As I alluded to in my last post, a few weeks ago a friend and I drove down to the Twin Cities to attend the three day Mid America Print Conference, put on by the Mid America Print Council. This is a semi-annual event held every two years at various locations throughout the Mid West. The previous time I went was my first experience, and it was right in my backyard of Fargo. I had a blast, and couldn't wait to experience it again. On the agenda were lectures, gallery tours and openings, demonstrations, vendor's fairs, and a multitude of other print-related activities.
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While I enjoyed the chine colle demo it wasn't something I could see using regularly in my work.
What really got my attention was a reductive asphaltum lithography demonstration by Michael Barnes. Similar to the "maniere noire" or "black method" used in traditional stone lithography the stone is worked reductively to create the image, either by scratching into the stone, using an abrasive, or a solvent.
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The main difference is in the base, which is asphaltum thinned down with mineral spirits instead of a traditional rolled up ink base. What was extremely impressive about this method was the ease of reducing the image and printing various colors. During the relatively short demo, Mr. Barnes processed, reduced, and printed three colors in about the span of half an hour. Also impressive were the extremely soft and subtle effects he achieved.
Below is a stone he had been working on- you can see the delicacy of the marks. The faint lines over the top are just from the sponge.
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Overall the conference was an invaluable experience, and I can hardly wait for the next one. Hopefully I'll be able to attend Southern Graphics next year, which I'm told is like this conference on steroids. Sounds like fun.
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So, as if the conference wasn't exciting enough, two days after returning home I had the honor of meeting and spending time with the one and only Carol Wax. That's right- the woman who literally wrote the book on mezzotint art. She was giving a three day workshop in conjunction with a symposium lecture series put on by Minnesota State University Moorhead art department. Unfortunately I don't have any images to share since she didn't care much for having her picture taken, but over those three days she talked about the history of the medium, lectured on her own work, and gave hands on demonstrations for preparing the plate and how to print it. Like the conference, it was a lot of information to take in in a few short days, but Carol seemed so excited and eager to share her knowledge that it was hard to not be excited. Plus she was just such an interesting and kind person- I feel very lucky to just have met her. :)
2 comments:
Thanks for the conference report. I really wanted to go when I learned Swoon and Artemio Rodriguez were going to be there. Did you get to see them?
Hi Wendy! Sorry you couldn't make it to the conference. Unfortunately I didn't get to see either of them- there was a lot of overlap with the programs, but a few friends went to see Swoon and said she was just a little ball of energy and extremely fun to watch. :)
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