Carl Wiens’ silkscreen pieces are near completion with just one last layer. Can’t wait to see them all finished! Looking forward to seeing some more people working in the Open Studio including Nicole Armour. If you haven’t seen Nicole’s handmade books you really should take a look, they are beautiful! She also has a very insightful blog about books, movies, music and friendship called The We of Me.

We are excited to start another month and invite new people into our home and studio. On Wednesday we picked up our newest resident coming to us from Israel and staying for two weeks. Nava Astrachan will be working on three etchings during her stay. (image below taken from HERE).

On Thursday Kyle and I got to see all of our work up at the John M. Parrott Art Gallery and share the moment with our friends and family. The evening was a success and we were so happy to see friendly faces out for an evening in Belleville to support us and our work.

The end of this week finds the end of Sarah Burwash’s residency with us. It has been great having Sarah at the studio. I love her work and will be sad to see her go. I mean just look at this map she made of the area … awesome!

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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.

3 day workshop
October 27, 28 and 29th
11:00 – 1:00 PM OR 6:00 – 8:00 PM
$150.00 non-member or $140.00 member

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.

Kyle and I were lucky enough to have been interviewed by the County Radio Show, a feature on the newest County website Horntrip Magazine. The magazine focuses the local food and wine industry but the County Radio Show speaks to many different Prince Edward County entrepreneurs. Janet Davies was kind enough to think of us for there most recent podcast. Listen to it here and be sure to check out the Horntrip site to find out about all the other great things going on in this area!

Spark Box Studio will be closed on Saturdays until our new house is renovated. We will still open for special events or by appointment. If you are bored, want to see us or  have always wanted to know how to install drywall or electrical feel free to come over and lend a hand @ 885 County Rd. 5

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We have had illustrator Niall Eccles working at the studio since we opened and have always enjoyed watching him work on his projects. Recently he has made the experience all the better with his daily characters.

I have always wanted to be disciplined enough to commit to a drawing a day … but alas it just isn’t in the cards for me. However, it is a practice I should adopt and we should all take a page from Niall’s book and try to create something everyday.

As a way of honoring Niall’s “Character of the Day” we will be posting them to our website daily! 

These little drawings will be for sale at the studio if one of them catches your eye and you just have to have it!

In the past two weeks I’ve met nearly half a dozen of people who had actually hand-set type at one point. Emerging from this labour heavy printing process came the automated printing press. These mechanized machines further increased productivity by introducing plate printing techniques apposed to hand-set type. They have become more complex over the years and are still in use at commercial printers.

I highly suggest taking a tour of a commercial print studio, you’ll probably find a few old and wild looking machines. Generations today will likely not get to experience lead type used for an off-set printing press or a clunky typewriter. Unfortunately, like many things today I feel the inkjet version of type just isn’t as fascinating as the original handmade, hand-set, hand-inked, hand-printed quality of letterpress.

We’re proud to announce the most recent addition to the facilities at Spark Box Studio a 1928, 3″ x 5″, letterpress and three font sets. Set the font yourself, mix your own ink, hand-print every piece and feel the power of type.