Presentation of Art Work: Post 1

Through the Presentation of Art Work class I am currently taking, we are learning the proper ways of displaying art work. We have started with photographing our personal work and picking work from the University's Permanent Art Collection. I have included the art work that I selected of my own work and from the Permanent Collection. 

The following image is a print from PSU's Permanent Collection. As I have focused in on letterpress printing and fabric printing through my other printmaking and art experience, I was naturally drawn to this work from the Permanent Collection. I am not as much drawn to the apparent religious scene; however, I appreciate the sketchy carved woodblock which was used to print. 

 PSU Permanent Collection

The following images are a series titled Ambiguity 1-7 that I developed in the Fall of 2013 during a printmaking independent studies course. The first image is a digital compilation of several photographs I have taken. The last six works in the series represent how one image can be represented in many ways, it is almost metaphorical in how humans are all the same in flesh but our individuality sets us apart. Every element of each piece is unique to itself, including the way in which it is hung. This series was included in the "Collective Independent's" exhibition in the second floor gallery of Pittsburg State University's Porter Hall in January 2014.

 Ambiguity 1, Digital Collage, 2013

Ambiguity 2, Solar Plate, 2013

Ambiguity 3, Solar Print on Handmade Kozo Paper with painted Veneer, 2013

 Ambiguity 4, Solar Print on Handmade Cottonwood Paper, 2013

Ambiguity 5, Solar Print on Veneer, 2013

Ambiguity 6, Mixed Media Solar Print, 2013

Ambiguity 7, Shadowbox, 2013

Stay tuned for more descriptions and images of my art work!

Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 8, Final Week

Day 25
I cut down paper for a job, packaged a finished job for shipping, and finished the edges of my cards. During lunch, I asked Bob if he had any professional development advice, specific and/or general. He suggested taking as many random classes as possible, especially business and computer (also, more Illustrator). We also discussed the many interests that I have for potential career paths, he advises me to narrow everything down but being sure to include my main interests: art, outdoors, and hands-on. He even suggested interior design, as it would be a new challenge every day, I could use art and design skills, and it is hands on. Basically from his commercial background, he was considering the many ways that I could successfully make a living in the art world. I so appreciate his words, I really need to create a balance between the commercial and fine art worlds, I feel that I will find what I am looking for there. 

Day 26
In the morning I made three photo polymer plates and boxed up my completed business cards. After lunch we had a field trip over to the Kansas City Center for the Inc and Paper Arts, a "community studio." We had a grand tour of the Hobbs Building's basement by Calvert Guthrie. There are so many different presses and TONS of type. Kansas City is fortunate to have such a place for anyone to be a member and share the love of printmaking.

Here are links to both the website and the facebook page for the KC Center for the Inc and Paper Arts https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kansas-City-Center-for-the-Ink-Paper-Arts/61767615395
http://www.inkknifestudio.org/

Above is a print that Calvert let me take home, it's from a block from the 40's with incredibly intricate line work.

Day 27
My final day started by getting a press prepped to do the blind color on a set of wedding invitations and mixing two inks. I set the second press up with one of the colors and prepped it with a run of Skylab promo cards. The ink ended up having too purple of a hue so we cleaned the press up and made a new color. Once that was completed, I ran that portion of the cards through. After cleaning up, it was time to leave. I packed up all of my creations from the summer and said goodbye! (I will be making a visit next week, so it made the goodbye easier)

Boy, it has been quite a summer at Skylab Letterpress. All credit to Bob Atkins, he taught me SO much. I have a huge respect for such a historical art form, and definitely have found a love for it. Big thank you to Bob for being an honest and enthusiastic teacher, businessman, printmaker, and friend.

Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 7

Day 21
I started by changing the water in the plate processor and made three plates. Afterwords, I printed three older blocks of women on the Vandercook press then cleaned the bed of the press of the lead and furniture. Before lunch I prepped one of the presses and after lunch I prepped the second press to print the information on my business cards. This proved to be a hard job to set up and did not end up getting the cards printed.

Day 22
I got everything dialed in on the press and finished printing my business cards. After I cleaned up the press and ate lunch, we went on a "field trip" to a company that makes dies for cutting. We had them make a prototype of a box for one of our customers and then got a tour of the facility. There were so many CNC routers and stacks of wood. They even did a sample cut with the laser cutter for us, it sounded like noises you would hear on Star Wars. They also had the biggest paper cutter I have ever seen! They explained how the job was done before most of the computer run machines were brought in, sounded like SO much work. When we returned to the shop, I prepped a press to print out my greeting cards. It took a bit to get the feeding and ink consistency dialed into where they should be. Again, Bob reminded me that these are the daily adjustments with letterpress printing as I was getting a little frustrated while I was trying to get the press to work properly. Again, it is challenging but rewarding once you get it figured out! I printed about half of the pages in black to finish up the day. 

