“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both. Enough for him that he does it well.” ~Lawrence Pearsall Jacks
I’ve been working at living a little…
…
The shoes were purchased in a distinct bout of retail therapy much required the week before the announcement was made about the second year Apprentice Printer position. I was weak and simply couldn’t resist.
The leather roller was purchased in celebration a week after I received the news that I had been offered the Apprentice Printer position.
I broke the shoes in over the past two weekends. I will break the roller in starting this Monday and it should serve me well during my year of printing here at Tamarind (because of course I said yes).
I feel quite spoiled but luck must be on my side right now as I stumbled upon a stray $20 outside the store yesterday. I’ll take it as a sign. A girl’s got to treat herself every once in a while….
(and yes Daryl, I kept the boxes!)
I did not sleep well on Thursday night, I couldn’t fall asleep until after 2 am and couldn’t seem to stay asleep. I was up around 7 am and in to the studio for 8:30 am to sponge for one of my classmates. We had been told we would get the news of who was selected for the second year of the program at noon, in the form of a letter. It was a bit tense in the studio and had been for several days. It was good to be occupied and focussed. Noon came all too quickly and I had a strong urge to leave without finding out my fate. It’s been difficult to think of my time here at Tamarind ending so soon.
We made our way to our work tables. Marjorie and Rodney said a few words before the envelopes were handed out. Wasn’t sure I read it right but mine contained an apprenticeship offer…
I did it! I was the one selected for the second year of the program and will receive certification as a Tamarind Master Printer. Unbelievable. It could have been any of the eight of us. I’m still a little stunned.
Sorry, but I won’t be coming home for a while….
I know I still have a lot to get you caught up on and I’ll get there. I could really use your positive thoughts today though, as this morning I will be turning in my letter of application for the Master Printer Training Program at Tamarind, year two of their education program. This basically amounts to a paid internship working on actual publishing jobs under the tutelage of Master Printer Bill Lagattuta.
We found out last week from director Marjorie Devon that they only have funding to keep one lucky person this year out of eight of us, so it’s and an extremely covetted position.
I’ve spent a good deal of time these last few days reflecting on my experence this year and what a position like this would mean to me in my career as a printer and although a ‘YES’ would mean the world to me I am ultimately at peace and will carry on as always.
My letter is written and ready to hand in. I’m hoping you will all send me some positive energy. I could use.
We will receive results next Friday… so I’ll let you know one way or the other.
Crossing fingers and toes…. now.
So much time has passed. I am truly sorry for failing in my mission to keep you all up to date on my activities here in New Mexico. Much has happened and very little has happened at the same time… hard to explain. At this point though I am struck by how fast the time has gone by and how little time there is left for me here in Albuquerque and I am motivating myself to try to post consistently once again. I hope you’re still with me…?
I believe the Balloon Fiesta photos are where we left off so allow me to go back in time a bit to this past October. I wasn’t able to attend due to a flight delay on my return trip from Ann Arbor. Here’s a taste:
Jade, Adrian and Kate woke up very early and set off on their bikes to make it to the grounds for around 6am. I wasn’t looking forward to the waking up early and riding in the freezing morning hours but seeing the photos, I am truly sad I missed joining them on this adventure.
It gets very cold in the early morning in Albuquerque, which is what makes it so ideal for hot air ballooning as I understand it.
I can only imagine what going up in one of these must be like, I am very tempted to try it out!
Apparently the balloon creations are judged in a competition.
+++
Dias de los Muertos was the next exciting event outside of the studio, Sunday, November 4. I believe the day is celebrated differently depending on location. David, a fellow Tamarind student from Xalapa Mexico, explained he is accustomed to marking the day by going house to house visiting friends and family, enjoying food and drink.
It took me a good half hour to ride to the parade route and there was some confusion over what street it would actually run along once I got there. It was a beautiful sunny day though so hanging out for a while made no difference to me.
There were a lot of children and families involved and it seems almost everyone had their faces painted, even the onlookers.
Some of the floats had themes which I am not sure I understood.
The tricked out cars were amazing!
Not sure if you can make it out in the photo below but both the truck and car were on hydraulics and popped up almost sideways. Crazy!
The parade ended in a park where live music was featured along with craft vendors and food trucks.
Skulls made of sugar- a traditional sweet.
The food trucks in Albuquerque are quite something! I tried nopales for the first time.
This is a photo I took back in September of a cactus that grows just about everywhere… and despite it’s dangerously sharp spike, it’s delicious! The nopales were grilled and wrapped in a freshly made corn tortilla with Mexican cheese, black beans, fresh salsa and green chile…of course! Nummm.
