The thinking person's favorite online resource for interesting printmaking miscellany.
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Posted by amze on May 14th, 2012 | 
A long-time supporter of Printeresting, artist and professor Joseph D’Uva, recently brought to our attention one more strange way that the worlds of skateboarding and printmaking have more in common than compound words. From his recent correspondence:
Back in the 80′s Z-Flex Skateboards (famous for founding the legendary Z-Boys) came out with these Z-Roller Trucks in order to prevent [the skater] getting hung up when grinding ledges, rails, coping, or the knarliest of curbs. They were heavy, really heavy…maybe the heaviest trucks fabricated ever and to be honest…[they] took the fun out of grinding since you really just rolled on the ledge or curb. They basically eliminated grinding and any evidence of skateboarding’s inherent mark-making techniques. The trucks came with either an aluminum roller or this rubber version.
He goes on to say,
Recently, I discovered this set [above & below] for sale on Ebay and the bidding for this little piece of skateboard history is quite high. The images of these trucks brought back many old Florida skateboard memoriesfor me, but I also the thought of how these could be a very interesting and unique set of brayers. Just think, you could have been inking a wood block and skating at the same time. Brilliant! I always knew there was a correlation between skateboarding and printmaking (i.e. screenprinting) and here is one more piece of skateboard history that supports the idea.
At first D’Uva’s proposition seemed very fanciful, but after closely examining a Speedball Hard Brayer.. I’m just not so sure, perhaps they were originally designed for use on skate trucks.
Posted by Jason Urban on May 14th, 2012 |  Print as simulated architecture! Absolute Monarchy is a silkscreen installation by Australia printmaker and current Cornell University MFA student Elizabeth Corkery. The ambitious piece is a simulation of the Hall of Mirrors from the Palace of Versailles and consists of around 200 screenprinted wooden panels and adhesive mirror vinyl. Corkery’s past work dabbles in decadence so it’s logical that her inquiry would lead her to Marie Antoinette’s royal château. It was shown in March at Cornell’s Tjaden Gallery in Ithaca, NY.
 Continue reading Absolute Monarchy
Posted by A FRIEND OF PRINTERESTING on May 11th, 2012 | A guest post by Jeffrey Dell with photographs by John Hitchcock unless otherwise noted.
There is some serious printmaking mojo happening in Texas these days, and this is exemplified no better than the events at the Oso Bay Biennial XVII held the last weekend of April at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Texas (TAMUCC). Planned as a print and cross-discipline conference for Texas universities, it brought the ethos of Burning Man to academia. Events ranged from a workshop on making masks and helmets, to a diverse series of print media exhibitions that did as good a job as any printmaking conference on showing the diversity of work being made today.
 The burning of the boat and the great bear of Oso Bay.
Organized by Assistant Professor Ryan O’Malley for TAMUCC, and in collaboration with the Brooklyn artist Dennis McNett, the Oso Bay Biennial XVII culminated in a parade that carried a very large ship covered in McNett’s prints to McGee Beach, on the Sea Wall of Corpus Christi. This just happened to coincide with fireworks set off by a carnival that was set just behind McGee beach. The boat, along with an effigy of the Great Bear of Oso Bay, were burned as an offering. The entire ceremony was dubbed Wolfbats Beseech the Great Bear of Oso Bay, as conceived by McNett. The event was in-line with similar events organized by McNett at SGCI New Orleans. In the case of Corpus Christi, however, the conference was the McNett event.
 The boat moving towards the beach.
The spark that lit the effigy and boat was actually a still-glowing cast iron heart, poured in a mobile iron foundry while a live metal band played from a gazebo overlooking the beach. I don’t know if anyone will recall the Crash Worship shows from the 90’s, but I was reminded of them that night. This was a mix of mixes: printmaking and sculpture and performance, spiritual seeking and academia, rock show and art collaboration. It is a vision of art making that is not entirely new, but that is rarely done so exuberantly and at this scale.
