Letter from the Director Dear Friends, It's been a wonderful summer at the studio, with great workshops and lots of artists in and out. Here's a lit

         
zmp-january-2015-newsletter-header

Letter from the Director

Dear Friends,

It's been a wonderful summer at the studio, with great workshops and lots of artists in and out. Here's a little photo re-cap.

tbase-alternative

This is random text from Liz's letter.

masha-ryskin

This is Barry Moser doing something at Zea Mays Printmaking.

September in the Pioneer Valley means back-to-school as all of the colleges welcome back their students and our roads fill with moving vans and anxious parents. At Zea Mays it marks the beginning of a new year as we welcome several new members to our studio, get to know new interns, start a new research project, hang new shows in and out of our gallery and introduce a slew of new workshops. The look of our newsletter is also new, thanks to the vision and dedication of our newsletter editor, Jamie Sweeney.

Zea Mays re-opens on September 10th after a short hiatus to refinish the downstairs studio's floors. We begin our year by welcoming back Andrew Baldwin, the inventor of the BIG etching ground and dear friend of the studio. This year, the Welsh printmaker will teach a workshop “Coffee Lift and Spit Bite Etching on Aluminum” using copper sulfate as an etchant, instant coffee as a drawing medium and the BIG etching ground. He will also be doing some private tutorials with our members. The workshop filled almost instantaneously and we’ve got quite a waiting list. Hopefully we will master the process and teach it again during the coming year, or bring Andrew back again soon.

Our first exhibition of the year in the Sanford Gallery is “Quarter Sheet: Almost Legal”, a group exhibition of work by members of the Monotype Guild of New England. We are very excited to host an exhibition for the MGNE, a wonderful printmaking organization dedicated to the art of the unique print. Please join us in celebrating this show on September 21st (see details below).

From exhibitions around the globe to book illustrations and artist residencies, our members are out in the world in a big way. I am so proud of the work that our artists make. See the listings below and go see some of this great work for yourself. There is sure to be a show near you!

I am still hard at work getting the silkscreen studio set up for a Fall opening. I’m slowly pulling together the furniture and materials and getting to know the Filbar press. We will begin by orienting our members to the space and equipment. Please stay tuned for an official opening when we will invite artists to come use these new facilities. There’s lots of news in this newsletter. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Gratefully,
Liz

***

Studio News

The Fall/Winter Workshop Schedule Is Out:

We are excited to be offering some new workshops this season. Our September Coffee Lift and Spit Bite Etching on Aluminum workshop is already full, but there are still some spaces left in these October workshops:
Finishing Strategies for Resolving Prints is a 4-week course focusing on how to bring incomplete prints to completion. White Line Woodcut revives the Provincetown technique from the 1900s. Pronto-Mono Mash-up combines easy polyester plate lithography with improvisational monotype.

Check out all of our Fall/Winter workshops - there's bound to be something to invigorate your printmaking practice!

***

New Hours:

When we reopen on September 10th, our new hours will be:

Tuesday-Wedesday 10-8
Thursday-Friday 10-6
2nd and 4th Saturday and Sunday of each month 10-5

Closed Mondays, some holidays and special events

***

Upcoming Exhibitions

The Sanford Gallery @ Zea Mays Printmaking:

Quarter Sheet: Almost Legal, the Monotype Guild of New England Members' Exhibition, will be on view in the Sanford Gallery at Zea Mays from September 21 - October 18, 2014. The Opening Reception will be on Sunday, September 21 from 2-5 PM.

***
***

Off-site Exhibitions:

Up Now: Plate to Paper at Chases Garage Gallery in York, ME features the work of a number of Zea Mays members and faculty, including Elena Betke-Brunswick, Louise Kohrman, Joyce Silverstone, and Liz Chalfin. August 30 - October 5, 2014.

Coming Soon: Systems, the Zea Mays Printmaking Biennial, at A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery in downtown Northampton, MA. The show will be up October 7 – November 2, 2014, with the Opening Reception during Arts Night Out on Friday, October 10 from 5-8 PM.
Curated by Liz Chalfin, the show includes work by Joyce Silverstone, Anne Beresford, Annie Bissett, Judith Bowerman, Meredith Broberg, Elena Betke-Brunswick, Richard Turnbull, Frank Ozereko, Louise Kohrman, Jennifer Gover, Carolyn Webb, B.Z. Reily and Julie Rivera, Sally Anne Clegg, Rachel Chapman, Tekla McInerney, Nancy Haver, Pamela Crawford, and Margaret Jean Taylor.

