CREATIVE KIDS CAMP
Soon after Spark Box opened its doors we began receiving inquiries about hosting a children’s art camp during the summer. However, the thought of a bunch of paint-covered kids running around our small studio space was enough to keep us up at night. When we expressed our dilemma, our supportive community stepped forward to provide us with a camp location! Mia Lane, and her daughter Becky Lane, offered to host the camp on an amazing wooded property by Fish Lake. During the week of August 16 – 20, 8 kids from all over the world came to print, paint, draw and sculpt in the woods.
Not only did we have a great location, we also got great help. Becky Lane, a local designer, helped Chrissy Poitras plan, organize and run the camp. While the kids had fun creating their art, they were also taught and inspired by the art history each of their projects was drawn from. The campers learnt about the impressionists while painting en plein air, the earth art movement in the 1960s by creating sculptures out of natural materials, and the history of street art when making their own graphic text pieces, to name a few.
By the end of the camp the kids had created an impressive array of remarkable art works, installed their own exhibition in the woods, titled and priced their work, and made personalized invitation for their family and friends. They had a great turn out and some even sold some work!
DUDES FROM CALGARY
Last week two young guys from Calgary dropped into the studio in the afternoon. We gave them the tour and gave them our little Spark Box speech. We soon found out that both boys were in high school and interested in the arts. We chatted for awhile and then they headed out for the day. Oddly, a few hours later they came back up to the studio to get some more information about our workshops. We happened to be in the middle of teaching silkscreen and the process seemed to interest them. We gave them information about silkscreen and our workshops and they went off to find out if was something they could include in their vacation budget 
The next week they were back with their dad and ready to set up a date to come in for a two day workshop. In the end each of them left with four prints and a t-shirt!
SILKSCREEN BIRTHDAY PARTY
Friends of ours from Montreal and Kingston came down to the studio for a day to have a silkscreen birthday party. They spent the day learning about silkscreen, drawing their images, and printing small editions. It was a great day of exciting printing, and the prints turned out fantastic. Birthday parties aren’t just at Chuck-E-Cheese anymore, at Spark Box Studio your birthday party could be focused around making art.
ALBERT COLLEGE TEACHERS SILKSCREEN
Several teachers from Albert College, located in Belleville, arranged for a workshop and a visit to Spark Box Studio in order to learn about silkscreen techniques and specifically how to print onto t-shirts. Three teachers came down and spend the afternoon printing t-shirts for a fundraiser the students were organizing. It was fantastic to have them come down and do some printing, we could not believe how much fun these teachers had screen printing t-shirts.
CHESTERFIELDS T-SHIRTS
Recently we completed an order of silkscreened t-shirt order for Chesterfields Cafe. Awhile back, Graham, owner of chesterfields, came into the studio and commissioned us to do small run of Chesterfield Cafe logos printed on t-shirts. The designs were made by local artist Nella Cassen. One night we burned a few screens with her images and started printing white colored logos onto nearly a hundred shirts. We worked into the wee hours of the night finishing with great results! Nell’s super cute illustrations looked great on the t-shirts. If you’re interested in such a service please contact us by email or by phone. We’d be happy to discuss the possibilities of silkscreening items for you.
WINTER SILKSCREEN WORKSHOP
Our first silkscreen workshop took place in November and we were surprised at the amount of interested this class generated. Both adults and youth attended the several hour class and learnt about the process of turning almost any image into a lovely three colour print. By the end of the class many of the participants became natural production houses and were turning out large edition print runs. Everyone walked away with at least one multicolored print. Check out additional pictures from this workshop on our flickr site: Spark Box Studio Flickr Site. This workshop was such a great success that we will be running another one early in the new year.
CENTENNIAL SCHOOL PRESENTATION
We have been working on making connections with the local high schools for some time now. We were finally given the opportunity to speak at Centennial Secondary School in Belleville. Thanks to Bill Tomlinson we were invited to give a presentation his intermediate and senior art classes. The goal of the presentation was for us to explain Spark Box Studio, give the students an idea of who we are, what we do, how we got to where we are, and why we are interested in working with youth in the area. Being graduates of an art program are quite aware of how scary it can be to consider entering a field where you may become the ‘starving artist’. Being an artist is difficult road to travel, but it is a possible line of work. As part of our presentation we outline how we are trying to help young artists get started by providing many resources such as: out online guides, the Art School Guide, and the Emerging Artist Guide, a volunteer/mentoring program, portfolio consultations, residency awards and a community space to work in and interact with seasoned artists. This talk at Centennial was the first in it’s series. Thank you Bill for helping to arrange this presentation we both had a blast talking to your students.
OPEN STUDIO: CARL WIENS
This week Spark Box Studio is proud to present the newest participant in the open studio program, Carl Wiens. An illustrator based in the county, Carl is a fine example of an artist making a living. We strongly recommend that you check out his website at www.carlwiens.com. We especially love the robot work he has done, here’s a quick link to that section retroroborama. Carl is excited to start working on a silkscreen series in the studio. Within his first day he was well on his way towards a finished print. In the afternoon he managed to shoot two screens and print two colors for his edition of 10 prints. We’re really happy to have Carl working in the studio.
OPEN STUDIO PROGRAM
Recently Spark Box has had many people coming through the studio for workshops or continue their visual art practice. Several Open Studio participants are focusing on silkscreen with good results. Lis Gare had not done silkscreening for many years and was eager to re-learn the medium. She quickly realized how much silkscreening has changed over the years. Silkscreen used to be oil based and was very toxic. In fact it was at one point the most toxic art medium available. As many of your know at Spark Box Studio we use a water based silkscreen system. This method is far less toxic than the traditional oil based system.