This was a welcome outing as my focus switched at the beginning of November to completing a comprehensive print studio business plan for our business course taught by Tamarind Director Marjorie Devon. I wrote forty eight pages of research and financial information in support of a hypothetical business plan. A very interesting exercise but hard to juggle on top of all the work that was still going on in the studio.
American Thanksgiving on November 22, was marked by a big group dinner party at Bill and Vera Lagatutta’s house. Unfortunately my camera did not make it along but my bike did. The weather was still quite warm and sunny during the day. We had cocktails and appetizers outdoors it was so nice. We feasted on a traditional dinner inside with turkey, all the trimmings and then some. We each brought a side dish and mine became my main course; a gorgeous barley, beat and black bean salad. Sorry, this is starting to sound like a food blog! Making myself hungry.
In the studio we worked on a few photobased techniques: egg albumen on stone, negative diazo, four colour separation and waterless lithography before the holiday break.
A big studio clean-up was scheduled for our last day of class and I arranged a trip home to Toronto for a few weeks to see my family.
My time in Toronto was very low key. I popped into Open Studio very briefly. I guess I should have organized things differently as I missed seeing everyone except for Sara Kelley, Associate Director and Doug Guildford, a long time studio artist member. I had intentions to visit again but I was so burnt out I really didn’t make an effort to spend time with anyone other then my daughter Sydney and my partner Andrew. We spent a quiet Christmas at my place despite my hopes of making it home to Montreal to see my father, stepmother and brother. The days went by so quickly and before I knew it I was on a plane again heading back to Albuquerque. My apologies to all for being antisocial! Truly my loss.
Well rested and recuperated from the hectic pace of the first semester, we launched into our second semester on January 14th, 2013, the final four months of the Tamarind program.
Happy holidays to everyone!
I am afraid I am not doing very well at keeping up with posts week to week. Somehow I wrote this entry weeks back and never managed to post it! Oh well. It’s been busy here in litho land….
After my visit to the University of Michigan (October 8-12) I got rather bogged down with work. We had begun our collaborative print projects just before I left town. I was the artist for a classmate (Kate) and she was my printer, while another classmate was the artist for me (David) and I was his printer. I managed to finish my drawing for my printer but had work to do meeting with my artist, processing his image and printing the edition upon my return to Albuquerque. Things went very well with the edition I printed. Unfortunately there were some challenges with my own image and much of it was altered in etching. It was fun to draw but hard not to get caught up in the art side of the project. Time is always at a premium so really all we need is to make some marks to have something to print, but the artist ego seems to inevitably take over.
We quickly moved from the collaborative project to working with toner. I can’t believe I haven’t experimented with toner washes before, they’re fantastic! They are really easy to work with and transfer well to ball grained plates. We worked with photocopy transfers as well and finally delved into multilayer printing in colour.
Rodney Hammond’s toner transfer demo image. The unicorn obsession lives!
Our instructor had ulterior motives getting us started in colour with the toner transfer project as we translated what we learned into another collaborative project combining three runs, one on plate and the other on stone, all sitting over the first run (or layer) printed as a full 22″ x 30″ sheet size. The first run was a rainbow roll in a minimum of 5 colours, in an edition of 12/12, with 3 trial proofs… that show a colour change for each run.
5 colour rainbow roll, 22″ x 30″ (55.88 x 76.2)
For those of you who couldn’t follow all that, let’s just say it was hard work! I had major anxiety tackling this edition. It seemed insurmountable to me, definitely way out of my comfort zone. It feels amazing getting through a challenge like that. I wasn’t sure the edition would be a success but I managed to pull it all off and got some very good feedback from Rodney.
Outside of the studio I am sad to report I did not get to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta as I had hoped. My return flight was delayed and I missed my chance since everything begins by about 5:30am and ends by about 7:30-8am. I am please to share some photos with you regardless. Credit goes to Adrian Kellet and Jade Mahoney, my Australian friends, who are very generously allowing me to post their pics…. sorting through them to share ASAP.
I promise to try to get you all caught up.
I am actually in Ann Arbour this week, visiting my good friend and client, Endi Poskovic. I have been invited by the University of Michigan as the Roman Witt Visiting Artist in the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design.
University of Michigan Art Museum
“Orion”, Mark di Suvero, 2006, Painted steel
I arrived in Ann Arbor on Sunday after an exhausting all – nighter at Tamarind, finishing up a drawing and preparations for our first collaborative project. We are now at the stage of printing for each other to hone our collaborative skills. We had certain criteria for the image, making sure we gave our printer a good challenge both in the processing and printing stages. It felt very strange to produce a drawing in a single session that will be printed only in black, very unusual for me, but it had to be done before I left Albuquerque. Kate Goyette, my former press partner is my printer for this project, while I will be printing for David Dominguez. He has promised to be done by the time I arrive back this Saturday evening. I know I will not be spared as his drawings are lovely and complex. Sorry I haven’t found a link to any of them to share with you.