***

This is the Section Title

***

Residencies at Zea Mays Printmaking

masha-ryskin

Residency artist Masha Ryskin sharing etched plate

The Zea Mays Artist in Residence program, which was established this year and unveiled at the Southern Graphics Council International Conference in March, has just bid farewell to its 5th participating artist of the summer. We've hosted artists from California, Hawaii, Indiana, Rhode Island and Georgia. Each one approached the place and time in their own way, took full advantage of all Zea Mays has to offer, including participation in workshops, private lessons, studio visits with members and intensive work time in the studio. All went home with hopes of returning in the future.

emily-weihing

Residency artist Emily Weihing sharing prints

Thanks to all the monitors, teachers, interns and members who contributed to the experience of each of these visiting artists. I expect the fall and winter season to be just as busy and equally satisfying.

We are currently accepting applications for winter and spring residencies. Full information and applications can be found on the Zea Mays website.

***

Featured Workshop

Learn a new technique or deepen an existing practice with a workshop at Zea Mays this fall! Check out the full lineup on the workshops page of our website.

Finishing: Strategies for Resolving Prints

With Lynn Peterfreund
Thursday mornings, October 2-23, 10-1
$255 non-members $225 members

Bring your undone, your false starts, your problem prints to this workshop to learn ways to see, edit and complete your pieces. Each of the four weekly sessions will combine lots of studio time with individualized and group discussion. Learn more.

***

Meet the New Interns

Welcome to the new fall interns at Zea Mays, Jenny Gover and Audrey Blood! Keep reading to get to know a bit about Jenny. You can learn more about the internship program on the Zea Mays website.

Where are you coming from?

I moved to Northampton last year and live down the street from Zea Mays, near the YMCA. Before that, I lived in Cambridge for two years while in graduate school at Boston University.

What do you do outside of the studio?

Outside the studio I am a freelance graphic designer, avid yoga practitioner, and wrangler of a small, misbehaving dog.

What is something you are hoping to get out of your internship?

I am very excited to start in on a research project and contribute to new methods or techniques that will be useful for other artists at the studio. I also look forward to seeing in depth how the studio runs, talking to other artists about their work, and assisting with workshops.

What’s your favorite art supply?

Tracing paper and a mechanical pencil; my computer and digital camera.

***

Member News

Larinda Meade’s print “Harbor” has been accepted into the National Small Works Exhibition, an annual juried show sponsored by the Washington Printmakers Gallery, 1641 Wisconsin Avenue, Washington DC July 30- August 31. Two prints, Untitled and Coastal View, have been accepted to “The Maine Story” at River Arts, Damariscotta, Maine. August 1-28.

Joan Wright and 7 artists are having a group show, Independent Inquiries, at The Eclipse Mill Gallery, 243 Union Street, North Adams, MA. The opening reception is Saturday, September 13 from 6-8 and the Gallery will be open from noon to 6:00 PM on Saturdays and Sundays until October 5th.

Carolyn Webb will have a show up at the Hammer Gallery at Meekins Library in Williamsburg, MA from September 2nd through the 28th. There will be an opening reception on Sunday, September 21st from 3 - 5 PM.

Diana MacKenzie will be having a solo show Diana MacKenzie: Recent Works at Hampden Gallery's Incubator Project Space at UMASS Amherst, October 5th-31st. The opening reception is Sunday, October 5th, 2- 4 PM. Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Friday, 1 - 6 PM and Sunday 2 - 5 PM. Directions to the gallery are here.

This August, Nancy Haver was an artist-in-residence at Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona. Nancy will be an artist-in-residence at Acadia National park in Maine in 2015.

“Watermarks," an exhibition of prints by Louise Kalin opens November 6, 6 - 8 PM, at First Street Gallery, 526 West 26th street, Suite 209, New York. Etchings, monoprints and monotypes reflect changing landscapes, and the transparent patterns of light on water. Exhibition closes November 29. For gallery hours, directions, and parking, please visit www.firststreetgallery.net.

