Studio High Horse

Printmaker Geekery Alert!!!

2010-10-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

Here is my first pic from the 2010 Mid-Atlantic Print Conference in Minneapolis, MN:

Cole Rogers, Master Printer at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, and Zac Williams-Bliss, his assistant, are demonstrating a large-scale, multi-layered, pin-registered chin colle technique they perfected with the help of Brian Shure. Shure studied with Chinese and Japanese scroll mounters to perfect this, I have to say, impressive technique. And they are working LARGE, with multiple layers of print, on very thin gampi. That grayish thing that Cole is brushing on is the print.

Very excited about the possibilities for combining multiple media on paper together! That is a Julie Mehretu print they are using for the demo, by the way.

Fall is Falling

2010-10-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

Fall is upon us, and I have some news! Once again, everything is reaching

criticalmass in a one week stretch.

1) My hilarious hottie of a girlfriend has been squirreling away with her computer, writing blog after blogof comic genius. And she is getting noticed for it! She is featured this week on DailyBrink.com. Included in the article are some pics I took, but more importantly, this is more exposure for her amazing writing. Beware: astute social commentary wrapped in an attractive package. Click on the image below to go right to the article:

And, bonus!!! The article was featured on AfterEllen.com's October 5th "Morning Brew".

2) This Thursday, as a part of the Nomadic Studio project, I am participating in a panel at the DePaul University Museum called:

Printmaker as Distributor, Collaborator, and Facilitator

DePaul University Museum, 2350 N Kenmore Ave.
October 7, 6-7:30pm

How does the history of print as a medium for the dissemination of information affect the role of contemporary printmakers? Does this draw more educators to the medium? How does the communal print studio affect the nature of artwork being created? Does the emphasis on technique, craft, and tools create an environment welcoming to new students or restricted?

Printmaker as Distributor, Collaborator, and Facilitator will explore the role of education within contemporary printmaking. Panelists will include Wrik Repasky, Coordinator of Printmaking at Harold Washington, Tom Lucas, Director of the Printmaking Department at Lill Street Art Center, and CJ Mace, MFA student through Columbia College Book and Paper program. The panel will be moderated by Angee Lennard, founder and director of Spudnik Press Cooperative.

This event is organized by the Stockyard Institute and Spudnik Press.

3) And, this Friday, an opening reception for the Chicago Printer's Guilds first show. I have a print installation created in collaboration with Sanya Glisic in the show:

Friday, October 8 · 6:00pm - 11:00pm

Chicago Urban Art Society
2229 S. Halsted Street

The first annual CPG show is taking place between October 8-17th! The Chicago Urban Art Society will be hosting over 40 Chicago-based printmakers, all part of the Chicago Printers Guild. The collection will include a wide variety of print-media including typeface, lithography and even some 3-D work. Please pass this on to all your friends and family and lets make the most of this exciting event!

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All in all, a little bit of something for everyone, whether you are in the Chicagoland area or not.

Wish you were here if you aren't!

Art on Track: Success!

2010-08-10T17:40:00.001-07:00

All I have to say is, "Thanks Chicago for the wild ride!"....

Art on Track was a tremendous success. Spudnik's Press's group installation looked fabulous, moving with the movements of the train, as did the entire length of Train #8. The Spudnik Press end of the car included the work of Sanya Glisic, Liz Born, Michelle Mashon, and Nev Pilipovic-Wengler. Also in Train #8 was a local painter, Renee Robbins, and photographer Beth Mercer.

We raised a whole bunch of money for artist and commmunity access at Spudnik with the mini-print machines.

Angee Lennard, the Director of Spudnik, was busy printing woodcuts while the train was in motion.

Plus, there was a lot of coverage of the event, including documentation of the entire process by Six Inches from the Center, a local non-profit working to photograph and archive the emerging art scene here in Chicago.

We also got some mainstream media coverage, including a spot on the local ABC affiliate,

a piece on Chicago Public Radio's Eight Forty-Eight,

Eight Forty-Eight - Art Exhibition Circles the Loop

a little article on page 3 of the August 6th Chicago Tribune,

and an article in the Chicago Sun Times.

