Dear Friends,

2014 was a hard year to say goodbye to because it was such a good one for Zea Mays Printmaking. But I look forward to this coming year with hope that it too will bring wonderful new opportunities to our printmaking community. I’d like to mention a few of the things I’m excited about that will debut in 2015.

Our silkscreen studio is almost ready! With just a few finishing touches we will have a designated space for screen printing, featuring the Filbar semi-automatic silkscreen press we were given last spring. We’ll begin by training our members and eventually we’ll offer workshops. It is sure to add another layer of creative possibilities to our repertoires.

We’ll be curating new work into our Flat File this month. The prints in our Flat File collection change annually; there is always something new to discover. We’ll update the website shortly thereafter, so visit it to see what’s in our drawers and make an appointment to come see the work for yourself. We welcome opportunities to exhibit the work from our Flat File at off-site venues. If you have a gallery and want to show some great artwork, get in touch.

Our core faculty and I are working hard on two new educational offerings. First, a new summer program – The Zea Mays Printmaking Certificate in Green Printmaking: Intaglio. This 3-week intensive is designed to immerse printmakers in safer and non-toxic intaglio techniques. It will include instruction and studio time to put the techniques into practice. We're looking for participants who have been trained in conventional, solvent and acid-based intaglio and want to transform their process using less toxic materials and methods, as well as those who are beginning to use alternative processes and want to get really comfortable and confident. Drawing on our fifteen years of experience and research we will provide in-depth training in Etching and Photopolymer Intaglio.

The second program is an opportunity for artists who want to deepen their practice while developing printmaking skills – the Zea Mays Printmaking Artist Mentorship Program (AMP@ZMP). This program will pair a participating artist with a faculty mentor who will work with him/her on a self-designed course of study over a ten-month span. This could take the form of critique, technical skill building, recommended readings, etc. Mentorship can provide support, insight and clarity during the artistic process. I’ll be revealing details about both these programs in a few weeks.

I look back on 2014 and ahead to 2015 with gratitude for all the great people with whom I work: the talented, dedicated faculty who teach our workshops, the smart, skillful monitors who mind the shop, the amazing interns who do such great research, the kind-hearted members who make Zea Mays Printmaking their studio home, the eager, curious artists who take part in our workshops, and all the people who come look at prints, buy prints and help sustain this funny, wonderful thing we do.

Happy 2015!

Liz

2014 saw the Zea Mays Artist in Residency Program roll out to an exciting and successful start. Since the opening of our "in-studio" guest suite in March we have hosted 8 Artists in Residence from around the country. Some worked privately in The Annex while others chose the community of the member's studio upstairs. All appreciated Zea Mays for the unique place that it is, and hope to continue a working relationship in the future. Several residencies are already "inked" for 2015, including our first artist from outside the US: Elly Prestegård from Norway, joining us for the entire month of May. We will also host the first ever recipient of the new Zea Mays Printmaking Residency Fellowship in April (application deadline is January 31st).

But first, we welcome Rhea Nowak for her two-week residency beginning next week.

“After teaching for 15 years at SUNY College at Oneonta, first as a full time adjunct now as a tenured professor I am on my first sabbatical. To get it rolling I’m very excited to be spending two weeks at Zea Mays in January. “Synecdoche” is the title of the project I’m working on. This is a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special. I plan on making some photo intaglio plates and combining them with some traditional etching and collagraph plates. I am very much looking forward to spending uninterrupted time in the studio.”

The deadline is rapidly approaching for our Spring Residency Fellowship (January 31st) – if you haven’t checked it out yet, do so now!

Learn a new technique or deepen an existing practice with a workshop at Zea Mays this Winter/Spring! Check out the full lineup on the workshops page of our website.
Spring and Summer listings will be up on the website in the coming weeks.

Workshop Registration
Workshop Scholarship Info

Janet Walerstein Winston is showing butterfly monoprints in a small group exhibit in Amherst at Gallery A3 for the month of January entitled "Drawing Show." It is open Thursdays through Sundays from 1pm to 7pm. Show closes January 31st, 2015. Gallery A3 is located at 28 Amity Street 1D, in Amherst MA, in the Amherst Cinema Complex.

Erika Radich has two prints in the Biennial Regional Juror's Choice Exhibit at the Thorne-Sagendorf Gallery, Keene State College, Keene, NH. The exhibit runs from January 24th to March 26th. Public reception January 23rd, 5:30 to 7:30pm.

Olwen O'Herlihy Dowling's new show of watercolors titled "Colours" will be on display at the Smith College Alumnae House Gallery from January 14 to April 22, 33 Elm Street Northampton, MA 01063. Monday through Friday hours: 8:30am to 4:30pm, reception Friday January 23rd, 5 to 7pm.

Frank Ozereko is in a group show: "The Book Show" at the Taber Art Gallery at Holyoke Community College, running from January 26th to February 26. Opening reception January 19th 5:30 to 7:30pm.