Larinda Meade’s print “Harbor” has been accepted into the National Small Works Exhibition, an annual juried show sponsored by the Washington Printmakers Gallery, 1641 Wisconsin Avenue, Washington DC July 30 - August 31. Two prints, "Untitled" and "Coastal View," were accepted to The Maine Story, which was on view from August 1 - 28 at River Arts, Damariscotta, Maine.

Erika Radich will have prints on display at Old Frog Pond Farm in Harvard, MA from September 21 through October 5. There will be an opening reception on Sunday, September 21 from 1 - 5 PM, featuring live music by the Wild Blue Frogs and the Morningside Studio Jazz Band. Old Frog Pond Farm features pick-your-own raspberries and an organic vegetable farm stand.

Jean Allemeier Boot will have prints in two exhibitions this fall. A color etching and aquatint titled, Civita Castellana from Below, will be part of the SAGA 81st Members' Exhibition at The Old Print Shop, in New York City, running September 6 - October 11. Also, a pair of prints titled, In the Exchange of Echoes, both aquatint with chine collé, will be showing at Cathedral Square in Grand Rapids, MI, as part of ArtPrize 2014. Exhibition will run September 24 - October 12.

***

Faculty News

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.

Joyce Silverstone has work in the group shows Plate to Paper at Chases Garage Gallery in York, ME, August 30-October 5, and Systems at the A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton, MA, opening October 10. Joyce is teaching a workshop funded by the Shutesbury Cultural Council at the M.N.Spear Memorial Library on Saturday, October 4 from 10-1. She will be a Visiting Artist in the print department at SUNY Oswego from October 7-9. Joyce will return to Snow Farm in Williamsburg, MA to teach another week long workshop of monotype printmaking from October 19-24.

Annie Bissett has a woodblock print in the "International Mokuhanga Exhibition, 2014" in Tokyo, Japan, an exhibition in conjunction with the 2nd International Mokuhanga Conference at Tokyo University of the Arts (September 11 - 25). Also, the last week of October, she will travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to be the Fall 2014 Roman J. Witt Visiting Artist to the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art and Design at the invitation of artist and professor Endi Poskovic.

Liz Chalfin will be teaching Safe Etching Using BIG at the Printmaking Center of New Jersey - October 18/19, 2014. She has five prints in the show "Print Currents: Artists and their influences" at The Curator Gallery - Chelsea. The show runs September 11- October 31, 2014. The opening reception is Thursday, September 11 from 6-8 PM (rsvp to ann@thecuratorgallery.com). Liz is also exhibiting in Plate to Paper on view at Chases Garage Gallery in York, ME through October 5. Liz's 9' panorama print is included in Stand Out Prints 2014 Highpoint's International Juried Exhibition, September 5 - October 4, 2014 at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis, MN. View the show online. Liz's print Peso Taxi is included in the print portfolio Double Bubble, currently on view at Press in North Adams, MA through September 21.

Nancy Diessner traveled to Reykjavik, Iceland, with a group of Boston Printmakers to meet with the Icelandic Printmaking Association and enjoy a cultural exchange. The Icelandic and American printmakers joined together for an exhibition of prints from both groups of artists in the large gallery next to the print studio; the show remains up until October. She also showed with the other members of the Boston Printmakers in a small exhibition in the lobby of the Reykjavik Grand Hotel for the week that they were in Iceland. On national Culture Night, where the entire city of Reykjavik enjoys a city-wide festival of the arts, she gave a demo on photopolymer printmaking, showing many prints and discussing the photopolymer process, and handed out info on Zea Mays' studio and residency to a steady stream of interested Icelanders. In November she'll be teaching Beginning Photopolymer at the Printmaking Center of New Jersey. She taught a weeklong Introduction to Photopolymer workshop at the Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY, this past July, in addition to continued private instruction at her studio, Dog's Eye Print Studio, in Framingham, MA. In September she will be showing three new prints at Bromfield Gallery in Boston, 450 Harrison Ave., in the group show Fall Frontal.

