Tiger Lily Members' Show, Urban Exploration and Visit to Island Press!

Wow! I've been bad and it's been almost 2 months, hasn't it? Well- that's because it's been so busy, which is a good thing! So there will be a flurry of posts here, right before I move…

First, we had our first Members' show for a good while for Tiger Lily Press at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center in Cincinnati. I was able to help with only one day of hanging, but we had a great crew involved in installation, and it turned out to be a very nice show!

Lots to hang…must…get…even!

Susan gets right in with Jimi's work

Theresa and JonPaul- it's complicated stuff!

 The night before the opening, golly gee I had my road-trip buddy and loyal visitor come out to see me!

My friend Katie Rogers comes all the way to PA to go to the opening! We get dolled-up and grab a six-pack

Arriving for the reception, we ahem, have to put labels on for someone who's late : )

lovely display on printmaking by Susan Naylor

it was wonderfully attended!

Jan, Jay and Theresa Kuhr, our director

Rick Finn and his amazing prints

Our Artist-in-Residence, Jack Arthur, poses with his spread

Amy Doran and her amazing rhinos

Tory Keith- sooo cute- and awesome prints!

Jimi Jones does a jig with his lovely prints

Susan and Amy pose together for the ReArt show with Cuba- great colors!

Group shot- all my favorite people!

Starting earlier that day (we cleaned up for the opening, I promise : ) through the next 5 days, Katie and I explored all over Ohio to Missouri in search of good photo opps. A few things were hit or miss, but mostly we had amazing luck- there's nothing than walking in on an unsuspected, great find!

abandoned house in my backyard- walls of peeling paint

grain filling station- the stairs underneath

meat packing plant- first view

big ole engine in the power house

stained glass in church

dresser upstairs

After picking up a new exploration companion in St Louis and getting ourselves all mucky right away, we got a sneak preview of Island Press the night before final grading was due...

here she is!

the witchy side

the whole big bed- through the other side is all 10 feet of it

paper soaking sink- also huge!

hello, teddy bear up there?

playin with the exposure unit

Julie Cronan shows us her drawer

and her studio of taxidermied safety cones

giant vat of acid!!

they make up for it by cleaning up with oil

 Julie gets right to screenprinting

So after a late night of printing, we arise for the morning cleanup during grading. They also got to have a fun picnic afterwards- sadness that I couldn't attend.

next morning shop cleanup

 chillin with the solvents

noo, more dangerous chemicals!

And after that, another highly-anticipated moment- time to look at my new St Louis apartment!! Wow, it was completely amazing! I had to tease the folks I'll be subletting from that I won't be leaving.

my beautiful new living room, well, temporarily : )

Ah- so here we go, in just over a week moving in with John McCaughey and getting right into some major editioning. Can't wait!! But oh yeah- have to help run a print conference…and pack. More on that soon!

Story #2- Visiting Artist at Miami U (Ohio) and my new summer job

My next gig right after the Southern Graphics Conference was being Visiting Artist in printmaking at Miami University, Oxford, OH. Thanks to the generosity of prof Ellen Price and her grads and students, I was able to borrow a litho stone for several months, then come back and print it.

here I am drawing on the stone- took me over a month for that little guy!

the drawing, about finished

to my surprise, I walk into Miami U and find my very own poster- wow, that's a first!

but we get right to work- here I am, gumming a stone

with grads John and Kate

the other grad, Steve comes in to check things out. I also got to give a crit to the print class and show my own work

now getting ready to wash out the stone, with spectators!

there goes my image!

buffing in the asphaltum

now, giving it some sass- that always helps

and here I declare that hand fans are for dummies!

rolling it up, slowly

explaining how it opens up, perhaps?

group inspection

ahh, sponge-man! it's Adam- my trusty sponger

still rolling

and here is a lovely shot- litho vision with Ellen and her students

but boy oh boy was that a mean leather roller- it gave me litho stigmata!

here we go, day 2. Adam comes back for more as my sponger- and a very good one, I might add!

I get to rolling

Emily is my paper gal, and we inspect the first proofs

sponge sniffer!

aww, my poor assistants are getting tired! this stone gives us a bit of trouble

back to work with John- looking very concerned

cranking down the pressure

love this picture- look at the mirror image!

and inspecting- we are finally getting some good ones!

now John is rolling- this grad put in so much hard work, blood and sweat- I can't thank him enough for all his help!

and here she is, the final print!

and bye bye stone- it's back to the graining sink for you

Adam has an interesting print project- printing a scroll by foot

here they come

a long line of Teddies!

now I get to talk to Steve Garst's Design/Letterpress class about print co-ops in Ohio and Tiger Lily Press. then a tour of their shop

here are the students, hard at work

Steve asks them to clean those rollers!

some nice posters on the wall

So that concludes my litho visit. Sure enjoyed getting to work on a stone- finally for the first time in 3 years! Loved working with the students as well. Who knows- this might be a thing- I could travel around the country attending to neglected stones at many universities!

Okay, I promised a few posts ago to discuss my interview if it went well…and it did! I am very pleased to announce my new gig as summer editioning intern at Island Press, Wash U, St Louis. So crazily enough, after helping to host Tiger Lily's Ohio Print Gathering, I will immediately move to STL. Yikes! But I will be very lucky to work alongside director Lisa Bulawsky and master printer Tom Reed, to print the works of Ann Hamilton, Radcliffe Bailey, James Siena and Nina Katchadourian. It's a wonderful program- one of the few professional printshops within a university that really involves the students as collaborators. If you'd like to know a bit more, watch this video.

I will be editioning like mad, and amazingly so- alongside former print grad classmate at OSU, John McCaughey- tiny world, eh? I'm sure we'll get to know each other very well. Can't wait!

Take care all, and thanks as always for following along!