B.Z. Reily's show "Junk Drawer”... Assemblages and Prints will be in the Oxbow Gallery Back Room, Pleasant Street in Northampton March 5th to 29th. Opening Reception: Friday, March 13th.

Can't make it to our wonderful studio for a workshop? Our amazing Zea Mays Printmaking core faculty take it on the road as well - catch a workshop or exhibition at one of these venues.

Anita Hunt has four prints included in NNE (North Northeast) on display January 10th to February 7th, 2015 at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT. Juror Richard Klein, Exhibitions Director at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, selected 38 artists working in New England and New York for the exhibit.

Lynn Peterfreund has a piece in "The Crow Show:" a juried exhibit sponsored by The Studio Door Gallery, showing at the Art Institute of California, San Diego for the month of February.

Esther S White's piece, "Bed Grief," will be included in "30 Under 30" at the Arsenal Arts Center in Watertown, MA, up through February 20, 2015. A quilt made from breakdown-printed fabric and found objects, the piece is part of a new series of quilts and printed textiles investigating chronic pain as a feminine problem.

Bromfield Gallery, located at 450 Harrison Ave. in Boston, MA, is pleased to present Lyell Castonguay's "Feathery Devils," on view from January 2nd to February 1st, 2015. Castonguay's large woodcut prints depict birds in portraiture and piled masses. Castonguay's work was selected by juror Judith Tolnick Champa out of 157 artists for Bromfield's annual SOLO competition.

Louise Kohrman will have work on display as part of a group exhibition at the Holyoke Community College Taber Art Gallery, featuring the artists in Dean Nimmer's new book “Creating Abstract Art.” Opens: January 26 (spring semester begins) Ends February 26th, 2015.

Annie Bissett has received a Fellowship for Creative and Performing Artists from the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA, where she will spend four weeks in April researching the Society's extensive collection of early American graphics.

Liz Chalfin and Zea Mays Printmaking are featured in the book Contemporary American Printmakers, a collection of work by more than seventy print-based artists and thirty print shops from across the United States whose work embraces the history and techniques of traditional printmaking while pushing the bounds of new print media. Available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble on January 28th.
Liz was also included in the book "Creating Abstract Art: Ideas and Inspirations for Passionate Art-Making," by Dean Nimmer. There will be an exhibition of work by artists included in the book at the Taber Art Gallery, Holyoke Community College January 26 to February 26 2015 with a reception on Thursday, February 19th, 5:30 to 7:30pm.

Liz Chalfin spent a day at Dartmouth College on January 12th helping their printmaking faculty get comfortable working with safer etching processes and materials. In February she will visit Zygote Press in Cleveland, OH to demonstrate safer etching and work with their master printer on an edition of her own work.

A6/Atelier 6000 in Bend Oregon invites artists ages 18 years of age and older to submit original artist books on the 2015 theme of “Myths and Legends.” Entries will by juried by Laura Russell of 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, Oregon. The award for Best in Show is a four week artist residency at Playa Summer Lake.
The deadline for submissions is February 27, 2015. Myths & Legends will be on exhibit during the month of April 2015 in the A6 presentation gallery. Learn more

Large woodcut proposals are now being accepted for printing events at AS220 Printshop in Providence, RI and Pickwick Independent Press in Portland, ME.
BIG INK is a collaborative project that encourages the practice and understanding of large woodcut. Free to apply. Learn more.

The 28th Annual McNeese Works on Paper Exhibition at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA is accepting entries until February 19th, 2015. Learn more

The Tokyo International Mini-Print Triennial at Tama Art University Museum in Tokyo, Japan is accepting entries until February 28th, 2015. Learn more

The 2015 Guanlan International Print Biennial at the China Printmaking Museum is accepting entries until February 10th, 2015. Learn more.

This month we're highlighting member artist Judith Bowerman's website, found here.

You can find a full directory of links to member and faculty websites here.

News From Montreal

A letter from member artist Elizabeth J. Saccà

Although Montreal has a lively printmaking scene with a number of professional artist-run studios, it is frustrating that few printmakers are using less-toxic, water-based inks.

In the last few years, Pierre le Gourriérec, the proprietor of the Avenue des Arts art supply store, learned about Susan Rostow and William Jung’s water-based AKUA Intaglio Inks at a trade show. Because of the inks’ innovative nature and less toxic impact on people and the environment, he started carrying them in his store, the first in Quebec to do so.

Concurrently, MFA students Erin Smith and Maria Doering were researching these inks for Concordia University’s Printmaking Department. Matt Thomson (MFA in Print Media, Concordia University, 2013) was intrigued with their research. He suggested a course using AKUA Intaglio Inks to Elisabeth Galante, Fine Arts Director of the Visual Arts Centre School; she immediately embraced the idea of teaching with these newer materials.

In a studio with two presses, participants are exploring linocut, drypoint and chine collé with the water-based inks. The third intaglio course begins in February 2015: the momentum is building!

News about the changing landscape of printmaking and improvements concerning safety and toxicity are always welcome. Please submit letters, updates, or ideas to sally.clegg@gmail.com