Ann Arbor is very pretty this time of year and it’s a real treat to be back in a climate, only four-five hours from Toronto, that is a lot more brisk this time of year then New Mexico.
The fall colours are on full display.
I spent Monday morning presenting my own work and some of the projects I’ve worked on to Endi’s printmedia class. It was wonderful to share my prints with the students and receive feedback from Endi. After 4 years working together I don’t believe he’s really seen any prints of my own.
In this photo I was attempting to explain the technical aspects of registering this huge piece by Joscelyn Gardner.
I should mention that one of the prints from Joscelyn’s most recent series is being featured in the International Print Center New York’s “New Prints 2012/Autumn” show, on view from October 20 to November 17.
We moved into the studio where I gave a lithography demo that continued through to Wednesday.
After experimenting on his own this summer at the Frans Masreel print studio in Belgium, Endi is challenging me with tusche washes in this, his most recent piece. This is new in our repertoire of collaborative work and terrific timing given all of the testing I have been doing at Tamarind.
We made it through to proofing the stone and the image looks fantastic. Very exciting to think of the work Endi and I will continue together once I know where my feet will land in the New Year, after the Tamarind program is complete.
I think the students were really enthused to see the dynamics between Endi and I working together. They are well on their way towards beginning their lithography projects, bringing new energy to the studio at U of M.
I was also guest of honour at a wonderful party held in Endi’s home Monday evening, although the true star of the show was without a doubt his extensive print collection. Not only does he have works stored in his studio/attic but the walls of his big 1800’s brick farm-house are quite literally plastered with prints. More important prints in one place then one can really imagine.
Students and a handful of faculty were in attendance and we were treated to a display of some exciting and unique pieces from his archives, including prints ranging from those of contemporary artists Kiki Smith and Michael Barns to well-preserved works by Goya, George Bellows, Kathe Kollwitz and many, many others – I should have been taking notes!
The students and I gathered around to view a very special Japanese Ukiyo-e accordion style book that seemed to have endless panels. It was lovely and precious and a rarity to be able to experience a historical piece like this in such an intimate setting. We all helped to flip the book work over as the other side was as equally ornate.
I shared some time with a few graduate students and Endi’s family, I visited the Art Museum and walked around Ann Arbor in what little free time I had. All in all it was a wonderful visit! Thanks again everyone for the hospitality, this was truly and excellent experience.
Oh my goodness is time ever flying by! Let me get you all caught up.
I promised to report back on my tusche wash tests and I wish I had better news, but they did not go so well. I had some success on my stone but the plate was a disaster, although a huge learning opportunity at the same time, so I can’t say it was a total wash… get it?! Bad printer humor, sorry, but I couldn’t resist! Megan, my class mate and press assistant this past week would be so proud. She is brilliant with puns, keeping us all on our toes. The good news is that although I was not required to I opted to redo the test on a new plate, and all went extremely well. I am pretty pleased with the results and the edition, although it was a scramble to put the extra work in and still keep up.
We moved on this past week to solvent washes both on plate and stone and I am happy to report that despite this being my first time trying them out, processing and printing went much better. We are being guided through using a wide variety of materials and techniques and in the process setting up some complicated printing scenarios. It’s inevitable that we all improve and learn from each other’s successes and failures. It’s exciting to be so focussed at this level, facing scenarios head on that honestly would be natural to avoid altogether.
As I mentioned, we have changed press partners and will continue to do so week by week for the remainder of the program. We had also been switching presses each week (there are four in total) although now there is a sign up system that we are still trying to negotiate through. I believe the underlying impetuous is to have us work on our communication and organizational skills and to keep us from getting too comfortable. This ensures that as professional printers we can adjust to a variety of scenarios that may present themselves in the future, some of which may be less than ideal of course, depending on our aspirations. I know my friend Sarah Dudley and her partner Ulrich Kühle of Keystone Editions in Berlin, both launched into projects in some pretty remote areas of South Africa, Botswana and Australia, after their training at Tamarind. They have moved on from these adventures to set up a fabulous studio that is thriving – congrats Sarah and Uli!
Outside of the studio these past two weeks I have attended both UNM men’s soccer and football games, purely out of curiosity.
Football in particular is so much more popular here in the US (at all different levels) then at home in Canada, I couldn’t resist seeing what all the hype was about.
