MM&S E Zine
Dedicated to Unique Mark Making
Monoprint Monotype & Strappo Winter 2016 Fall 2016
Volume 1 Issue 5 Volume I Issue 4
OUR MISSION Monoprint-Monotype.com understands the importance of providing a venue for this unique form of art. Our matrix is as open as the imaginations of the artists it supports. To that end we will explore the work of emerging, established and surprising artists from around the world. They will be presented here and in on our website Monoprint-Monotype.com.
Included Artists: Sarah Smelser Cathie Crawford Barry Ebner Sarah Humby Sandra Daniel Charles Yoder MM&S Magazine is a submission-based, quarterly digital and on-demand print publication.
Cover artwork “Race to the End” by Sarah Smelser
Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited without permission of the publisher. All artwork has been reproduced with the kind permission of the artists. ©2016 Donald S. Kolberg
The easiest way to understand the difference between a Monoprint and a Monotype is to understand the underlying block or matrix. Monoprint When beginning a Monoprint, permanent marks are produced on the surface. This creates a common feature on successive works. But there would be an endless variation of images according to the application of medium, (paint, ink, chalk), and whether additional collage elements are added. Monotype A Monotype on the other hand is created on a smooth surface. Similar to monoprinting, a variety of mediums and elements can be incorporated on the surface. But there are no permanent features that transfer to successive works. Once the image is transferred, except for the occasional ghost print from excess medium, the surface is freed from the created work of art and the chosen surface now holds the art work. Strappo A Strappo is a dry image transfer technique that has been recognized as a specific printmaking monotype procedure by the Print library at New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a sample Strappo is in the print library collection. A Strappo is a combination of painting and printing. It is developed as a reverse painting, resulting in a dry acrylic transfer created on a smooth surface such as glass. It is then transferred to a paper support.
If you are a Monoprint or Monotype artist,
we are interested in what you have to say and what you have to show. If you are interested contact us for more information at; Don@monoprint-monotype.com
From the Editor
Monoprint Monotype Strappo is an innovative Magazine that focuses on the unique mark making of artists in this genre. There has never been an outlet for the experimentation and excitement that comes with this art. This E Zine and the website Monoprint-Monotype.com have been presenting established, mid-career and emerging print artists and information about the print world for an international audience. During that time we have received incredible support from artists, art collectors and people who just love this unique mark making.
The website Monoprint-Monotype.com has a page devoted to videos provided by our featured artists and technical guidance across a wide range of printmaking techniques provided individual artists and by the wonderful people at Akua Ink. Additionally we post workshops and upcoming exhibits of our growing family of artists. If you would like information about advertising your products in our E Zine please contact us at Don@Monoprint-Monotype.com
Thank you Donald Kolberg
Cathie Crawford
Biography Originally from New York City, Cathie returned to Illinois in the fall of 2004 after living overseas with her husband (three years in Jeddah Saudi Arabia and then three years in Grenoble France). Since completing her Master of Fine Art degree in 1987 from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, she has concentrated on the color reduction woodcut. Her work has been included in more than three hundred exhibitions, sixty juried national shows and fifteen international juried exhibitions since completing a BFA from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Crawford has won thirty-five awards at both the national and regional level. Her woodcuts have been exhibited in 23 states as well as France, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. Crawford’s prints are included in private and corporate collections in eight countries. Plane Magic was accepted for acquisition at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. It is now at the National Gallery of Art. Monsieur Blanc n’est pas blanc received the top award in the SAGA CENTENNIAL NATIONAL EXHIBITION at The Art Students League of New York, in New York City.
Breaking, Color Reduction Woodcut
Halcyon Days
Her recent non-objective monoprints, Dayenu, Dianoia II and Lisière were selected for twelve national juried exhibitions in Galesburg and Monmouth IL, St. Louis, MO, Los Angeles, CA, Tacoma, WA, Fort Wayne IN, Somerville and Attleboro MA and Edinboro PA. Dayenu was selected for New Prints 2014/Autumn at the International Print Center New York.
