Opening October 17, 2014
OCTOBER 14, 2014 - JANUARY 8, 2015
October 17, 2014 6-8pm
Over the past two years, Flatbed Press has collaborated with twelve artists to create a wide array of editions and monotypes. Some of the artists have worked with our master printers for the first time and others have a long history of creating work at Flatbed. They all come to Flatbed with ambitious ideas and a sense of adventure. The problem-solving and collaboration with master printers may take the artist into new territory using media or image making techniques with which they have little experience. Flatbed’s master printers are familiar with how to assist the artist and their assistance plays a major role in creating the high quality editions and monotypes available to collectors.
Listing Flatbed’s new projects in chronological order, the first were created by John Greer and Vanessa Paschakarnis who reside in Nova Scotia, Canada. In December 2012, they traveled to Austin to collaborate on new projects. John created a series of six plexi-glass engravings with relief roll and monotype printing. The large cut and engraved printing plates depict ancient coins and John slyly titled the suite “Paper Money.” Working with Tracy Mayrello and Cordelia Blanchard, John developed the unique monotyped surface inking for each of the coins. Vanessa Paschakarnis brought shaped plates to print which were also engraved with fine lines. The shaped plates were printed as an intaglio with ink rolled onto the surfaces. Her print, Nebula, depicts the shape of a crab but inked in a monotype way that suggests the universe. The editions were completed in July 2013.
Beginning in 2012, Annalise Gratovich, an emerging Austin artist, began the carving of the first of eight monumental scaled woodcuts that will make up the series Villagers Carrying Things From Home. Presently, four of the Villagers have been printed in editons of seven: The Hunter, The Musician, The Mariner, and The Builder. Annalise chose to use chine collé to add color to the images required her hand-dyeing Japan Mulberry papers to chine collé into the images. Working with printers Tracy Mayrello and Cordelia Blanchard, these large woodcuts were printed on Flatbed’s oversized Tackach Press.
In the spring of 2013, Alice Leora Briggs brought the first of her woodcuts for editioning at Flatbed. Two large scaled woodcuts, Sklep Fop and La Ventana, have been editioned and were signed in October 2013. Her dramatic woodcuts use a chine collé technique to add additional color for emphasis. Currently Flatbed and Briggs are co-publishing a deluxe portfolio of twelve smaller woodcuts which give homage to poet Mark Strand and will exhibited at Flatbed in November.
Ann Conner traveled from Wilmington, North Carolina to Austin in June 2013 to proof her new woodcuts Starwood I, 2, 3, and 4. Conner is no stranger to Flatbed and Starwood constitutes her fifth project with Flatbed. On exhibition are the approved Starwood proofs. The blocks are currently awaiting editioning. A limited number of pre-publication prints are available.
During the fall of 2013, Austin emerging artist, Jules Buck Jones started his second Flatbed project, a monumental scaled etching. Although the plan was to create a jungle image to print over his monotyped background, Jones working with Brimberry, Mayrello and Blanchard developed a multi-plate color etching that was editioned in two different colors along with several color variations. Published in July 2014, the two etchings I Saw A Crow and Orca Was I become a visual palindrome when seen together.
Sharon Kopriva came to work with Flatbed for the first time in October 2013. Her sculpture and paintings are widely known in Texas and beyond, and her remarkable graphic ability made creating a soft ground etching a natural way for her to work. She planned and executed three plates that feature her Peruvian hairless hounds as characters in pursuit, longing and consummation. Over a period of three months, Kopriva created three images which were published as two different versions on May 5, 2014.
Larry Scholder has brought a new dimension to Flatbed by bringing his Vandercook letterpress press to the studio. Scholder who has worked since 1993 with Brimberry at Flatbed to create intaglio and relief editions, has been editioning his own relief etchings with the Vandercook for over twenty years. Scholder makes his letterpress plates at Flatbed after developing the image in his Dallas studio and in February 2014, Scholder’s printed Flora, the first Flatbed edition on the Vandercook since relocating to Flatbed.
Suzi Davidoff, who lives and works out of El Paso, Texas, has created many monotypes at Flatbed and two different intaglio series over the past eight years. In May and July of 2014, Davidoff worked with Mayrello and Blanchard for an intense total of nine days to create a new group of monotypes on 31” x 48” paper. Her painterly monotypes a miracles of layering of imagery. The resulting monotypes of this year’s collaboration are titled Garden Suite – May or Garden Suite – June depending on the dates of the collaboration.
New to Flatbed is San Antonio painter, Ricky Armendariz. Armendariz has been carving into paintings for some time, but recently started creating woodcut prints from similarily carved blocks. His imagery melds classic mythological subjects with Southwest interpretations. Almendariz’s Saturn and His Children was printed in a small edition of ten and was signed August 1, 2014.
Beginning in June and currently in development are the eight new color etchings of Texas birds by Frank X Tolbert2. A well-known Texas painter, Tolbert’s drawing style is perfectly matched with the etching techniques of soft ground and aquatint. His birds, drawn in the fiercely human way that only Tolbert can do, are all Texas birds. His images are printed with vibrant colors using multiple plates printed in registration. The series of eight is due for completion Spring 2015.
Michael McWillie is well known for his paintings featuring elegant whimsical animals and was commissioned to create light-hearted portraits of the George W. and Laura Bush’s Scottie dogs, Barnie and Miss Beazley. In 2001 and 2003, Michael created a monotype series about Scottish terriers at Flatbed, and this year he returned to continue work with the trace monotype process that works so well for his subject matter. Working with Veronica Ceci in the studio this September, Michael was created a new cycle of monotypes using chine collé for a colored background. His love for animals and music are foremost in the straight-forward compositions he crafts to communicate joie de vivre.
Tina Weitz, photographer and owner/director of Photo Méthode Gallery, has been creating photo-polymer gravures at Flatbed in her spare time. Hew new photo gravure was inspired by her experience in Hawaii. Tina, working with Mayrello and Blanchard, printed the image using colored chine collé technique to place the Hawaiian dwelling into a psychologically framed space beyond what the camera could image.