Thanks the few thousand people who were brave enough to try this unique art interaction!

Printers' Ball Coverage

2010-08-05T18:10:00.000-07:00

Printeresting posted a great article about Printers' Ball, mentioning my demo on journal-making with the Chicago Books to Women in Prison and pics from the Collaborative Broadside Project:
http://www.printeresting.org/2010/08/05/the-printers-ball-2/

Leo-like End of Summer

2010-07-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

What started as a lamb of a summer is going out like a lion, so help me celebrate my first year in Chicago at a few killer art events I am involved with in July and August:

a sneak peak of one of the printed fabric sculptures I will be installing

Here. It. Comes........

Sat. Aug. 7, 2010: Art on Track

8 Trains. 1 Track. Gobs of Artists.

Have you ever gotten on the L-train and something so strange was going down that you felt completely disoriented, unsure of where you were?

Well, get ready to feel that again. On purpose!

We will be circling the Loop for 5 hours on the Orange Line in trains converted into mobile art installation environments, each one with different artists and different approaches. Your ticket lets you jump trains to your heart's content as we circle downtown Chicago.

The details:

When: Sat. August 7, 2010 5-10pm

Where: Downtown Chicago, The Loop Orange Line, Entrances at Adams/Wabash and Washington/Wells

Admission: $10 at station (or get a 30% discount online when you use the promotional code AoTFriend at www.artontrack.com)

Car I will be on: Train 8(Addington Gallery)

Who will in our car:

Featuring:

Nevena Pilipovic-Wengler

Renee Robbins

Addington Gallery

featuring: Beth Mercer

Like a marathon of art, we have only a few hours to install the whole train with, with no electricity and twenty minutes to de-install.

This is the Iron Man of Art. Come see how the race unfolds!

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July 30, 2010 The Printer's Ball: Print Loves Digital
The sixth annual Printers’ Ball, which this year takes as its theme “Print Loves Digital,” is an annual celebration of literary culture founded by Poetry magazine and other independent Chicago literary organizations. The Printers’ Ball is produced with the Center for Book & Paper Arts and the Student Affairs Offices of Columbia College Chicago.

FRIDAY, JULY 30, 2010 /// 6 PM TO 11 PM

THE LUDINGTON BUILDING
1104 S WABASH AVE
CHICAGO

Lots of magazines. Books. Posters. Galore.
Broadsides & busy beavers. Newspapers & weeklies.
Zines. Poetry, fiction & all that. Buttons, stickers
& more. Reading & performing, or something like it.
Red carpet. Screenings, Web things & digital
writing — electrified in general; because PRINT <3DIGITAL .
Making, inking, stamping. Getting hands dirty.
Dancing, music, DJs. Playing. All free.

+ Beer, food & revelry.
As part of the Printers' Ball, in a collaborative project organized by the Chicago Printer's Guild, the Center for Book and Paper, and Poetry Magazine, 20 artists were paired with 20 poets to produce a portfolio of broadsides to be released at the celebration.
In collaboration with poet Leila Wilson, my contribution can be seen below :
The portfolio release time has not been announced yet, so come to the party and view the portfolio while you are there getting your hands dirty with a little letterpress, screen printing, papermaking, and the Copy Jam!

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Sat., July 24th, 2010 Spudnik Press Celebrates 3 years!

Three Far Out Years

Spudnik Press Fundraiser and Celebration

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Open House

11-4 pm at Spudnik Press Cooperative,

1821 W Hubbard, Suite 308

Fundraiser and Celebration

at Happy Dog Gallery,

1542 N Milwaukee, 2nd Floor

6 pm – Midnight

Silent Auction ends at 10pm

This is the cooperative where I do a lot of my printing, especially my screen printing. They both provide a space for artists to print and do a lot of community education. Featured artists include:

Sanya Glisic, Rachel Niffenegger, Paul Nudd, Jeremy Tinder, Sonnenzimmer, Ellen Gradman, Sue Coe, Michael Miller, Andrew Blair, Cynthia King, Jeremy Lundquist, Wrik Repasky, Dutes Miller, Alex Chitty, Kathryn Rodrigues, Kim Heiney, Minna Sora, Angee Lennard, Jessica Taylor, Laura Szumowski, Liz Born, Brian Hoffmeister, Stano Grezdo, Pablo Phillipps, Erick Jurado, Dan Falco, Stacey Colangelo, Julia Hendrickson, Mischa Kegan, Daniel Mellis, Justin Santora, Jay Ryan (The Bird Machine), Tom Wilder, Matt Nichols, Hilesh Patel, and Fred Stone & Chris Flynn (donated by Anchor Graphics, a program of the Art & Design Department at Columbia College Chicago).

