Image from Bay of Quinte Country

This weekend is Prince Edward County’s annual Maple in the County. This event is so much fun. How can you go wrong driving around this beautiful county visiting farmers and eating sugar? Thousands of people visit the area for this event. It is a weekend filled with pancakes, maple candies and learning about rural Ontario agriculture.

We will be opening the store during Maple in the County and hope that if you are visiting the Stone’s Maple Syrup you might stop in and say “hi”.

Kyle and I just finished a bunch of new work for our two-person exhibit at the John M. Parrott Art Gallery. For this show we decided to create a new body of printed work. Kyle took a very traditional approach working with copper plate etchings while I took a more experimental approach combining silkscreen with encaustic painting and collage with watercolour monoprints. For this post I wanted to write about the monoprint because I think monoprint is a pretty unappreciated technique.

I first tried monoprinting when I was attending Queen’s. Our second year print professor, Jan Winton, had us work in this process for several months. With the pressure to pull great prints that would later be judged by faculty and fellow students I was easily frustrated with this painterly print method. Having worked mostly with paint prior to this experience I expected monoprinting to be no sweat but there was more to it then just putting ink onto copper. I quickly started to appreciate the attention to colour required and the way positive and negative space needed to be approached. You really have to consider space, layers, collage and texture so much more than with a painting. The “surprise” element that comes along with printmaking was also something that took some time to get used to but also became a highlight to this process.

Since that class I have used monoprint sparingly in my work– introducing it from time to time to bring a bit more life to my etchings. However, for this latest series of work I used it as one of my primary methods. Instead of using ink I choose to use watercolours. While this process takes a bit more time I wanted the washy, transparent qualities you can achieve with watercolour paints. I took the prints cut them up and collaged them together, finalizing them with embroidery and stitching (sorry for the terrible image once I have others I will update this post).

I appreciate what can be learned from monoprinting as a beginner. During my second year I was unsure why Jan had decided to start with monoprint rather than something “cooler” like silkscreen but now I can see her reasoning. Printmaking takes so much more planning, consideration and attention. Each step significantly effects the end result. Since monoprinting is a much faster and more forgiving technique than most other processes it gives you the chance to play around in the print studio. This speed allows you t understand the printing inks, to use a printing press and to consider how colour, layering, pressure and paper play a huge roll in the final print.

If you are interested in learning about monoprint consider signing-up for a workshop (find out more by clicking HERE).

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We had to say good-bye to Kirsten McCrea and J.P. King  at the end of last week. The two left to begin their new life in Toronto. They are already off to a great start with a presentation at the Come Up To My Room “Let’s Talk” conference. Last Friday J.P. spoke to the C.U.T.M.R. crowd about his Free Paper Press project (see the video above to find out more about this really cool project).

Luckily, before they headed off we got to have one great event at the house with them. Last Wednesday we hosted a collage party inspired by all the great work J.P. was making while at the studio. To our surprise people were excited about created collaborative collages and we had a great turn out.  I plan to scan all the collages that were made and create a collage party pdf book.

With all this going on Kyle and I still managed to finish all of our work and set-up for the upcoming exhibition at the John M. Parrott Art Gallery, which opens this Thursday from 6:00 – 7:30 PM.

Sarah Burwash received some amazing press on two great art  websites – the Jealous Curator and Art Hound. She was also kind enough to give Spark Box a really sweet shout-out on both, here is a little bit of what she had to say about her stay so far (taken from the Jealous Curator post):

… it is so blissful to be in a big old house surrounded by corn and hay feilds, it is peaceful and relaxing, and also productive and inspiring. The sun has been out often and the fields are dusted with snow. Chrissy and Kyle who run Spark Box are amazing hosts, light hearted and ambitious pair, they make you feel very comfortable and welcomed and go out of there way for you. I have a large studio space to work, and there is a great library of books from art books, to wild flower books, to old life magazines.

Genna Kusch and Carl Wiens both used the open studio to continue to work on personal projects. Carl worked on a new silkscreen piece from his Swimmer Series (my favourite) and Genna continued working on her woodblock insect pieces (as seen above).

**I would like to thank Genna Kusch for the images she supplied of the Collage Party **

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Picked up a copy of Prefix magazine last night at Chapters and found Spark Box in the Opportunities section. I knew that we might be mentioned but didn’t know it actually happened so that was a nice surprise. Prefix Photo is an engaging magazine, based out of Toronto. It is dedicated to contemporary photography and related arts. Characterized by innovative design and outstanding production values, Prefix Photo consists primarily of portfolio and essay sections, providing a complement of intelligent texts and breath-taking visuals. These features are accompanied by newsbriefs which provide information and opportunities for professional photographers, including new technological developments. Each issue of Prefix Photo presents the work of Canadian photographers, both emerging and established, alongside that of their international counterparts.

It has been a busy month here with all the holiday sales over the past two weeks. Nell and I were making new items inspired by the galaxy for this holiday season, including cards, bags, pins, housewares and toys. Now that the sales are over it is time to reflect on all the great people we met while running around from sale to sale. The first sale was the OCAD Book Arts Fair in Toronto. It was a great Saturday and we met a number of really nice people. Our booth was right beside Jeffrey Macklin owner of Jackson Creek Press in Peterborough. Jeffrey’s printed work is so much fun and all made with by hand with a genuine old-school letterpress.

We did some great trades at this sale with Alex Froese and Tiny Press and met some really awesome crafters like the two ladies behind Good Plant.