Dayenu
Dianoia II
Dianoia III
Taking a break from figurative color reduction woodcut editions, I have been making non-objective monoprints. This new direction is the converging of line, shape, color and texture in an ambiguous space. The Pluvious series of six monoprints were printed from a single
piece of wood in many stages. The Dayenu and Lisière monoprints were printed from multiple blocks. Dayenu is the Hebrew word for “it would have been enough”. Dianoia II is a collage of two monprints. The Dianoia series of three also was printed from multiple blocks and evolved from a Hebrew word. The Surge II diptych was printed from two blocks of wood.
Untitled Additional work and information about Cathie Crawford can be found at;
www.cathiecrawford.com cathierich@comcast.net Monoprint-Monotype.com
Pluvious II,
Lisière
Feature Interview
Sarah Smelser
MM&S: How did you begin with monoprint-monotype printmaking? Your artistic career is long and varied, so how did printmaking come into it and how are you fulfilled by what you do? Sarah: I studied and pursued intaglio in undergraduate and graduate school. I became interested in monoprint because I wanted to become more productive and I was not terribly invested in editioning, so I started making plates that could be easily combined with an image that was carried on a chine colle element. For example, I might do a drawing in India ink on a piece of Asian paper and then combine it with an etching via chine colle. I would try to re-interpret an etched image as many times as I could by varying the chine colle element as well as the ink color and then later by combining plates. Toward the end of my three-year graduate program I took a monotype class and I found it very frustrating because it revolved around painted marks, which I really don’t enjoy making. When we looked at some prints by Paul Gaugin and I saw trace monotype, I started to use that technique as a way to make an image on Asian paper to combine with an etching. It felt very natural to me so I experimented with it further. After working with trace monotype, etching, and chine colle for a number of years I decided to try leaving the etching behind to see how it would go. After I started my family I decided to set etching aside for a longer period of time. Now, as a professor at Illinois State University, I teach mainly intaglio but I practice it very little in my own studio. I enjoy this separation; my day-to-day work with students involves one set of techniques and rules, and my solitary studio practice involves techniques and rules that are completely different.
Arguable MM&S: What is the most exciting element about this technique? Sarah: Trace monotype is exciting to me because I keep learning new ways to use it. I have used the technique in my work for almost twenty years and I still keep finding ways that I can refine it and bend it to my desires. It has also helped me to expand my aesthetic and visual vocabulary. MM&S: Explain to us what trace monotype is and how you use it. Sarah: Trace monotype is a process whereby an artist lays out a ribbon of stiff ink and rolls out a thin slab, either on a sheet of plexiglass or on a glass counter (I use the counter). Then the artist places the artwork face-down in the ink and draws on the back to transfer the ink to the paper. Different mark-making tools and varying degrees of pressure can be used. Pencils, fingers and other objects each create their own interesting effects. When the paper is picked up, the positive image is on the image side, the negative image is on the slab. No press is required for this printmaking technique.
MM&S: Do you find that the work of other printmakers acts to stimulate your own ideas for creative work?
Thirty-five Rainy Days II
Sarah: The work of other printmakers is stimulating in that it makes me want to get into the studio and get moving. However, it’s not the ideas per se that affect me; I like unpacking the work visually and seeing how it is made. That really makes me want to get my hands dirty. The ideas for my work are stimulated by several things: conversations I have had, songs I hear, private jokes, anecdotes, lyrics, and poems. Although these references are present in the work, either on the surface or deep down below, they do not inspire or initiate it. The work is generated by an urgent curiosity and is sustained by the excitement of discovery in the studio. In the last several years my work has dealt with the relationship between self and environment. Through abstraction, I contemplate the way the landscape of one’s childhood conditions how one approaches the world as an adult. I don’t attempt to answer a question about this relationship, but rather to ruminate on the familiar and foreign feelings of place, landscape, and space, each with its own punctuations, patterns, and sequence.
