Participation at the Maitland Art Center

What a whirlwind experience! Part of it had to do with being swept away in the magic of A&H's Participation, but most of the whirlwind effect was caused by how much I had to do to prepare. I was one of 21 featured artists in charge of designing and hosting an artist table. The result of my table design is a 9 foot long star book titled "Old Friends".

This was the second Participation I've been to, last year I was one of the volunteers, and it was just as spectacular as I've come to expect. I loved where my table was- I was right outside the window to my studio and next to the fantastic Nathalie Chikhi as well as the Macaroni & Cheese food station. I realized when I saw the event layout a few days before that I may have been a little too emotive about Mac & Cheese station at the Participation artists' meeting.

I also ran a "creation-station" during the evening where I helped guests print their own print to take home with them. I've done this set up before (1st Thursdays, art festivals, etc..), but I made a special linocut for this one. I used oil based ink, so hopefully everyone who came by heeded my warnings and no one ended up with a circus tent on something other than Arches.

Preparation was a week of long nights (and sometimes long mornings) and I've still got aches and pains a week later to remember it by. Apparently my self-loathing was at an all time high as I pushed off production until the Monday before the event. This is the largest book I've ever made. The back layer alone is a 12 foot hand printed linocut.

The Mad Hatter Tea Party

Yesterday was the Mad Hatter Tea Party at the UCF Library. Amanda Richards was on the committee that organized this fundraiser and she asked me to help out with creating Tenniel inspired linocuts for a print-your-own-print station. I, of course, said yes. Amanda and I each carved two of the four linocuts we had available, which was more painstaking than normal since the cross hatching from Tenniel's drawings is not a very intuitive technique for carving in relief. However, we struggled through and I was pleasantly surprised with how well they translated into linoleum. Especially Amanda's work- this was her first time EVER carving and printing and they look as good as I could have done them. She is a testament to anyone who is on the fence about getting into relief printmaking. We decided to depict the four characters (Alice, The White Rabbit, The Mad Hatter, and The Red Queen) in a frame reminiscent of playing cards and gave them each their own suit.

We had a good crowd at the print station - as in Amanda and I never got to sit down - and it seemed like everyone that came over had a good time. There were also several people intersted in possibly doing the linocut process from start to finish, and I'm hoping that will translate into students for the next Not Your Mama's Print Workshop on December 2nd.




AffectArt Artists' Party at Taste

One of the patrons at my table was a drunk bee- the swinging bunny did not approve.

I had a table at AffectArt.org's Artitsts' Party at Taste in Winter Park on June 15th. I had a fantastic time and met a slew of wonderful artists and people. One of those people was Boone Fowler who set the whole thing up and did a great job of keeping all the artists happy and helping us set up.

Parker Sketch set up his booth beside mine, which meant I wouldn't have to be worried about boredom for the rest of the evening. That was a big relief. Thomas Thorspecken set up to sketch across the sidewalk from Parker and me, so I'm very excited to see that pop up on his blog since I didn't get a chance to peek at it the day of.

Richeson Baby Etching Press was there for print your own prints trying to drum up some interest in my next printmaking workshop. I had several people run prints and I'm hoping some of them caught the printmaking bug! Parker snapped a photo of some of the printing:

Boone is hoping to make this an every other month event, so keep your ear to the ground for the next one because I highly recommend going - whether as a patron or an artist with a table!