On the Sunday we participated in the Fat Goose sale in Kingston. This is another fantastic event and always a good night. It is so nice to spend time with some of our favorite Kingston artisans like Vincent Perez of Everlovin Press (featured in Square2), Julian Berry of Ironclad Graphics and Brandy Olley of Salvage Designs. It was also a great place to meet new people like Jeff Woodrow of Joy T-Shirt. Joy T-Shirt is a really interesting idea, Jeff creates graphic t-shirts that are inspired by a real people. The shirt has a drawing of a real person printed on it and the idea is that when you wear your shirt you are encouraged to think about that person and how your everyday actions can affect others and the world we live in.

Last weekend we were part of the Busy Hands sale in Picton. Like Fat Goose it’s always a great time to re-connect with local crafters and say “hi” to people we haven’t seen in awhile. I got a chance to meet a few new people at this sale as well like Kathyrn Orok and Mags Kandis. It has been a fun two weeks but I am excited to spend a weekend at home and in the studio. If you missed the sales and are curious about what we have been up to please feel free to stop by and visit us.

The “joys” of owning your own house …

We have been spending a lot of time lately getting our new place ready for the winter months. Summer was hectic for us and we put a number of projects on hold. Now that things have slowed down we are trying to get these projects finished. A number of these tasks are outdoor projects and we want to make sure everything is sealed up, winterized and ready before the snow falls.

We love our new studio but sadly the tin roof hadn’t been cared for over the past few years and so we had to spend a few days putting in new screws to prevent leaks and to keep out the country critters. We bought a new shed for storage, as we turned all of our outdoor storage into studio space. And, with the help of Alex Fida and Kyle Lane, we finally have boards and battens up on the exterior walls of the studios!

The past year of renovations has taught us a number of valuable lessons, here are a few:

1. A strong support group is important when attempting to complete a major project. We were lucky to have great friends and family by our side the whole way through. Without their hard work, heart-to-hearts, comforting shoulders and helpful advice there is no way we would have been able to get through this project.

2. The art of compromise. We were warned before starting the work on the house that many of our hopes and desires would change or become impossible and that renovations are filled with unexpected twists and turns. Even with this knowledge we were unprepared for the number of changes, modifications and compromises we had to make during the project. Luckily, we listened and trusted each others opinions making these changes less stressful and resulting in a pretty great space.

3. I think it goes without saying that any project you undertake requires a great deal of patience. Home renovation is no different. Becoming aware that every project takes longer than you wanted and that nothing is ever as easy as it sounds is extremely important when taking on a renovation project.

We have been working hard on putting together the merchandise section of the studio. As some of your will remember the “sale” area of the last space was crowed in a hallway, not the most convenient place to look at printed goods. We decided we wanted to make one full wall of the new studio dedicated to printed goods that were for sale. This would include materials from our craft sales, Square2 Magazine and personal art work. Like most projects it took a lot longer than we anticipated to get it together the way we wanted … but it finally feels close to finished.

We have also been updating our Etsy shop with new products and recently put up a table on the Poppytalk Handmade Online Market. So, if you are looking for a handmade gift for the upcoming holiday season please make sure to pop in. We are open year round Tuesday – Saturday 12 – 6 PM (Thursday we are closed).

I know this is late coming, but this past April Spark Box Studio was featured in Ellegirl Korea. I am still not sure how the editor heard about us but in mid-March I received an email asking if we would be interested in being interviewed for their Pop Girl section. The editor was putting together a few pages surrounding artist collectives and she thought we would be a great feature. Of course we were thrilled and agreed instantly. We had local photographer Michael Grills take some shots of us, the studio and some of the awesome people that have helped make this place possible.

It took awhile for the magazine to finally arrive on our doorstep but when it did we were happy to find out that we were the first page of the feature. Sadly, not knowing any Korean, I am not sure what parts of the interview were used but the page looks great (they even included Square2!).

It has been a long road from house purchase to move-in ready, but we finally did it. In case you don’t know Kyle and I recently moved our studio and residency from two rental properties in Picton to our purchased farm house just outside of Picton.

When we first started planning the idea for Spark Box we had envisioned a place where artist could fall out of bed and into their studio. Sadly, having just graduated we were not the ideal clients for a mortgage. So, instead, we rented a house and a studio space which is where Spark Box has been for the past year and a half (all the while searching for the perfect place we could buy).

Finally, last August, we found the house we had been searching for, an old farm house with a large outbuilding. The house and outbuilding were in rough shape and needed a lot of attention. Over the past nine months Kyle and I have been slaving away trying to make this little place our new home. It wasn’t easy and most times it wasn’t much fun but we now have a beautiful place to call home and a great new space for Spark Box.

We still have some unfinished projects (we have been informed that we will never really be done) but we would be happy to have visitors starting this weekend June 24th. The new address is 885 County Rd. 5.

photo taken from May Truong

Last summer we had Toronto artist Hanna Hur stay with us for a week. Hanna and I became great friends in the short period of time that she was here and I had the pleasure of interviewing her for the April issue of Square2 Magazine. Hanna’s work ranges from drawing to photography and she deals with a multitude of different topics. She has worked on several projects with her twin sister Laurie Kang and recently she has been developing many drawings based on themes of self-identity and her departure from the Christian faith.

What’s next for Hanna Hur? She is off to Berlin in May where she will be mentoring with artist Candice Breitz.