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Posted by RL Tillman on March 6th, 2010 | The Printed Reality is a Flickr photo pool that collects photos of print intruding into public space.
 From Flickr user Big Lion Head
Paul Laidler runs the group, and organized a projected display of the photos at last year’s IMPACT conference. Laidler also writes about print art at Just Press P. He describes the collection this way:
The invention and subsequent development of the printed image has changed the way in which we learn, see and describe the world around us…
Within the Printed Reality group the interplay between image and object is not a seamless transition but one of artifice, theatre. Here the recorded image functions as a backdrop, a stage prop positioned and presented in such a manner that we are readerly accepting of its fictional role.
More photos from the group:
 From Flickr user Les manifestes
From Flickr user a n j a
 From Flickr user Mr. Eich
 11 people like this post.
Posted by RL Tillman on February 26th, 2010 | Nerd Alert! If you want to go to listen to several dozen audio files of various printing presses, head over to sounddogs.com.
May I interest you in LARGE NEWSPAPER PRINTING PRESS? Perhaps you’d care for INDUSTRY ROOM ROTARY PRINTING PRESS?
My personal favorite is “CARTOON LARGE WOODEN PRINTING PRESS.”
P.S. You’re welcome!
5 people like this post.
Posted by RL Tillman on February 24th, 2010 | 
The “Print Clock” is a system of dating prints developed by S. Blair Hedges, Professor of Biology at Penn State. The method depends on the supposition that printing surfaces deteriorated at a clock-like rate.
The print clock is a method for dating undated books and prints that were produced by hand-operated presses, thus since the 15th Century. It is based on the hypothesis, backed by observations, that woodblocks and metal plates (e.g., copperplates) deteriorated in a clock-like manner during their lifespan, which was often decades… By measuring this change across different editions of the same print, and calibrating the rate with dated editions, it is possible to estimate the age of the undated work.
 From a printmaker’s perspective, the most interesting thing about this (aside from these sweet diagrams) is the conclusions Hedges has drawn about how printing matrices become worn.
Aging of the wood creates breaks in the relief of a carved woodblock, causing line breaks on the resulting print. For copperplates, the image fading I measured is the result of the thinning of the etched and engraved lines caused by the erosion of the copper surface, which results from the steady corrosive effects of acid in the atmosphere plus the periodic removal of the accumulated corrosion by scouring and polishing of the plates prior to each print run… The assumption in published papers in this field was that prints from later editions of the same copperplate are paler because the enormous pressures in the printing process were flattening the copperplate, but my laboratory studies proved that this is not the case.
9 people like this post.
Posted by RL Tillman on February 10th, 2010 |  Princeton’s Graphic Arts blog directs us to Flipbook.info, which is devoted to the history of the flipbook (a.k.a. “flick-book,” “folioscope,” or “kinetograph”). The site documents over 5,000 examples dating from 1882, with photos and a few videos, too. There’s so much information that the site is difficult to navigate, but be sure to check out the section on Artist’s Flipbooks.
Posted by Jason Urban on February 9th, 2010 | If you haven’t heard, early registration for the 2010 SGC Conference in Philadelphia ends on Wednesday, February 17! That’s a little over a week away.
 Big Ben Franklin flexing his print muscles in downtown Philly.
Mark/Remarque, this year’s Southern Graphics Conference, is being held in Philadelphia from March 24th to March 27th. This one promises to be unlike any past Southern Graphics conference as it’s happening in conjunction with the city-wide Philagrafika print-stravaganza. Expect an awe inspiring amount of serious print art. Printeresting has already started it’s Philagrafika 2010 coverage and we’ll be on the scene for the conference, too.
In addition, we’re defying the prime directive and hosting an event of our own on Thursday night of the conference- Copy Jam! The work is rolling in for the show and it’s looking great. Come by AITA for your free print from 6-9; you won’t be disappointed.
And if you need to resort to less print-centric news sources, read some local articles about Philagrafika compliments of Philly.com (and here) and the City Paper. And here’s one at the New York Times.
Posted by RL Tillman on January 27th, 2010 | The Working Proof “seeks to promote art and social responsibility. Each print is paired with a charity of the artist’s choice, to which we are donating 15% of the sale of each print – creating what we believe to be a product with not just aesthetic, but social value.”
 Letterpress print by Dan Funderburgh
Frankly, when this project first debuted, I was skeptical of its legitimacy. Maybe it’s just that I have been so unimpressed by other services offering “affordable” prints. And to be honest, I was probably even a bit cynical about the charitable component.
But I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong: Working Proof is is building up a solid track record of interesting work. I can’t speak to the organization’s philanthropic accounting, but the work that’s being made is a lot more compelling than what comes from many similar outlets. And this is why:
We seek to give our artists full creative control of their work by having them produce and sign the work themselves. This contrasts to print-on-demand art services where the work is produced by the seller, beyond the purview of the artist. Each artist creates, prints (by whatever method they choose – screenprint, letterpress, linocut, giclee, to name a few), and signs/numbers a limited-edition print run that is exclusive to the Working Proof. The details of each print method, ink and paper is listed on the print’s info page. Hand signing and numbering is a long-standing tradition for authorship and authenticity that we believe is an integral part of the process of printmaking, for both the artist and collector.