 

Day 23
I put dark blue ink onto the press and printed the greeting card design on a portion of the remaining paper. I cleaned up the ink rollers and added a green color and printed another portion of the paper. Next, I moved the plate up and to the left so that I could print the green offset from the blue and black. I ended up wanting a lighter green so I managed to print several cards with the color in-between the darker green and the lighter, a nice array. When I finished up I cleaned up the press. After lunch I set up a press to score the cards in the middle for folding.Once I got the pressure right and everything thing lined up, I scored all of the cards.

Day 24
In the morning, I prepped a press to print a clients job. I got everything lined up, ink and paper on, and printed all before lunch. It was a breeze after my projects provided many little issues. After lunch I got my greeting cards cut and then when I was cutting a test sheet of my business cards, I noticed that the cards were not centered on one side. As there are SO many things to take into consideration and remember throughout the duration of a job, it is easy to forget or simply not notice a step that needs to be completed. Regardless of how perfect my crop marks were in relation to each other and the page, the paper was not cut to the perfect size that would allow printing on the back to be perfectly aligned when I flipped the pages over to print. After panicking and thinking I would have to start over, Bob saved the day and we got everything lined up and consistent with what we had. They ended up looking great! My hat is off to Bob with how he handles complications, I know he says that he still makes big mistakes and it stinks but in the end, it is only paper.

Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 6

Day 17
First thing I loaded ink into a press, packaged up a run of business cards for shipment, and reprinted a sign that I made for a reminder when making plates. I got a plate put on the press to be printed with chipboard, and adjusted the pressure and impression. We had a bride come in to okay the progress on her wedding invitations. After lunch I worked on my project designs on illustrator which included cleaning up my hand drawn and scanned art and designed the logo of one of the business cards.

The labels I made taped onto the tins.

 

My reminder when making plates...

Illustrator in action.

 

 The wedding invites.

Day 18
I made a plate for Bob then spent the rest of the day on the computer finishing the designs for my two business cards and greeting card. I also got the formatting and fonts figured out.

 

Day 19
I made the three plates for my projects as Bob was able to print out the film the night before. I selected the stock and got it all cut down to the appropriate size. I called a client in regards to her job and clamped a different run of business cards that would get edge painting.

Day 20
I started with getting the press prepped for the first color on my business cards. This included making sure the guides were straight, loading in, inking the rollers, loading the paper, getting the plate onto the chase, and making adjustments so that the plate would print on the paper straight. Bob was in the office working while I was running extra paper (a.k.a. 'make ready') through the press as I adjusted the ink to get it consistent as well as get the paper to feed without it feeding wrong and stopping the press. Two hours of tweaking and being slightly stressed, I finally figured out how to make the minute tweaks that Bob has down. After lunch, I got both sides of the cards printed. Afterwords, I cleaned up both presses for the next jobs, then worked on packaging up the recently edged cards. The last 30 minutes were spent blocking out parts of film the make a plate.Bob said it sounded like I was having issues in the shop in the morning and asked if I learned anything from being alone with the press. I said that it was indeed frustrating trying to figure it out; however, I learned valuable lessons that probably wouldn't have been learned any other way. It was hard! He said it's a learning moment for him as well as he now knows how valuable it is to let the intern have some time to be frustrated and figure it out.

Here are the designs for the business cards!

 I also printed the designs on chipboard which turned out nicely!

Packaging up the edged business cards.

Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 5

Day 14
Today was the new intern Laura's second day at Skylab. She shadowed me a lot of the day and I explained what I was doing as well as had her step in occasionally to try out the task. The first task was prepping one of the presses with ink and a plate and making adjustments so that the crop marks on the paper and on the plate match. It was a tricky one, especially as the plate is an older metal one rather than polymer. It was also a little tricky since I am not used to explaining what I am doing to someone else, but it made for great experience as well as instill the information that Bob has taught me. After lunch, we packaged up a business card job and then finished tweaking the press for the reprint. Once all was straightened out and the crop marks matched, I ran the job while Bob spoke with a client that came in. After the cards were finished printing, I set up the second press with the die to cut the edges of the cards I just printed.