My latest travels have led me to the Greek island of Skopelos, the city of Chicago, and County Mayo, Ireland: all places that are characterized by water. I grew up in Northern California and the coast figured heavily into my upbringing. As a child, when I couldn’t sleep at night I looked out my bedroom window to watch San Francisco’s lights reflected on the water. When I learned to drive, the location of the coast was the only way I could negotiate east from west. I went to college in Santa Cruz and lived in a house across from the beach, so that the sight, sound, and smell of the water were part of every day. Though I have lived in the Midwest for more than 20 years, I feel indelibly branded by my experiences with the coast and water, and fundamentally defined by them. I carry the redwoods, eucalyptus trees and the sight of the bay with me, and use them as a filter through which to experience my travels, as well as the vast openness, ferocious wind, and orderly farmland of central Illinois.
fragile and vicious
Set-Down-Together
MM&S: Artist often talk about residencies. You have had the opportunity to be part of them in the U.S. and abroad. Tell us a bit about what is entailed in a residency and what the differences are here and abroad. Sarah: When I first started applying for residencies, about 20 years ago, I simply felt that residencies were part of an artist’s maturation process and I was supposed to be doing them. The first few that I did were emotional disasters. I felt thrown off in a new space, making the work felt horrible and the work itself looked awkward. In 2000, my husband and I went to the Franz Masereel Center in Kasterlee, Belgium. This was the first international residency for either of us and what it did, for me, was encourage me to explore foreignness and use it as a way to feel free and irresponsible in the studio. I felt that I had nothing to lose, and I might as well try things on a lark. The worst that could happen is that I would fill the studio garbage can in Belgium and fly home empty handed. Though all residencies are different, I have enjoyed my international residencies the most because they provide a complete break from my regular life. I usually abandon all email correspondence and trappings of being a teacher or home owner, so I feel free to focus on the studio work and the new place with all that accompanies it: sightseeing, people watching, and sampling local food. This feels like true living to me; I feel the most vital when I am transplanted somewhere else. The last two international residencies I have done have been family affairs. My husband and three kids have come with me and had their own experiences. When I went to the Ballinglen Arts Foundation I enrolled the kids in Irish schools and they spent five weeks soaking up local Irish culture while I worked in the studio. It was also very nice to see our trip through their eyes and think about how I could use the events of their lives as a starting point for imagery.
Last-Day, Queen-Obsession
what’s_already_mine
MM&S: Artists seem to use everything from oils to specialty inks and acrylics. Is there a particular medium you prefer? Sarah: I’m pretty flexible within limits. I work with lithography inks and I keep a very simple palette in my studio. I have a small variety of papers I like to use, and a few ink modifiers that I simply cannot do without. However, I am open to new materials and like to share ideas with friends and colleagues. MM&S: What does your typical studio day look like as if anything is typical for an artist? Sarah: Before I had children, and got enveloped by academia, I worked long days in the studio without much concern for a schedule or deadlines. I wandered around and made images leisurely. Now I have many things that keep me out of studio for days at a time, and sometimes when I make it to my studio I have only a few hours. I now work with a sense of urgency that I really enjoy. I work more confidently because I don’t dillydally and explore all my options: I make a choice in a piece and go with it. I find that my loss rate (or rate of failure) these days is about the same as when I pulled my hair out as to whether something should be red or yellow. I enjoy my studio and my time in it immensely, much more than I did as a younger adult. As a favor to myself, when I finish working in my studio I leave a note about what I was working on or what my plan was for a certain piece. That way when I come back I don’t have to scratch my head and figure out what to do. Sometimes I change my mind because I have a fresh look at the work but I often try to go with at least the first step and see where it leads me. I work on 10 – 20 pieces at a time and add elements to them according to what colors I use that day. Hmm, today is a red day and I know which pieces need red so I will group them together and modify the red as I go so each piece doesn’t get the same exact color.