Game day is quite the spectacle! I attended with my Australian friends, Jade and Adrian. We were simply blown away at the size of the crowds, both inside the stadium and tailgating in the parking lot. There was a marching band, cheerleaders, mascots and hard-core fans from the opposing team that had travelled all the way from Boise Idaho, to cheer their team on. I had never really witnessed all this before, despite my long-term relationship with a former pro-football player! I’ve somehow managed to avoid it…. probably by being in the studio, printing.
Another major event in Albuquerque this October is the Balloon Fiesta. I was able to snap this shot on my brisk walk to Tamarind the other morning. Another first for me! Massive and at a huge distance, hot air balloons seem to move through the sky quite quickly.
During the first two weeks on October over 600 balloons will ascend into the sky in the wee hours of the morning. It is the largest ballooning event on earth and the most photographed event on earth. A group of us spoke of setting out on our bikes at 5am for the 11 mile/17.7 km ride to the vast 78 ac/31ha launch field. Just imagine 54 football fields all put together and covered in vibrantly coloured balloons. It’s a massive event and I hope I get to see it!
Apologies for taking so long to post this, it’s been a busy couple of weeks. Where did I leave off last time? Ahh yes, tusche wash tests… and here’s a glimpse:
Our days have been spent testing water PH and mixing little cups of washes.
They have been lined up all over the studio.
We’ve been meticulously applying them in rows of different dilutions, to both stone and plate.
Two more projects to tackle, two more editions to print. The challenge is holding on to the beautiful reticulation in these water washes, despite working with dilutions that may be both far too weak to successfully etch and far too greasy to control. We have all begun proofing so we will see how well we manage. More to come.
Outside of the studio I have been keeping up with yoga twice a week, so I am feeling good about that. My gym partner Jade and I are really enjoying the classes. The instructor is excellent at keeping the classes challenging and varied, despite teaching to a group of about 75-100 people in a small gym-type room. The class provides a time to focus on something outside of my lithography obsession, escaping to a familiar mental and physical challenge of another kind. The break in the evening refreshes me and keeps me level-headed. I’m thankful to have such a wonderful treat in my week.
I also treated myself to the movie Pina on campus last Thursday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought I had missed my chance to see it in the theater as it showed in Toronto this past spring, but UNM shows both Hollywood and alternative movies every week for only $2 with a student ID, although not in 3-D. If you’ve seen the film as well let me know your favorite moments. I had so many! I was very moved by the sensitivity and humor of the choreography and would love to see it again.
Jade, Adrian and I also spent Saturday afternoon at the New Mexico State Fair. It was quite something!
I wish I had taken more photos now but I was very preoccupied with people watching, particularly in the massive food area. I’ve never really seen anything like it!
They were deep-frying EVERYTHING and it was all served on a stick. Yes, that does say deep-fried Twinkies, cheesecake, Pop Tarts, Fruity Pebbles, cookie dough and more!
I will reluctantly admit to sampling a deep-fried snickers bar, I can not tell a lie. The three of us braved sharing one out of pure curiosity. Not sure I’ll ever venture there again but I will say it was interesting, dare I say tasty?! Along with sweets there were various cuts of potatoes from regular straight fries to curly fries…
to mounds of ribbon fries. I did not sample either of these but I was oh so tempted!
All offered with the “smothered” option, which is a healthy coating of cheese and the local staple of green chili sauce, it was a meat lovers heaven. The offerings ranged from foot long corn dogs, to pulled pork sandwiches to massive barbecued turkey drumsticks that I can not quite comprehend how anyone could consume completely. It was both comical and, as a long time vegetarian, just a little nauseating to watch people maneuver eating these massive Fred Flintstone like treats. Since Adrian did not make good on his threats to tackle a drumsticks there are no photos, thank goodness!
We opted instead to try the Navajo Taco, a delicious First Nations twist on the traditional taco.
We wandered through the fair grounds for hours and still did not see everything there was to see. There were prize-winning displays of honey, herbs, vegetables, fruits and other gardening delights along with barns full of livestock.
The display below really made me miss apple picking season in Ontario. The price of apples here is quite high compared to what I am accustomed to and I haven’t found any Macintosh apples yet, my favorite.
I’ll have to find a new variety to make my raw apple pie with because I finally got my Vitamix!!! They had a full display and demo and were offering terrific discounts at the fair, believe it or not.
It was the easiest sale the company rep ever made. He asked me if I was interested and started to give me his pitch and I simply pulled out my credit card. Done deal. So excited! I’ve been blending everything this week: lots of fruit smoothies for breakfast and a big batch of raw humus. I’m hoping to experiment a little more over the weekend so I’ll let you know how that goes.
I must leave you here as I am sponging on the pro-side tomorrow bright and early. I will face those dreaded tusche washes later in the day; an assignment no doubt designed to cause us nightmares. Wish me luck!
Jill Graham_ink 