Day 15
I started the day with changing out the water of the photo polymer plate processor. Then got the paper loaded onto the press with the die and tested it to make sure all was lined up still. After a few adjustments, I ran the job through. As this was a reprint of the original job we did a few weeks prior due to the ink being flip-flopped, I unpacked the original set and packed up the new-correct run. After lunch I showed Laura how to block in type and let her lose while I cleaned up one of the presses and prepped it for another run. Once she had all of the type, furniture, lead, and quoins locked into place, I showed her how to ink it up, and dial in the pressure. Once it was dialed in, we printed several sheet.

Day 16
I made three rather large plates and showed Laura through the process of processing them. Once they were all complete, Bob and I realized that I had developed all three with the film facing the wrong direction (the plates would have printed everything backwards). A simple mistake ruined a lot of polymer plates; so I did them all over, correctly. After that, I set up more type with Laura and printed them.

The film of two of the plates

 My poor plates that I messed up.

Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 4

Day 10
I made a few photo polymer plates in the morning and managed to spray myself down the front with a hose :) In the afternoon I printed out the "get well" cards for my mom. I found the best way to ink this up was to roll the yellow on the daisy with a brayer first and then dab the blue onto the words with my finger. They turned out nicely. Bob shared another book with me which is a compilation of small drawing tutorials from various Hallmark artists.

Day 11
I knocked out a bunch of my own printing on day 11. I used several colors to print up the sheets with "enjoy" and "cheers" which turned out to be pretty fun. Again, I used my finger as well as a brayer to ink up the type. Last week, Bob had me separate a big tub of yellow ink into four smaller containers and he wanted me to print up a few labels for the smaller ones. I quickly threw the type together and got the labels printed in no time. Very little tweaking was involved, they printed great! I then cleaned up the press as it would be used for a job the next day. 

Day 12
First thing I changed the water in the photo polymer processor (without drenching my front with the hose) and mixed up two different ink colors. I got the "get well" cards cut to size by using a guide that I made to ensure the image was oriented correctly. Then scored and folded them and picked out matching envelopes. The final hour was spent getting the holes popped out of a job that was die-cut and packing it up for delivery.

Day 13
I cleaned up the Vandercook press that I have been using to print on this week as it was used the night before by Bob and a former employee to finish up a clients job. I mixed up several inks and set up the two Heidelberg presses with ink and paper. I then got the plate and paper oriented and ready for printing on one of them. Bob had a student come in for a quick tour as she will be another intern for the remainder of the summer. It looks as though she will come with a different skill-set and interests than what I have, it will be a great learning opportunity for the both of us! I look forward to it.

My internship will be continued after a short hiatus...

Skylab Letterpress Internship: Week 3

Day 7
I started off the day by scratching off bits of extra ink off of a set of business cards and then packaged them up for shipment. I packaged a second job of business cards to be shipped to Alabama. I mixed my first Pantone (PMS) ink. It was relatively simple after you do it the first time. The scale that we use to weight the portions of colors needed is so sensitive that we have to turn all of the fans off. After that, I set up one of the presses for a job to be printed on a later day. It's amazing how much there is to remember through the entire printing process, it is easy to forget something!

Day 8
I mixed several PMS inks for a few jobs that we will be printing soon. Bob and I talked over my project for the summer and what it can entail. It looks as though I'll be doing a quick "Get Well" card as my mom will be having brain surgery next week. Also, I will be designing and printing business cards for myself and maybe print a few of my drawings to make cards.

Day 9
First thing, I boxed up masters and prepped a press with ink and paper. I developed two polymer plates, one for business cards and one of a daisy for my "Get well" card. I blocked in the words "Get well" and the daisy plate on the older Vandercook press and will print the card next week. I went ahead and picked out the ink colors I will be using for the card; a light yellow for the daisy and a periwinkle for the words. During lunch I showed Bob a few drawings and concepts I developed for other cards and business cards that I'd like to do for my project(s). I ended up with great feed back, a few books to look through for inspiration, and Bob expressing that I need to further my drawings. He said that the symmetry and unique drawings would work really well for boarders and letterpress printing in general. It looks as though for the business cards I will print 4 per page which will allow for me to have a few different designs.

 Working on the press during the first week. Photo cred. Bob Atkins

This is what the "get well" card looks like on the press.

 Concept for a card.

Concept for one of my business cards.