MM&S: You and your husband started Manneken Press in 2000. Tell us about some of the projects the organization is working on. Sarah: We started Manneken Press in 2000, working initially with a small group of artists Jonathan had met during the 12 years he lived in New York City. Publishing several projects each year, Manneken Press’ roster of artists now numbers more than twenty-five and we have participated in fine art fairs in Chicago, New York, Miami, Boston, Baltimore and Houston. In a typical year we publish prints by four or five invited artists. 2016 has been a particularly busy and by the year’s end we will have completed projects with six artists: the first volume of ten photogravures by Philip Van Keuren presented in a beautiful handmade folio; two large monoprint series by Gary Justis; a woodcut edition and monotypes by Scottish-born artist Jack Davidson who travelled to Manneken Press from his home in Barcelona; two series of intaglio and relief monoprints by Colorado artist Kate Petley, two multi-plate etching editions by St Louis artist Mary Judge, and a series of colossal monotypes by Colombian artist Carlos Andrade. We will be exhibiting many of these new prints in early November at the Editions/Artist’s Books Fair in New York City, and Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington will host an exhibition of our recent prints in March 2017. All of these prints and more can be viewed on our website: www.mannekenpress.com. MM&S: How do you balance your time with the creativity of your fine art career, family and a growing artistic business? Sarah: I am quite busy juggling varied activities and days can be very long. I try to do something that I am happy about every day, whether it is in the studio, at work, or at home. Sometimes this means accomplishing a difficult or daunting task, sometimes it means exploring a new project or just getting time in the studio, sometimes it means spending time with my kids or going to the gym. I am a list maker and I love crossing things off my list! I try not to beat myself up about what I should be doing. Everything has its proper time, and time is quite fleeting. I look at my kids growing and I understand the importance of spending time with them; they won’t always be so close. I look at my career and acknowledge not only how hard it is but also how well it is going despite the many things in competition for my time. I do fret occasionally but it’s never a productive activity. The word “balance” implies equality, and I am not able to give all parts of my life equal attention. I am quite comfortable with this knowledge because I feel that true balance is out of my control. Sometimes I get very little studio time, but lots of family time, or visa versa. Often I remind myself that I am doing exactly what I have always wanted. I have it all. That means figuring out how to juggle everything and keep moving forward. MM&S: What artists have influenced you? Sarah: I think Agnes Martin has had the largest influence on me. I love the wholeness of her work, and how it is both simple and complex at the same time. I value her writings, more than her images, because they show such a beautiful mind at work. She writes with elegance and honesty, and I find her words so affirming. Many other artists have had an impact on me and inspired me to try new things in the studio: Philip Guston, Barbara Rossi, Brice Marden, Terry Winters, John Cage, Richard Diebenkorn, Squeak Carnwath. One of my undergraduate professors, Zarina, is having a fabulous career making concise and sophisticated prints, drawings, and cast paper pieces. She has shown me, by example, how to sustain meaningful ideas over time.
Ballinglen V
Thirty-five Rainy Days
Ballinglen I
Ballinglen III
Trip-to-DC
MM&S: What advice would you give artists just starting out in this technique? Sarah: Get off your phones! Stop texting and live your life through activity and experience. Don’t get hung up on success or failure. Just work, work, work and then take some time to see what you have done. Make notes about your tendencies; try to figure out what kind of artist you are. Journal as much as you can. Write about your influences, dreams, and goals. Be present. Don’t worry about money until you have to, and try to gain experiences that make sense rather than make money. Some of the best and most fruitful experiences I have had were unpaid internships. I worked at Bob Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop after my first year of graduate school, trading intern time for my own studio time. I think that was the first time I felt like an adult and truly took ownership of my life. Thank you for an insightful interview. Additional work and contact at : www.sarahsmelser.com email: ssmelse@ilstu.edu Monoprint-Monotype.com
Charles Yoder
Charles Yoder was born in Germany in 1948 to two American army sergeants. He was educated in Europe and the States, finishing his formal education with a BFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. Over the years he has supported his art making habit with various jobs including director of Castelli Graphics and curator to Robert Rauschenberg. Presently he paints full time and teaches printmaking part time at the School of Visual arts.