With music by New Now Know How and DJ Tomeeo.

The P.I.T 5x7 Box is Available!

2010-06-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

It may be summer break, but Pulp, Ink, Thread, the graduate student group of the Interdisciplinary Book and Paper MFA program at Columbia, has a new publishing project now available for sale. This project is a fundraiser, proceeds going to group activities like visiting lecturers andprofessional development trips. This is an awesome taster project by a great group of artists with more work to come. To view this project or if you are interested in purchasing this project, please e-mail me.

screenprint on handmade abaca, hemp, flax paper

screenprint on Lettra

Contributing artists:

Haley Nagy

Maggie Puckett

Don Widmer

Daniel Mellis

CJ Mace

Amy Rabas

Trisha Martin

Jana Sim

April Llewellyn

In addition to designing and printing the cover and colophon, my contribution to this project is Mantis Mash-Up!, a lasercut, screenprint that can be pulled apart to make a modular sculpture. How you put it back together is your choice!

The First of the Pics--Live!

2010-05-14T15:50:00.001-07:00

Here is a preview of the Open Studio. I ducked out for a second to post a few images:

Long view of Signal Mirror 1

Close-Up

Kaitlin Kostus in Manifest Regalia

Books can be touched!

One Year Down, Two More To Go: Open Studio Event at Columbia College, Chicago

2010-05-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

Announcing a very special event to celebrate the end of my first year of graduate school. My peers and I will be showing off the work we have produced over the last two semesters at the:

Interdisciplinary Arts MFA

Open Studios

Columbia College-Chicago

Friday, May 14th, 2010

1pm-3pm

Media

916 South Wabash

Second Floor

Rooms 204 & 205

4pm-7pm

Book & Paper

1104 South Wabash

Second Floor

Papermaking Studio

Featuring the Work Of:

CJ Mace

Victoria Bradford

Jenny Garnett

Kaitlin Kostus

April Llewellyn

Daniel Lubniewski

Haley Nagy

Michael St. John

Daniel Mellis

As you can see by the announcement, there are two buildings of fun.

My print projections and animations, a new body of work for me, will be installed in the papermaking studio of the 1104 S. Wabash on the second floor. I would love to see you, have a conversation, and hear feedback about these new pieces.

Many of you do not live in good ol' Chicago, so if you cannot attend the event, please come back here to Studio High Horse to see pics. They will be posted shortly. The animations and projections will also be posted on my flickr page.

Hope to see you there!

Printervention Pics

2010-04-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

Here are some great pics from the Printervention show grabbed from the Lumpen flickr set at
www.flickr.com/photos/versionfest/sets/72157623878543502

You can see my print in the background, second from the right. Much of the work on display was graphic screen prints on commercial paper. I wish there was more time for those contributing to produce work with a slightly difference thrust, but I also like the way that anyone can feel comfortable contributing. I want to get pics of my poster installed outside, as I don't think it is really suited to this venue.

Thanks to all the Printervention crew, who worked so hard to organize and install the show.

Here is a shot of the marquee:

lingerloop(the frenetic fade)

2010-04-16T13:09:00.001-07:00

lingerloop(the frenetic fade),
originally uploaded by cjmace.

Opening tonight, at the Chicago Cultural Center:
Printervention // Printing for the Public

Linger., my contribution to this show, is an attempt to engage the WPA poster tradition without making a poster, really, or at least by making a poster you want to touch and that changes over time. My contribution functions both as a single work and as an installation, and will be hung outside around Chicago and Detroit for the 2010 U.S. Social Forum.