On September 22, 2014, Louise Kohrman will be the visiting artist as part of the Visual Artist Lecture Series at SUNY Plattsburgh. She will be giving a lecture and meeting with printmaking students. Louise has work in three shows in the Northeast this fall. Systems will be on view at the A.P.E. Gallery in downtown Northampton, MA from October 10 through November 2, with an opening reception on Friday, October 10 from 5-8 PM. Anxiety and Relief in the 21st Century, at Brickbottom Gallery in Somerville, MA, opens Sunday, September 7 from 4 - 6 PM and will be up through October 8. Plate to Paper is on view at Chases Garage Gallery in York ME through October 5.

Esther S White is proud to share a new curatorial project: Fugitive Arts Project Space is a temporary gallery and event space with a focus on experimental projects and emerging artists. Fugitive Arts will kick off its three-month residency in the Eastworks building with a mural show on Saturday, September 13th 5-8PM (during Easthampton's Art Walk). 142 Eastworks, 116 Pleasant Street, Easthampton, MA. At the end of September, Esther will be an exhibitor at The NY Art Book Fair, presented by Printed Matter, Inc. Esther will be representing HQ Press and Sister Sister Books and her line of artists' t-shirts, ANXIETEES, for the four-day fair, September 25th - 28th at PS1 in Queens. Esther is also the September "Artist of the Month" at the Emily Williston Memorial Library and Museum of Easthampton. She will be talking about her monotypes at a reception and Q&A on Wednesday, September 10th, 5-7PM, sponsored by the ECA+ and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. 9 Park St. Easthampton, MA.

Anita Hunt is showing work in several exhibits opening in September: Standout Prints 2014, September 5 - October 4 at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis, MN. BIMPE VIII (Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition), opens September 11 at the Federation Gallery in Vancouver, Canada, and travels to galleries in British Columbia and Alberta through early 2015. SAGA 81st Exhibition, September 6 - October 11 at The Old Print Shop, New York, NY. She has two etchings included in the 7th International Printmaking Biennial Douro 2014, on display through October 31 at various locations in the Douro region of Portugal. Anita's exhibit at the Hosmer Art Gallery, Forbes Library in Northampton, MA, is rescheduled for the month of October. The show will feature 20 etchings and two print portfolios created since 2011. Check out her etchings online in the 88th Annual International Competition at the Print Center Philadelphia.

***

Research News

tbase-alternative

New tbase alternative

Did you know that the primary job of interns at Zea Mays Printmaking is to conduct research into safer printmaking practices? Did you know that all of their research is documented in detail on our website and available for free to the world printmaking community?

Our most recent interns Angela Zamarelli and Mike Barrett spent their time at Zea Mays Printmaking researching an alternative for Faust Transparent Base. This tbase for oil-based etching ink was a favorite here at the studio and sadly is now unavailable. After much testing and recipe tweaking, they came up with a formula that works beautifully, which they have named Magswell. See their research and recipe for the new tbase on our website and while you’re there, check out the other great research projects.

***

Exhibition Opportunities

2015 Delta National Small Prints Exhibition at the Bradbury Gallery, Arkansas State University, is accepting submissions till Sunday, October 19th. Submissions must be original works on paper, created within the last two years, including but not limited to, digital, intaglio, lithographic, photographic, relief, serigraphic and stencil processes. More information and the submission form can be found here.

One month left to submit to the Biennale internationale d’estampe contemporaine de Trois-Rivières! The largest show in Canada dedicated to printmaking is accepting entries for its 8th edition, which will be presented in Trois-Rivières from June 21st to September 6th, 2015.

The Okanagan Print Triennial (OPT) is now accepting submissions for their juried print exhibition taking place March 19th to May 15th, 2015. In the spirit of acknowledging and celebrating the vitality and variety of approaches and techniques in contemporary work in printmaking, the OPT aims to bring the very best in current printmaking practice to audiences in the Okanagan region of British Columbia.

***

Member Websites

Many of our members and faculty have websites of their own where you can see the full breadth of their work.

This month we're highlighting member Sarah Creighton's website.
Visit sarahcreighton.com for galleries of Sarah's printmaking work, bookbinding work, and more!

sarahcreighton

www.sarahcreighton.com

You can find a directory of links to member and faculty websites over on our website.

facebook
1px