juror for the Honolulu Printmakers 86th annual exhibition and to conduct an etching workshop with them in February.
We are launching our Residency Program in full and hope to have resident artists occupying the lovely apartment and our studios throughout the year.
Our 2014 exhibition schedule includes a show of work by Susan Rostow, inventor of Akua Inks (in April) and a juried show sponsored by the Monotype Guild of New England in September in addition to our member and group exhibitions.
Keep your eyes open for the launch of our new website - coming soon!
Here's hoping you have a healthy, creative 2014!
Liz Chalfin
Studio News
The Southern Graphics Council International Conference will be held in San Francisco this March and Zea Mays Printmaking will be there in full force. Many of our members will be attending and a few of us are on the program:
Louise Kohrman and Liz Chalfin will be conducting a demonstration on Friday, March 28th at the California College of the Arts called Think BIG! Green Intaglio Practices.
Our interns Liz Bannish, Stephanie Gaumond and Cathe Janke will be conducting a demonstration on Thursday, March 27th at City College of San Francisco called Iron-On Photo Intaglio: Multiple Tones in One Etch.
And our Residency Coordinator, Sheldon Carroll will be manning a booth at the Vendors and Publishers' Fair to promote the residency program.
If you are going, please be sure to stop by and say hello!
Help our interns get to San Francisco!
Our interns Liz Bannish, Stephanie Gaumond and Cathe Janke have launched a campaign on Indiegogo to help them raise money to travel to San Francisco for the SGC Conference. You can help them by contributing to Bringing Greener Printmaking to San Francisco. Zea Mays Printmaking is covering the materials and kicking in for their travels, but as young, emerging artists they need more help. It's an honor to be selected to demonstrate and we hope that the community will pitch in to assist these three take their show on the road!
Art needs time and attention and our residencies provide just that. Come to Zea Mays Printmaking for a Residency and work in our cutting edge green printmaking studio. Our Residencies are designed to fit an artist’s unique needs and desires. The core of the Residency is a prolonged time to work in the printmaking studio (private or community). In addition an artist can add workshops, personalized instruction, and individualized critique to their residency experience. It can be a time of learning and experimenting, or editioning or the execution of a pre-conceived project. Live on-site in our charming 2 bedroom, 1-1/2 bath guest suite and immerse yourself in your work. Details here.
SOLID, LIQUID, VAPOR — Sustainability in Printmaking
JAUNARY 14–FEBRUARY 14, 2014
Group show curated by Liz Chalfin with Zea Mays artists: Anita S. Hunt, Victoria Burge, Lynn Peterfreund, Larinda Meade, Tekla McInerney, Barbara Furbush, Joyce Silverstone, Liz Chalfin, Sarah Creighton, Maya Malachowski Bajak and Anne Beresford
Please join us for the opening reception: Tuesday, January 14 at 6:45–8:45 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday: 11:00 a.m._4:00 p.m., Sunday: 1:00_4:00 p.m.
Tuesday & Thursday evening: 7:45 - 9:00 p.m.
(Hours subject to school schedule)
For more information call 860.687.6030
The Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr. Gallery
Richmond Art Center
The Loomis Chaffee School
4 Batchelder Road, Windsor CT 06095
Upcoming Workshops
Lift Ground Etching
With Louise Kohrman
Saturday & Sunday, February 8-9, 2014, 10-5
$275 non-members $245 members
This intaglio printmaking workshop will introduce recent innovations in lift grounds. We will learn Coffee Lift (a non-toxic sugar lift solution) in which one paints positively on a white background; and White Ground (or Soap Ground) which equips the artist with tonal gradations, but prints white against a dark background. Both techniques will offer a different visual language to the etchers toolbox. As an added bonus, we’ll be doing all of this using the methods employed at Zea Mays Printmaking, including BIG ground, airbrush aquatint, using household ingredients, and etching on copper in ferric chloride, making the whole process safer for the artists and less toxic for the environment. You will be introduced to wiping skills and printing techniques as you develop and print your image and experiment with the wide breadth of mark making that lift grounds offer. This workshop is designed for artists with some basic intaglio experience.
With Joyce Silverstone
Tuesday - Thursday, February 18-20, 2014.
10-2 Tu/We, 10-5 Th
$275 non-members $245 members
Monotype basics will be demonstrated each day to inspire play with Akua Intaglio Inks. Time will be given to find your own rhythm, and follow the flow of your personal imagery. This could be your first exposure to monotype or could be used as time to delve into a particular aspect of monotype that you would like rediscover. There will be two mornings of studio time with individual instruction after each demo, and a third full day, with a morning demonstration and extra afternoon time to finish and work back into your prints.
Getting stir crazy after all the holidays? Visit the workshops page on our website to check out all of our offerings - and remember, we also do private lessons!
In the Sanford Gallery @ Zea Mays Printmaking
A Taste of Summer: Watercolor Monotype of the Northampton Community Garden by Kate Jenkins
December 10, 2013 - January 11, 2014
Haven't seen this beautiful show yet?
You can still make it to the reception: Jan 10, 5pm - 7pm
Come see lovely watercolor monotypes of the bounty of summer from observations at the Northampton Community Gardens.