Here is a summary of the description of the project:

linger. is a cyanotype under screen print on handmade paper

Though appearing thin and fragile, the paper is very strong, capable of withstanding handling and weathering. The cyanotype image will fade in natural light over time, a chemical reaction characteristic of this photo process, but return if kept in the dark for a while. Additionally, if you look at the fifteen prints of this edition side-by-side, the cyanotype image underneath fades gradually from view, leaving skeletal traces and text. This edition is an animation, really, that questions both the assumption of a static edition and the viewer’s interaction with the installed piece, a printed object that alters itself.

Here is a description of Printervention and a list of participating artists:

Following the success of last years' Version Festival program: the Bridgeport WPA pilot project, we have asked artists from around the country to create works that raise awareness of social and political issues of our day.

Join us for an incredible exhibition of over 70 posters and prints.
Plus a mural by the Montreal based duo Seripop.

CHICAGO TOURISM CENTER GALLERY
72 E. RANDOLPH STREET

Artists include //
Alex Valentine
Andrew Blackley
Andy Luce
Angee Lennard, Spudnik Press
Antonio Pazarán, Instituto Gráfico de Chicago
Bryan Christopher Baker, Stukenborg
Chad Kouri, The Post Family
Christina Vantzou
Cirilo Esquivel, Instituto Gráfico de Chicago
CJ Mace
Clay Hickson, WORKSPACE
Cody Haltom, Public School
Colin Matthes, Justseeds
Cynthia Marris, The Printstitue
Damon Locks
Dan Grzeca
Dan S. Wang
Danimal
Delicious Design League, Billy Baumann and Jason Teegarden-Downs
Derek Dietrich-Muller
Dominic Fortunato
Eric J. Garcia
Gregory Calvert
Ina Weise
Jennifer Farrell, Starshaped Press
Jenny Beorkrem, Ork Posters
Jeremiah Chiu, Plural
Jessica Owings
Jessica Taylor
Jon Resh
Jose L. Gutierrez , Instituto Gráfico de Chicago
Julia V. Hendrickson
Justin Cox, Public School
Katie McCauley, Strangelight
Renata Graw
Keith G. Herzik, Alamo Igloo
Kenton Quatman
Laura Klein
Letterform, Inc, Julie Morelli & Andy Schwegler
Lise Haller Baggesen
Luke Williams
Margot Harrington
Marvin Chan, The Printstitute
Mary Tremonte, Justseeds
Mat Daly, WORKSPACE
Michelle Mashon, Spudnik Press
Nick Adam
Nick Bahr and Janet Webber
Nick Du Pey, Young Monster
Nicolas Lampert
Rand Renfrow
Rebecca Ann Rakstad, Rar Rar Press
Ricardo Serment, Instituto Gráfico de Chicago
Richard Repasky, The Printstitute
Richie Bearden, WORKSPACE
Reuben Kincaid
Ryan Duggan
Salvador Jiménez, Yollocalli Arts Reach
Sanya Glisic, Spudnik Press
Seripop
Shaun Lind, Public School
Sonnenzimmer, Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi
Steve Walters, Screwball Press
SuperKonductor, David R. Head, Jr. and Jen Hazen,
The Little Friends of Printmaking
Thirst, John Pobojewski + Bud Rodecker
Tyler Galloway
Vanessa Sanchez, Instituto Gráfico de Chicago
Veronica Corzo-Duchardt, winterbureau
Will Bryant, Public School

Printervention, organized by Emily Clayton, Chris Roberson and Ed Marszewski, is part of Version Festival 2010, an annual arts festival in Chicago produced by the Public Media Institute that brings together hundreds of artists, musicians and educators from around the world.

www.printervention.org
www.versionfest.org

As always, you can see more example of my work(and more video animations) by clicking on my portfolio in the upper right corner of this page. That will take you to my complete flickr portfolio.

Release Party for a Collaborative Print Project!

