Ready Set Go ... Artomatic 2012

The walls are painted, the pictures framed and hung, the name is in place. All that remains is to go and enjoy the shows. Artomatic 2012 is billed as a thousand or more artists in one Crystal City retired office building running May 18th through June 23rd and this year's Artomatic is using about 8 floors of an 11 story building to display art of all sorts.

I was so excited last weekend when Keith and I finished hanging, painting, lettering our displays that I began looking around to pack up and I began visiting with other artists in various stages of completion. So excited I forgot to take photos of our finished installations. I have a few to share from Keith who was trying to get pictures casually as I rambled on with my roommate Beth and neighbor Kathrine who were both finishing up.
The opening is tonight and some sources say there are only 500 visual artists this year and about that many again performers and other types of art events. It is always exciting to have a newly painted wall full of my artworks to share in the joy with so many other artists is worth any pain and cost of doing this event. Tonight marks my fourth time as an Artomatic artist in the past 12 years.

central part of my exhibition display

The grand opening is tonight 6:00 PM to 1:00AM at 1851 South Bell Street Arlington, Virginia about a block from Crystal City Metro-rail station. My work is on the 2nd floor in space 0121. It is in a room at the north west corner of the building. Keith Stanley is near by also on the 2nd floor in an open room spread out on the floor. Directions are listed here on the Artomatic.org website http://www.artomatic.org/visit/directions

Keith pulling off electrical waste to prepare his wall.

Beth hanging her papers on the dark blue wall

Soon as my work is done greeting guests I will be touring and photographing my favorites at Artomatic 2012 to share with you readers who are so far away that you can't come see for yourselves.

Art in the Burg day

I was up before the sun and off to Middleburg, Virgnia by 7:25AM on my art sale day in Piedmont horse country. The sky clouded over on the hour and fifteen minute drive but I arrived ahead of schedule and got started quickly setting up my area. I had 12 vertical prints and 10 horizontal prints to hang in rows on wooden easels. I also had to lay out my table and get ready for visitors and meet the other artists. I got so wrapped up in the hanging and visiting I forgot to shoot my display when I finished setting it up later I snagged a few shots while I had a few minutes of quiet time. In the end it was over before I expected and easy to break down thanks to the great space and the great team hosting the show. We enjoyed conversation, art sharing, some sales, vegetable stew and cheese with crackers cookies and special thanks to my new art pal Gail Guirreri-Maslyk for a delicious  cup of coffee! She needed one and I wanted one, and so she went to the grocery store and bought the fixings then made us a pot! It was just perfectly brewed and enjoyed with some sugary treats I never eat anymore.

Chris, Peter, Tom and Gail 

 parish house Peter Wood staked out the front door to sell his rusty metal creations and fill the guest book with contacts 

My favorite of Peter's rusty metal sculptures. 

Our day was busy and visitors came and lingered and enjoyed looking and many buying some new art works. I was showing my new series of flower sketches and prints for the first time and also my hand bound books. I also took a few folding book prints from the old days in Artomat® that always attract gift buyers or people who need something small to delight. I was happy to see my pal Judith from West Virginia for the first time since 2007 and meet her buddies one of whom is also a graduate of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn NY were I studied so many years ago. I even had a visitor from my gang of sketch crawl friends drove out from Reston. It was a perfect day even if the sky was threatening rain on and off all day. We managed to stay dry most of the day in our lovely parish house great room meeting hall. The carpenter who built our easels did a fantastic job and they worked better than anything I have used to hang and display art in a room where you can not put nails in the walls. So I am very happy today if a little tired. Thanks to everyone who made yesterday possible and a handsome success for my new works. For a first time event it was very good and we all were excited at the prospect of a return next year. I now look forward to reorganizing my prints and sketches for the next installation in Crystal City Arlington, Virginia across the river from DC at Artomatic 2012.

Jim the painter with two visitors, Jason Alexander the potter and wife Maria who are talking to a third visitor (left to right)

My book/portfolio table and display easel, after 6 prints in frames sold. 