Also working in the studio a local artist, Mia Lane. Mia has been taking the high realism technique often seen in her paintings and translating them into the etchings with superb results. Local printmaker and owner of Blizzmax Gallery Peter Mennacher has also started coming in to use the studio to print his etchings. Peter’s studio, located in a barn is unheated, as the temperature gets colder inks become stiff and unusable but lucky for him Spark Box Studio is heated and open through the winter!
STEVE NEWBERRY
Spark Box Studio had its first resident artist, Steve Newberry. Steve currently lives in Hamilton and came to focus on his next set of ideas and concepts. Steve primarily works in sculpture, installation and new media, but more recently he has become interested in printmaking. It was fantastic getting to know Steve over the course of his one week stay. In addition to focusing on his independant work, we taught Steve how to silkscreen. Steve had brought some old post cards of Belleville that he wanted to transfer into prints. We gave steve a complete crash course in silkscreen and talked about the posibilities for mixed medium work. In the end he decided to silkscreen onto plywood and will later integrate other elements such as woodcut, found objects, screws, paint and many other interesting processes.
Two of the images we printed are posted. It should be mentioned that when printing onto plywood one should consider that the surface is not 100% uniform. The wood has both divits and grain which will alter the final printed image, for better or worse.
Check out his website at–www.Steve Newberry.com.
FIRST SILKSCREEN CLASS
Today was an exciting day for Spark Box Studio. A young girl, Gabby, and a boy, Edgar, were the first youth to come into the studio and learn about printmaking. In a four hour session Gabby and Edgar learnt, from scratch, how to take an image and transfer it into the silkscreen medium. The class began with print appreciation where we discussed techniques and the basics of the process. Shortly into the class Nella Casson, a good friend and fellow artist came to help teach. Nella is the wonderful woman who loaned Spark Box Studio an exposure unit, some screens, squeegees, and miscellaneous other silk screen items.
We started the class with an image of a sunset Gabby had taken on her camera. With photoshop Gabby and Edgar learnt how separate the image into stencil shapes. In the dimly lit darkroom we taught them about using the exposure unit and explained how it hardens the exposed emulsion on the screen leaving their image to be printed. Afterward, we showed them how to mix up inks, how to register and finally, how to pull their print. Both Gabby and Edgar took part in every step of the process and in the end had successfully created a piece of art from conception to completion.
After we had all walked through the whole process together, Gabby and Edgar went on to make their own silkscreened images. Both finished the session with original, limited edition, hand pulled prints.
HARVESTIN’
Spark Box Studio was invited to be a participant in the farmer’s market square at the Harvestin’ event on September 24th. Harvestin’ the County is an event that encourages the public to support the local agricultural community. A great event and to find out more details about the event visit http://www.harvestin.ca.
When we first arrived to set up we both felt a bit out of place in the farmer’s square. Quickly we discovered that other community supported projects had their own tables and that set us at ease. We set up our table, established a silk screen station and screen printed Spark Box Studio logos. Many people were intrigued and inquired about what we were doing and happily we discussed the processes and talked about the programs Spark Box Studio offers.
FALL/WINTER ARTIST RESIDENCY AWARD 2010
Applications are being accepted until Sept. 30, 2010
Awards will be announced in early October, 2010
Beginning your career as an emerging artist can be tough, which is why Spark Box Studio is offering FREE RESIDENCIES to fine art students and emerging artists. This residency opportunity is a unique way for young and emerging artists to cultivate new ideas, access a rich library of arts resources, learn about career-building opportunities, and develop an understanding of the art world from a business perspective.
About the Award
Four emerging artists will receive a one-week residency, 10 will receive a two day residency and 30 will receive one day at our Open Studio in Prince Edward County. The selected applicants will be able to work in the studio using Spark Box Studio’s equipment and resources, and have access to career guidance from local community members.
Spark Box Studio has created these awards as a career building opportunity for young emerging artists.
Participating in a residency is of value to you as it builds on your artistic career, gives you time to focus on a project in a professional artist studio and allows you the opportunity to connect and learn from other artists.
Getting Started:
Below is what should be included in your application:
- A current Curriculum Vitae
- An Artist Statement – 1-2 paragraphs explaining your work
- Digital samples of your work – Please provide 10 images of your work. Please include with the images a list which includes the title, medium, dimension, year of each one.
- Images should be MAC compatible in JPG, TIFF or PSD file.
- Images should be no smaller than 200 DPI and should measure 8” x 8”. If sending through email please compress files.
- Writing samples should not exceed 12 pages and should be sent with cover page stating your name and title of work.
- $15.00 CAD application fee payable to Spark Box Studio.
Check out our Emerging Artist Guide for information to help you prepare these items.
Once these items are ready:
-Complete and submit the Application Form below
-Pay your Application Fee. You can mail a cheque, or PAY ONLINE. Note: you must pay your application fee in order for your application to be processed.
-Send you Application Package to us.
By email: email your package to us using the email subject line “Residency Application – your full name” to info@sparkboxstudio.com
By Snail Mail: Mail your package to: Spark Box Studio, P.O. Box 9002, #7 Bridge St., Picton, ON, K0K 2T0
Making your Application:
Once you have prepared the items above you are ready to fill out the application form below.
Please note that we will use the information you provide to process your application and will not share your information with any other companies.