2010-02-21T11:38:00.000-08:00

What: Artifice Issue #1 Release Party and Show

When: 7:00 pm, Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010

Where: Loft 3A, 3036 N. Lincoln, Chicago, IL

Project Description: The print above is my contribution to a collaboration between the artists and writers listed below for the inaugural issue of a new non-profit literary magazine here in Chicago called Artifice. All the prints were designed by the artists in response to poems or short stories in this first issue, then printed by Angee Lennard at Spudnik Press. I responded to Jessica Bozek's poem, "Sketch for the Fantasist's Tales". There will be special deluxe issues available for purchase that include all the prints, as well as individual and suites of prints. All proceeds from the sales benefit Artifice and Spudnik(both non-profits), then the individual artists once the initial set of prints sell. There will also be other prints on display and sale for your viewing and purchasing pleasure, plus drinks and a DJ.

Participating Artists:

Liz Born

Lilli Carre

Sanya Glisic

Kim Heiney

Angee Lennard

Jeremy Lundquist

CJ Mace

Michelle Mashon

Colin Palombi

Tom Wilder

Participating Authors:

Kelly Haramis

Tim Jones-Yelvington

Jefferson Navicky

Christopher Phelps

Derek Phillips

Kathleen Rooney

Davis Schneiderman

Susan Slaviero

I will also have prints for sale from my own cut, so if you can't come to the event, e-mail me for info!

Select Impressions @ Highpoint Center for Printmaking

2010-02-14T11:28:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who came out to the show in Minneapolis at my old studio, in its new gorgeous space. The show was stacked with good work by young, local printmakers:

Roberta Allen Todd Bridigum Sam Brown Alisha Campbell Pamela Carberry Laura Corcoran Jessica Driscoll Stella Ebner Ruthann Godollei Fred Hagstrom Brian Hartley Sago Morgan Hiscocks KimyiBo Donald Krumpo Jeremy Lundquist Jeanne McGee Jon Neuse Joshua Norton Drew Peterson Robert D. Peterson Jenny Schmid Jeremy Schock Patricia Scott Katherine Shannon Tonja Torgerson Anna Tsantir Brad Widness Johanna Winters

My piece was hung without glass and in an unusual way compared to other shows I've seen at Highpoint, making it more approachable, which is always a goal of mine. Twist is a screen print and woodcut that is meant to be a modular print, both editioned and flexible enough to be hung in almost any space. Over the course of an exhibition, it has the potential to grow and change over the length of an installation. Because the portfolio review for this show was last summer, the project has grown considerably and will have a different iteration in future shows.

With three new galleries in which to hang work, the bar has been raised at Highpoint to have a cycle of intriguing shows of both local and national artists, so I am excited to see how they respond to the challenge.

Thanks, too, to both the staff at Highpoint and the three curators who helped make the show a success:

Darsie Alexander, Chief Curator at the Walker Art Center

Dennis Jon, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Diane Mullin, Associate Curator at the Weisman Art Museum

Cuts, Corn, and Copyrights

2009-09-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

I moved to Chicago about two weeks ago for graduate school at Columbia College and have been unpacking like crazy, trying to feather the nest before classes start, if you will. I am working on getting my studio set up, which involves a lot of organizing of tiny objects, nuts and bolts, parts, etc. To pass the time, I have been watching documentaries. Tonight has been a night of connections made, kind of like when you read a bunch of books and the topics seem to align though you chose titles randomly. I would definitely suggest checking out these three media links to see if you see the connections I do:

1) The work of Laura Anderson Barbata (see pic above and below), a multimedia, installation artist who will be showing at Columbia in the near future, particularly the piece called Epitome or easy method of learning the Nahuatl Language (detail), 1996:

Yep, people, look closely. Those are real teeth!! Notice that this work is older and was made well before the debates about intellectual property and the patenting of human life really had exposure in the media. Also, it was made before American GMO corn started popping up in the native plots of indigenous, corn-oriented cultures like Mexico and before the "CornCrisis of 2007".

2) The documentary, The Future of Food. This movie was released in 2007, and I should have watched it a long time ago. If you weren't already concerned about where your food is coming from (and about the power of a few large corporations like Monsanto to "lobby" and dictate federal policy), you will be after watching this. See the following books also: Stolen Harvest, by Vandana Shiva, The Cost of Living, by Arundhati Roy, and All Our Relations, by Winona LaDuke.