Zea Mays Gallery Hours
Monday: Closed
Tuesday and Wednesday: 11-8
Thursday, Friday and Saturday: 11-4
Coming up next in the Sanford Gallery:
Printmaking in Havana
January 14 – February 20, 2014
Slide Presentation and talk: Sunday, January 19th, noon
Printmaking in Havana is an exhibition of prints by both students and professional artists from Liz Chalfin and Sheldon Carroll's Polyester Plate Lithography workshop at San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba, November 2013 along with prints collected on their trip and selections from the private collection of Jacqueline Hayden and Steven Daiber.
Chalfin and Carroll traveled to Havana in November to conduct a workshop in Polyester Plate Lithography at the famous San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, one of the oldest art academies in the Americas. Their week-long workshop with young artists and their accomplished professors garnered a portfolio of prints that express a uniquely Cuban world view. Chalfin and Carroll will present a slide talk about their recent trip to Havana and visits with many contemporary Cuban printmakers. The talk will feature an in-depth look at the work of three exceptional Cuban artists: Anyelmaidelin Calzadilla, Osmeivy Ortega and Eduardo Hernández Santos.
Inspired in part by Rumi's Masnavi poems about a mouse and a frog, these prints are part of a series about a mouse and bird interacting and creating a dance together.
A solo show, TOO SMALL, of Carol's mixed media work was displayed in December at the Faneuil branch of the Boston Public Library. More of Carol's printmaking work was recently exhibited in BEYOND THE BOOK, also sponsored by the BPL.
Kate Jenkins has an exhibit in the Sanford Gallery at Zea Mays until January 11, 2014. Entitled A TASTE OF SUMMER, it is a series of watercolor monotypes of the Northampton Community Gardens. Please don't miss the artist's reception on Friday, January 10 (Arts Night Out), from 5-7.
Liz Chalfin Monoprints
Towne Art Gallery
Wheelock College
Boston, MA
January-February 2014
Liz Chalfin, printmaker
JCA Hall Gallery
Jewish Community of Amherst
Amherst, MA
February 6 – April 30, 2014
Lynn Peterfreund's monotype animation "Crow 206" will be shown at the Turner Print Museum at Cal. State University in Chico, California in a show called Pushing Boundaries-Expanding Horizons: 10th Janet Turner National Print Competition and Exhibition. January 27-February 22, 2014
Lynn Peterfreund is showing both the animation, "Storm in a Tea Cup" and monotype prints used to make the animation at Barnes and Wilde Gallery, at the Loomis Chaffee School, Richmond Art Center, January 14 to February 14, 2014
Co-founded by Esther S White, HQ Press is a publisher of short-run, photocopied artists' books located at HeadQuarters, an underground community art space in Northampton, MA. Just recently, HQ Press published an untitled fold-up poster by Zea Mays Printmaking intern, Cathe Janke.
Mercy Gallery presents:
SOLID, LIQUID, VAPOR — Sustainability in Printmaking
Group show curated by Liz Chalfin
JANUARY 14–FEBRUARY 14, 2014
Opening reception Tuesday, January 14 from 6:45–8:45 p.m.
For more information call 860.687.6030 or visit www.mercygallery.org
BIG INK is an exhibition of monumental woodcut prints on view January 17th - February 18th in the Geissler Gallery at Stoneleigh Burham School in Greenfield, MA. Come hear Lyell Castonguay talk about the importance of the collaborative process, creating large scale art for public exhibition, and the future of BIG INK.
-Artist talk: January 17th at 2:35pm at the Geissler Gallery
-Reception: January 17th 6:00 - 7:30pm
Both events are free and open to the public.
Random Visual Poetry is now bringing together artists, photographers, curators, cultural managers and passionate individuals from all over the world to collaboratively develop a creative photographic register over street art and urban interventions worldwide. Do you want to join?
The International Biennial Print Exhibit: 2014 ROC hosted by NATIONAL TAIWAN MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS is starting an open call for entries. The application is open to print artists from all over the world and is free of charge.
All applications must be completed online this year, between February 5th and March 5th 2014 (Taiwan time). For more information visit our website.
CALL FOR ENTRIES
International Print Biennale
2014 Print Awards
Open to all British and international artists’ interpretation of contemporary print processes including 2D, 3D, video, installation and site-specific work. The 2014 selection panel are: Stephen Coppel, Modern Prints and Drawings, British Museum; David Nash RA, Artist; and Susan Tallman, Editor-in-Chief, Art in Print, Chicago, USA. They will select an exhibition to be shown as part of the International Print Biennale at the Hatton Gallery and Northern Print from 27 June to 8 August 2014.
For further details and to apply please visit: internationalprintbiennale.org.uk
Deadline for Entries: Monday, 3 March 2014
Classifieds
Rives BFK for sale!
Rives BFK 32 x 48" 300 gsm. There are four deckles and a watermark on each sheet.
$7 per sheet for ten sheets = $70
$6.50 for twenty sheets = $130
$6 for forty five sheets = $270 which includes two extras.
Please contact Richard Dec if interested or for more information.
413-586-7425 or 413-588-4088