Sun Dial
Glimpse
Dance Night IV
Tangled Web
Some years ago he found himself standing in the shadows of a pine forest in deep snow under a sparkling full moon. The simple beauty of what he saw was an epiphany. All that he had been looking for in painting was literally lying at his feet. Theories and isms no longer defined what he painted. The given provided all that was needed. The work became a meditation on that glimpse.
Lake Effect
Corona
He has shown his work nationally and internationally and his work can be found in museums and many private collections
For more information: Website: www.charlesyoder.com email: cy@charlesyoder.com Monoprint-Monotype.com
Moon Light
Dance Night II
Dance Night III
Sandra Daniel
Sandra Daniel is an artist printmaker who lives and works in London, she graduated from Chelsea School of Art in 1984 with a distinction in Printed Textiles and continued her studies in fine art whilst embarking on a number of commercial projects and commissions. After college she taught at Kingsway Princeton-College London for one year. Between 2003 - 2009 Sandra founded desertRose, an independent design company. Sandra's work has been shown at the Bankside Gallery London, Barbican Library London, Works on Paper Fair London, CYMK Pie Factory Margate, Oliver & Pink London,and shows at The Other Art Fair in London & Bristol and The Brighton Art Fair, Brighton. In 2010 She returned to college part time to study printmaking and is a member of the Printmakers Council where she exhibits as part of their long established group shows. Her work is in the print collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum London.
Untitled Monotype
Therapy
Aquatint and Monotype Stencils
Colour is the very first thing that I think about when starting to print. Shapes are arrived at from previous work and slowly morph into something else that resonants with me; the beginnings of a torn piece of paper, a shape that was printed on and now fragile and slightly damaged and shapes that often start out symmetrical but by folding and cutting become a new motif which I may or may not use.
New Construct
I very seldom start new work with a completely new idea, all my work is somehow connected, I use the vocabulary of form, textures, marks, drawings, words and combinations of colours from older prints whether experimental or finished to constantly nourish new work, it’s like a very long sentence that doesn’t end. Some of the prints which I have selected here are printed from an aquatint plate. Using the aquatint surface has given my colours more depth and brilliance. I find that there are so many options when using a plate which has an etched surface; using stencils with texture or without and applying colour in layers builds an exciting surface. I work intuitively which means there is always an element of serendipity. Taking risks whilst printing is part of a playfulness that I consider to be an important element of my work.
Red Curtain
London Print Studio
I have also included my most current work; Hidden Truths, a series of varied editioned monoprints which have been combined with etched plates. The curtain shape came about when I was cutting and preparing stencils, I love it for its prosaic quality and uncomplicated form. Inspiration comes from several sources; words which I might have heard, seen or read, current news and the history of imperialism and colonialism. As I am an abstract artist these sources are visceral and might not be obvious to the viewer. I am just touched, hurt and angry. The clue to the subject matter of my work is sometimes in the title, except when it is Untitled!
Image 2
For more information: Website: www.sandradaniel.co.uk/ email: info@sandradaniel.co.uk Monoprint-Monotype.com
Image 5
Rainbow Curtain
Image 4
Hidden Truths Series
Barry Ebner
Barry Ebner is an artist primarily working in monotype and drawing. He started in Southern California as a painter and over the years migrated up the coast to the Bay Area.
Over the last 25 years he has had over 20 solo exhibitions, throughout California and the western part of the United States. He received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas and his Master of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Printmaking from the California College of the Arts.