3) Another documentary, RiP! A Remix Manifesto, which you can download for yourself at the website or watch on hulu.com here. Released earlier in 2009, this is a great film because instead of coming off as a paranoid rant, it succeeds at troubling the dichotomy of private property vs. commons and empowers we artists to creatively resist censorship thoughtfully and strategically. It places our work into a larger social context. While Rip! is focused on the consolidation of media and the hijacking of intellectual commons, this film makes interesting connections to the patenting of living creatures. Whether it be farming knowledge(which seed saving is the physical manifestation of farming knowledge stored from year to year) or music mixing, pre-lawsuit Napster and SeedSavers are sides of the same concept coin.

After watching both films, can you also see the parallels to be made between Monsanto and Disney here? See also the contrast between our own current healthcare debate and Brazil's refusal to honor patents on AIDs medications and restrict the medications' production for its people. The patented genetic engineering funded by those very same pharmaceutical companies lobbying Congress to stop socialized healthcare and restrict our access also helped enable many of the recent developments in the "Green Revolution", i.e. Monsanto's Round-Up Ready, GMO corn. Are BigPharm and BigAg holding hands under the lobbying table? There are connections that are almost too mind blowing and disturbing to digest in one sitting. So, start digesting!

Chinese painter Ma Yanhong

2009-03-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am currently very interested in a Chinese painter named Ma Yanhong. Her portraits are slightly confrontational, sexy, and real. I love the contrast between the surety of the women in the painting on the left and the awkwardness of the women at right. You get the feeling that the subjects of her paintings are her friends, not just models; that they inhabit the same social circle. They gaze back with conspiratorial looks, like this painting is a project they are working on together. These paintings make it rough for an American viewer to descend into some sort if stereotypical vision of Chinese women.

I first saw her work in a book of young Chinese artists in the Walker Art Museum bookstore. This is what little I know:

She is represented by Goed huis Contemporary art gallery.

She graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2002.

She was born in 1977.

I am trying to find out more about her, and would love to see her paintings in person.

Welding Rocks!

2009-03-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to take a welding class since a very uptight college sculpture professor refused to teach us, his students, despite the fact we had welding bays just sitting there unused. His reasoning--we wouldn't be able to complete enough projects if we were trying to master the skills of welding. Well, I finally had the chance to do it. The studio where I print and teach teens, Highpoint Center for Printmaking, is closed for the summer as it moves to an amazing, newly renovated space on Lake Street. Chomping at the bit to get out of my tiny home studio, I decided to take Welding for Artists at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Incidentally, I have been going through the more than mildly frustrating process of applying for grad school. What better way to de-stress and pass the time while waiting for responses from schools than melting two pieces of metal together.

My partner's Flashdance fantasies aside, metalworking makes me fell like a little bit of a bad ass. Flying sparks, explosive gasses, temperatures in the thousands, toxic fumes--okay, I may be exaggerating the danger a bit for effect. The sculpture I am working on is progressing well; I will post pictures when it gets a little more developed. In the meantime, massage my vanity and check out these pics:

Jump right in!

2009-02-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

So, this is it. This is my inaugural blog. I am a printmaker and teacher living in Minneapolis. I get bored easily, so my interests tend to fly all over the place. And, let's face it. There is a lot of boring art out there. Now, don't be confused. While I tend to be attracted to bright colors and flash, I also look for the quiet and the subtle. But let us not confuse subtlety with tedium. Art requires that we return to the same topics over and over again, rehashing ideas. There are certain broad subjects we human beings obsess on: sex, death, violence, love, friendship, style, emptiness, loneliness, fulfillment. There is this myth of originality out there. And sometimes, good work is just real nice to look at.

The goal of this blog is simply to get work out there that I like and to talk about my own practice. Since the art world is nepatistic and I am not a journalist, some of this work will be by people I know and love at places where I have worked. This is the caveat to all I write--I may be biased by these connections. In an underground economy, this is how we find shit out, especially when a lot of artists go quietly about their work without others knowing or are forced to have crappy day jobs to eat and support what they love. If this limits the scope of my writing unnecessarily, let me know, and I will learn from your comments or tell you to kiss off. Either way, I love to hear your thoughts. And don't forget to check out my work because I really started this blog for completely selfish reasons.