Ryan O’Malley seemed to be everywhere for the duration of the events: directing the parade and pulling the boat; installing huge collaborative murals of woodcut prints in downtown Corpus Christi; selling prints at the Inkslinger’s Ball at the end of the week; talking to students during the open portfolio session; talking to people at the various exhibition receptions during the week. He was effortlessly ever present.
O’Malley undoubtedly had to secure some major permission slips from the city, the museums, and the University for doing things like hauling a giant wooden boat through downtown, with police escort stopping traffic, and then lighting it on fire at the beach. This is a tremendous sign of O’Malley’s efforts as an artist, organizer, teacher, and collaborator.
I have to say that the work chosen for the exhibitions was very good. One show came from O’Malley’s private collection from swapping prints while traveling with Drive By Press. Another show was juried by Tom Huck and Bill Fick, two more spiritual gurus of the week’s events. Yet another show was curated by O’Malley. There was a definite personality in the curation, but this highlighted what is a significant zeitgeist not only in the print world(s) today, but also in the art world(s) as well, one that has not always received official recognition.
 Exhibition juried by Bill Fick and Tom Huck at The Islanders Gallery, an off-campus gallery administered by TAMUCC.
Two youtube clips and a bunch more pics of the conference and the burning after the jump.
Continue reading Oso Bay Biennial
Posted by Jason Urban on May 10th, 2012 |  Marchelo Vera is a recent graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, famous for its Non Toxic-based program. He’s been doing research involving 4-color Intaglio-Type and photographic techniques pioneered by Keith Howard and David Jay Reed. He’s also been doing some interesting things involving interactive media and intaglio printing. For his thesis exhibition, Remnants: Within an Age of Digitalism, he collaborated with designer/artist Yuya Takeda on an interactive print environment with sound. I asked him about the underlying themes of his current work. He responds, “A lot of my work right now is a continuation of my interests that deal with culture and technology. I explore ideas of illusion and identity that are revealed within abstract visual environments.”
 How did the “Digitalism” project develop?
Traditional printmaking and print media have evolved so much in the last few decades. Collaboration is a huge part of my life, everyone has their specialty but working with others allows you to explore new ways of thinking and creating. I have always been into sci-fi movies like minority report, as well as John Cage. Working within a tangible media environment opened up many doors; I met Yuya Takeda while at RIT, an amazingly talented international 3D student. Our varied strengths and interests were very compatible; we would basically spend countless hours in the labs at night eating Skittles. While I was inking, Yuya would translate the prints into sound compositions. He handled the node programing and kinect mapping while I did the drawing and design. We would both work individually and together, meeting somewhere in the middle and eventually mashing everything up. (Which worked out great since everything had a universal theme underneath it all.)
A few more images and a statement by Vera after the jump.
Continue reading Marchelo Vera
Posted by PRINTERESTING on May 9th, 2012 |  Pigment Magic
The only sad thing about our collaboration with Gamblin Artists Colors on our ink, Printeresting Black, is that we didn’t have time to make it out to Portland, OR to witness it being made. Fortunately, Gamblin was able to supply us with some pics in order to get a sense of it. Of course, there are trade secrets so there’s a limit but here’s a set of images that show the three main stages of the production process- mix, mill, and fill.
We won’t wax poetic about the artisanal quality of Gamblin’s inkmaking except to say that they are masters totally committed to making a quality product. Their etching inks are made using a mixture of lightfast pigments and burnt plate oils- that’s it. No preservatives. No MSG.The ink is mixed, processed through a traditional three-roll mill (see the animated GIF), and then gets hand-poured into a can that’s skinned, taped and labelled (also by hand). Everything is tested for viscosity, lightfastness, drying times, opacity, and of course, printability.
This has been such a rewarding project for us. We really can’t thank the Gamblin crew enough. And for those of you who requested ink, we’re sending out a bunch of cans tomorrow. Maybe a can will be on its way to your shop! We’re looking forward to seeing some pictures.
So without further ado… we’ll begin with mixing.
 Continue reading Printeresting Black: Making Ink at Gamblin
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