This focus on production seems like an important development in the field of affordable online print delivery services. For instance, look at these documentary photos of print production by Erik Otto.
This isn’t just an outlet for reproductions. Keep an eye on ‘em.
Posted by Jason Urban on January 21st, 2010 |  Quinton Gonzalez, Chicano 15, 2008.
Austin, TX is known for music so it’s not surprising that hand-screenprinted music posters are a big part of the local color. Wayne Alan Brenner wrote an informative article called The Art Is Formally Known as Prints for the Austin Chronicle back in early November about the scene. If you can forgive the title, it’s definitely worth a read. Brenner does a good job of documenting the lineage of recent Austin screenprinting. It’s a pretty tangled web but he manages to cut through it and tell a story of a vibrant community. In the article, Sam Coronado and his Serie Project get their due respect as a real force in the Austin print community so I decided I was long overdue for a visit.
Located in East Austin, The Serie Project, Inc. is “a non-profit Latino organization that produces, promotes and exhibits serigraph prints created by established and emerging artists.” Master Printer Sam Coronado started the Serie Project in 1993 after a visit to Self Help Graphics in Los Angeles. To date, Serie has trained countless printers and worked with over 150 artists. Assistant Director James Beard had some time to show me the shop and some prints.
 A gray day in Austin is pretty rare but that was the case back in December when I stopped by Serie.
Continue reading The Serie Project, Inc.
Posted by RL Tillman on January 19th, 2010 | 
Seems like some of you can’t get enough interesting printmaking miscellany. Statistics show that some readers visit Printeresting several dozen times each day. Well, this one’s for the die-hards: Presenting the all-new PRINTERESTING NOTEBOOK!
As an adjunct to PRINTERESTING.ORG, the Notebook is a micro-blog with frequent updates: quick links, short messages, photos, and more. Some of this material may also appear on the main site, but most of it will be exclusive to the Notebook. As a bonus, you can follow the Notebook on Tumblr.
THE PRINTERESTING NOTEBOOK: BOOKMARK IT!
Posted by Jason Urban on January 18th, 2010 |  Here at Printeresting, we like to think we know a little something about impractical labor so when we heard about Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA), we were intrigued. In addition to being founded in 2008, ILSSA and Printeresting have a number of things in common: a love of antiquated technology, a fanatical appreciation of printed matter, and a far-reaching audience to name just a few. Bridget Elmer (Local 347 Shop FS) & Emily Larned (Local 917 Shop RC), founders of ILSSA, were kind enough to answer a few questions for us. Let’s cut the intro short and get straight to the Q&A.
JU: The FAQ page on your website covers a lot of bases but perhaps you can say a bit more about unions in general and ILSSA in particular. Why form a union as opposed to some other type of organization? What does it mean to you personally?
ILSSA: When we had our first discussion about making something together (at which point the seeds for ILSSA were planted), we were trying to break ourselves out of familiar systems (academia, galleries, libraries, museums) and dichotomies (art vs. craft, art vs. design, art vs. life). We were no longer comfortable defining ourselves and our work via these established mechanisms, primarily because, despite our implicit allegiances and explicit memberships, we found ourselves isolated and unfulfilled. We had both begun making art in order to make connections, so we wanted figure out how this was possible… how could we feel so disconnected when our purpose in making was to connect?
We realized that in our scurry to make a living from making, in our attempt to prove that our passions could also be ‘practical,’ we had lost sight of our ideals. Slowly but surely, the market and its culture had crept in and reduced our senses of possibility. As artist-printers, we began to believe that we had only two options: to teach or to hustle. Both of these options had prescribed paths that we seemed forced to follow, regardless of our core intentions. And both of these paths seemed to be limiting, shrinking our world views every time we decided to answer the question, “So, what to you do?” “I’m a letterpress printer.” “I’m an art professor.” “I’m an artist.” “I’m a craftsperson.” “I’m a designer.”
Continue reading Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts
Posted by amze on January 3rd, 2010 | 
Portland’s own Independent Publishing Resource Center has recently created this documentary video exploring their history and mission. They describe some of the highlights:
We’re super excited about this new film, partly because it shows our Media Action Project (MAP) in action at Roosevelt High School. As you’ll see in the film, MAP encourages students to think critically about the major media’s portrayal of body image, beauty, masculinity, violence, and conspicuous consumption. Our goal is to help students transform from passive consumers of media to active creators of zines, art and culture, with stronger individual identities and enhanced self esteem.
The IPRC is a very compelling project that could and should serve as a model to similar operations in cities around the country. To read more about the IPRC check out this post from last September.
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