Last week I went on the road to New Orleans for the South Graphics Conference. This was the first time attending this conference, actually this was the first conference Spark Box Studio has ever attended, needless to say I was pretty excited. Sadly, since we had residents booked in I had to make this trip alone, which meant a lot of long days and lonely travelling. Lucky for me tons of like-minded printers attend this event every year so the loneliness was short lived.

The trip began early Thursday with a 4 am drive to the Toronto airport. With just one minor hang-up with customs, I was quickly jet-setting to Louisiana. I arrived early afternoon, dropped my publisher booth stuff off and headed to my accommodations (which I found on Air BnB). The rest of Thursday was made up of searching for groceries and relaxing on the roof top of the loft I was staying in.

Friday was day one of the conference. Spark Box had a booth in the publishers fair so I left early to set-up my table. I took a walk through the beautiful, yet very smelly, French Quarter to the Sheraton Hotel where the conference was being held. I was the first publisher to arrive … which made me feel like a silly eager Canadian. But my eager attitude paid off leading me to meet so many nice people and share information to them about our studio and residency. Because of that minor customs hiccup I wasn’t allowed to sell any prints … but I did get to speak about them and the great printmakers who created them. I was set-up near the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program and got to met Chris Dunnett and Phil Sanders. I now hope that I will get some time to go to NYC and check out their space.

I left the publisher fair early that day to attend one of the demonstrations being held at Tulane University. The demonstration was being done by our university print professor Otis Tamasauskas. The drive to the demo was longer than I thought so I only caught the tail-end but made plans to go out with Otis later in the evening. We met up at the hotel and together with Gravity Press owner Brandon Graving we went to the evenings art walk. My camera died by this point so I didn’t get any pictures but the night was great. We stopped at the Community Print Shop, the exhibit at the Healing Center and Deborah Cornell and Barbara Putnam’s exhibit at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.

Saturday was another early morning walk to the hotel in order to re-set-up the publishers table (they moved us for day two). I decided the smell of the French Quarter at 7AM was a bit too much so instead I walked along the river. Day two of the publisher fair was held in conjunction with the portfolio sessions.  It was a great day. I split my time standing at the table and walking around looking at all the amazing and talented printed works. Splitting time between the table and other events was a challenge since I was by myself but next year Kyle will attend as well and we will have more time to go to the lectures and demos.

Past resident Josh Dannin came by the booth just as I was packing up and we headed to the Wolfbat Railroad event that he had been participated in over the week. The BFT Wolfbat Railroad was another printmaking project going on at the same time as the Southern Graphics Conference but not in conjunction with it. Wolfbat Studios (Dennis McNett) & Woodcut Funhouse (Sean Starwars) teamed up with Vans Custom Culture to host a three day customization event that was 100% free and open to the public. As the organizers explained it “The event included the construction of a wooden train consisting of 1 steam engine & 20 box cars. Artist, educators, and college students from across the U.S. tricked out their boxcar with screen prints, woodcut prints, flags, paper mache structures, and what ever else they can come up with. Each artist or team worked with at least 2 local high school and/or middle school kids.”

Saturday evening was the culmination of this three day event and was celebrated by taking the train on parade through the Marigny/Bywater area. After the parade there was a party with a great brass band and tons of dancing printmakers. It was a great time and a wonderful way to end the weekends events.

Sunday was my last day in New Orleans and I spent most of the day hanging out with Josh. We did a ton of tourist like things – walk through the French Quarter market, check out all the great street performers, eat beignets at Cafe du Monde and walk around Bourbon Street. After Josh headed back to Philadelphia I went to the botanical gardens with my accommodations host Andrea and then out to dinner.

It was a great trip and I am happy that we decided to participate in the events this year. We are definitely going next year in Milwaukee.

-Chrissy

As you know Kyle and I made the choice to make our studio as safe and green as possible, so there are some processes, like stone lithography, that we can’t offer at the studio. Of course stone lithography happens to be my favorite print process. So, you can only imagine my joy when I stumbled across a video by French artist Emilion explaining a new technique called “Kitchen Litho”. In the video Emilion walks you through her process of drawing with a grease tool (in this case soap made with animal fats) onto tin foil, etching the image with Coke and printing it like you would a litho stone.