Untitled
Untitled Monotype is my preferred medium. The immediacy of the process is central to my approach. I find that creating a monotype is a performance. There is the risk of failure and the possibility of surpassing what was planned. My established themes are a starting point to explore variations in mark-making and gesture to arrive at the finished piece. The process of monotype is very intuitive, one works quickly to arrive at the moment of printing. Every piece is approached without direct reference, either sketches or photographs, on hand thus allowing my memory to change and shift the image as I explore the different textures and forms on the plate.
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
For more information: Website: http://barryebner.com/ email: ebnerart@gmail.com Monoprint-Monotype.com
Untitled
A friend once referred to a creative block I was experiencing as me banging my head against a wall. I chose to step back and look at that wall, built and crumpled and allowed myself to peer around it, underneath it and above it. I walked through the door to my left and the one to my right, crawled back in through the window.
Now I gaze at the walls constructed in our society, both real and through the image of the real to the walls constructed in our sociological interactions, through the illusions of transparency created by the massive availability of controlled information. I wander up and down their length, stare up at their height and ever so often test their strength, by pushing or blowing, running up against them or simply removing a finger from the hole.
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Sarah Humby
Sarah Humby is British contemporary artist living and working in Dorset on the South coast of England. Born in Cornwall she trained at Falmouth School of Art in the 80’s and since moving to Dorset, in the late 90’s, has worked primarily as a painter and printmaker.
In 2008 she set up a life drawing group which has since become a popular networking point for local artists. Boscombe Life Drawing Group meets once a month and encourages artists of all abilities to practice drawing from the figure as a means of improving all areas of artistic practice. In 2012 Sarah joined Linda E Sale to promote local artists under an umbrella group called ARTStorm; a group that has exhibited regularly since. One of the aims of ARTStorm is to help promote emerging local artists who have never exhibited before by offering support and assistance and opportunities to exhibit.
Sarah exhibits regularly in the UK and increasingly printmaking takes a larger spotlight in her practice, especially monotype and monoprint; the parallel with painting attracting her to the possibilities of one discipline informing the other.
Approaching the Head (Early Morning)
Working sketch of The Head, pastel
There is a symbiotic relationship between painting and printmaking that appeals to me. Working methods in one will very often introduce ideas and method in the other. The spontaneity of painting, for me, is balanced by the creative processes of printmaking.
The remove from initial idea to finished work has more room for dialogue within the discipline of printmaking. Monotype is where painting and printmaking come together. I paint directly onto copper or perspex (plexiglass) with oil based inks or oil paint; sometimes with a brush sometimes with rollers and then work into the medium with rags or scraping tools until I am happy with the image. Sometimes I will draw into the ink and sometimes I paint in a ‘traditional’ manner in a loose and free style.
Quarry at Acton
Using my location sketchbooks as reference I find the process of working in reverse offers a chance for spontaneity and creative ‘accidents’ to develop. I know when the image has worked as it will offer a response to the sketch and the memory of the occasion on which it was made.
Lymington Sea Wall (Sunset )
For more information: Website: www.sarahhumby.co.uk email: humbysarah@yahoo.co.uk Monoprint-Monotype.com
Priests Way 1
In my studio, at the top of the house, under the eaves, sits my etching press and in the corner of the room, stands my studio easel. These days, if I am not out in the landscape making working drawings, you will find me in front of one or the other. I live and work on the South coast of England and close to a World Heritage Site (The Jurassic Coast) and being out on the edge of the land, the boundary and the points where the land meets the sea is where my work begins.
Harbour 2
Sketches made in the field with a multitude of media from charcoal and pencil to watercolour and pastels help to record the environment and begin the process of creating work responding to and creating a dialogue with that place. My work in the studio attempts to take those drawings and translate them into finished works.
Fields above Chapmans Pool
Chewton Bunney in Winter
Looking down the Chine
Copyright 2016 Donald Kolberg