ARTOMATIC 2012 this is my wall on the second floor of 11 stories of office building, soon to be painted and filled with flowering sketches! 

Lunch with Kermit

Today I had the privilege of going to meet my friend artist Kermit Berg for a preview of his new exhibition at Washington DC's  Gallery Plan B on 14th St. at Q St. NW and going to lunch to catch up on some of what I have been missing since he moved to the west coast a couple years ago.

Kermit is a fine artist who uses Adobe photo-shop and digital photographs and manipulates them a lot to create many layered collages of urban scenes. He was the first person I knew who embraced the computer as a tool for making prints and his art. This show is focused on a trip to Japan about 18 months ago. They are layers of office building reflections in dark windows and lights. There are what looks to be airbrushed graffiti like lines and dots Incorporated into the layers but honestly it is nearly impossible to label them with any certainty one thing or the other. I love Kermit's work because it is so details without showing all the hours of work he puts into creating the final prints. He is the sweetest Midwestern guy who is fluent in German and he spends a lot of time in one of my favorite places, Berlin, Germany. I met him in a Washington Cafe because he was reading a German newspaper one day back in the 1990's and we hit it off as art pals right away.

Tom at gallery plan b 

Today he told me a little about the show and introduced me to Tom who is taking care of the gallery this afternoon. We liked him in his bright blue fleece jacket sitting at the desk in front of one of Kermit's Tokyo prints. The colors were well balanced...
We went to lunch in a little Crepe restaurant on 14th St. my friend Tom Palmer introduced me to a few months ago and had delicious crepes filled with mushrooms cheese and avocado.  Kermit's two person show is opening Saturday evening 6-8:00 PM, I plan to attend with Keith before we rush home to do our last minute packing for our next trip. Mom and her best pal Mildred are taking us down to Williamsburg, Virginia  with plans to visit Richmond's Fine Arts Museum one day next week in addition to all the cool stuff there is to see in Colonial W'burg and the discount shopping. I am looking forward to being in the Colonial village again. Today I had my sketch book and camera on my trip downtown on metro and walking and here a few things I wanted to share:

sailor in uniform napping on the metro

delightful colors on a home on Wallack St. NW 

detail of Wallack St. NW home

coleus on Wallack St. NW

10-21-11 morning sketch of begonia in the studio

quilt in the hoop getting stitched together 

I like the way the patterns look up close

busy weekend delights

nighttime photographer Keith in the studio bent over his tripod

My weekend began making photos from all the great autumn leaves in the neighborhood. Keith had ikebana arrangements and flowers going on everywhere. I have lots of colorful photos to share after a walk during peak coloration of our fall leaves Saturday afternoon. 
Sunday afternoon, I attended a talk by Lee Newman an artist who's prints I admire very much. I was so happy he brought all his tools to 'show and tell' us about his process of making prints. I asked a lot of questions and learned about a few things I hadn't known. Today I got to work on my own new tree print right after my morning ritual of journal writing and a small sketch in my pocket book. During the talk Lee Newman gave us permission to mess with the marks on the etching plates and keep exploring the marks effect until I am delighted by something in the print. Great advice from a master printer which I have heard before but this time with examples of how I might proceed.  I think I feel emboldened but hope I can pull something new out of my etchings.

some of our colorful flowers in the studio 

Cor shows off his new Frederick print in Rotterdam.

 Monday morning, I received a picture portrait showing one of my new prints, "Kindly Light Lily" that I sent to my artist buddy Cor Windhouwer in Rotterdam. We write emails and make art together through the Internet since about 2001. 