I was amazed at how simple she made the process look and excited to get into the studio and give it a try. I called on a few former workshop participants and a couple friends to see if they would be interested in trying this new method with me and the six of us got together a few weekends ago.

We started our afternoon of experimental printmaking in the kitchen, as to keep with the theme of the process, but seeing little success moved out into the studio in order to use the printing press. Unlike the video the process was a bit more challenging. Like stone lithography sometimes your image doesn’t etch into the tin foil or it begins to fill in after a couple prints. However, unlike with stones you can simple crumple up the tin foil and try again– quick and easy!

We experimented with a number of different drawing tools to see what worked the best. We tried lithography crayons, sharpie markers, touche and Crisco. We wanted to see the different textures we could achieve and if spending the money on lithography crayons was worth it. It turned out that sharpie marker was the most reliable tool while the lithography crayons were a close second.

While achieving a print was challenging, the process itself was amazingly easy. Draw your image on the tin foil, etch it with Coke, rub it with vegetable oil, ink it and print (see the whole process in the video on Emilion’s blog). After a great afternoon several of us left with a some good prints and I plan to keep experimenting with this process in the future.

If you found this interesting share with others:

This introductory course requires no previous experience with printmaking. Students will begin the lesson with fresh copper plates and learn how to transform them into a small edition of prints. This workshop will teach students a non-toxic form of etching and will include hard ground techniques, aquatinting and soft ground techniques. By the end of the course students will have an understanding of the basic principles of printmaking including the above etching processes along with working with printing inks and using a traditional etching press.

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.

P.E.I. photographer, potter and printmaker Monica Lacey worked at our studio during the month of July. Monica’s work primarily focuses on the beauty of the broken, overlooked, or discarded (maybe a residency in rural Ontario was a perfect choice ).

During her stay she worked with solar plates, a printing process we hadn’t used at the studio before. Solar plate printing can be used to create intaglio prints or relief prints using photographic negatives. To find out more about this process click here >>

Monica’s working habits meant that the studio first needed to be prepped. Found treasures, personal photographs, great music and inspiring messages filled the space and quickly transformed it into a beautiful environment for working. Her studio space perfectly reflected her lovely personality and it became a great place for me (Chrissy) to get out of the July heat to share in thoughts about art, life and the power of a great beach!

Monica made several prints during her stay with us, each done from photographs she had taken prior to arriving. These images were of abandoned places, animals and amazing bits of nature. This imagery worked beautifully with the solar etchings. She even left us a small print in which she combined a bit of scrap paper from a note book we had found under the floor in our upstairs. Along with all the work she produced, Monica found time to enjoy the local scenery and reflected on her stay with us through her blog >>

I have always been drawn to white on white or black on black art work, so when artist Rebecca Rothfus came to our studio this past June and said she was going to work on a series of embossments I was thrilled. Rebecca work is of modern day landscapes. She is intrigued by the structural beauty of cell towers and industrial plants and enjoys the visual contrast between these structures and their surroundings. Using photographic references Rebecca made four collograph prints which she later used for her embossments.

A collograph print is created by using a hard surface (wood or cardboard) to build up your imagery. This results in a relief surface with a range of different textures and levels. Many printmakers use string, fabrics, objects found in nature and textured paper to create their imagery. Generally these are then inked and transferred to paper through the printing press. Rebecca used cardboard to build up the different layers of her print, adding and removing pieces to create the levels. Then, instead of inking the plate she put it through the press clean to create the embossment. The wet paper moulded around the different levels of cardboard leading to a beautiful, all white print, with her image recessing in from the background.

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!).

Join us for a night on the town! We will bring Prince Edward County’s newest arts & culture magazine to life June 10th starting at the Regent Theatre at 6 PM.

Performance art, poetry readings, live music and visual art will be occurring throughout down town Picton. 

Participating locations include:

Books and Company

Kelly’s

Spark Box Studio

The Regent Theatre

Acoustic Grill

Purchase a numbered limited launch edition of Square2 that night!

Event will be free of charge.

Sponsored by Angeline’s Inn and Restaurant

RSVP: info@sparkboxstudio.com