The Urban Sketchers DC group is now up and waiting on us to post some drawing articles. I am wondering where to start my sketch posts. But in the mean time I wanted to share some of these great autumn colors before it all gets so stale that I have to move on to pumpkin pie and stuffed turkeys. I hope your weekend was full of new discoveries and good autumn fun.

willow oak's golden leaves in the afternoon sun

ginko are just beginning to go golden

golden maple across the street from red oak leaves 

this maple tree's leaves look like a red lollipops 

 Japanese Maple, so red it looked like candy

orange to yellow cherry leaves 

orange maple leaves one of my favorite colors of leaves

 sycamore is beautiful against the blue sky

Brookland elementary school oak currently my favorite local tree 

Virginia creeper vine turns red slowly in the shade

red oak & wood thrush state tree and bird of Washington, DC

printing solo

press bed with news print and a metal plate

Yesterday, I was very excited to use the print shop at Pyramid Atlantic Studios for the first time as a solo printer. I finally managed to get certified to use the press, the chemicals and all equipment in their studio alone. I wanted to do this as much as ten years ago but it didn't seem possible then. Now, thanks to a lot of people, but mostly Keith, I began with a refresher course in how to make the plates and print this year. Then I went to twice monthly open print shop nights and printed with a monitor to build up my experience. I have been building up volunteer hours making book boxes for the Moving Parts project for over a year now to get time to redeem in the shop. Thanks to Kelly O'Brien for inviting me to volunteer on that project.  Last week after talking with the print shop manager Jake Muirhead he gave me his approval to go ahead and use the intaglio print studio solo.
It was very exciting to actually get in there and set up and get to work on my own. I got some materials from the Art supply across the street. Thanks to my sister Jenny for the gift certificate that bought these tools and materials I had been without. Now I am making setting up to begin printing them on my own. I set my fine print paper to soaking in a tray of water. I turned on the hot plate to warm my etching plate and covered it with newspaper to protect it from ink. Then I plugged in the lights over the inking area. I dug out my plates, ink and fresh ink wiping tarleton, a sort of stiff cheese cloth used just for etchings.
Finally I set up my iPod with the portable mini speakers to John Lenon first to hear my newest songs Yoko released last week for his 70th Birthday. I was on a roll. I had my clean news print ready and damp print paper.

printing press with blankets rolled back

On the press I placed three felt blankets I selected to pad the steel roller. I set the press bed pressure with a clean plate sandwiched between blankets and press rollers. I chose a pressure toward to lighter side of what felt right on the bed to begin printing.

tarletons, newsprint & daubers in front of the large hot plate for metal plate warming 

Suddenly I remembered that the Plexiglas plate I was preparing to print did not need to be heated! Swiftly removed it from the hot plate and set to work inking it up. Only the metal plates get heated to soften the ink. The Plexiglas plate I was using started to warp on the hot plate so that was clearly a first mistake.
The black oil based ink is smeared all over the top of the plate almost like icing on a cake only much stickier and thicker than icing. Then slowly with the stiff tarleton I wiped off the ink leaving the lines I made in the plate full of black ink and the surface almost clean.
Once the edges were wiped clean I take it to the press and set it on news print then cover it with a sheet of blotted damp print paper and that gets covered with another new print sheet and the blankets. Then comes the fun of rolling them all slowly through the press. At last on the other side the print will be revealed by pulling up the blankets and peeling the damp print off the plate. This is when I see the results. Not bad for the first one moving on to the next repeat the inking, wiping and place paper then roll it again and the next was a little lighter?  I change how much ink I wipe off in the next few prints. Trying to get it darker. I stop for a break and show someone the results who passed by discussing how I wish it were darker. Then suddenly I thought to myself maybe I need to add more pressure? I ink up the plate again and get it ready to pull through the press then turn the screws three notches tighter or a quarter turn on the dial at opposite ends of the roller. Run it through and voila, I get a darker print! Wow I solved my first problem but not as soon as I had wished. So much for not having an expert around but next time I will know to try tightening the screws sooner.

I ended up printing 9 prints in three hours, more than I expected but not all as good as I would like. Clearly I need more practice which is why I wanted to get in there to print alone. I collected my prints from the drying rack and sandwiched them in a folder to take home and press flat to dry. Then I began the important process of cleaning up the studio. It is paramount to leave it clean so it will be ready for the next artist to begin with a clean studio and not get surprised by ink on a surface that will ruin some expensive paper or the clothes of unsuspecting visitors.  Everything cleaned and put away all the tools returned to their proper places, the lights and hot plate turned off. I came home very happy to have completed my day of print making solo at Pyramid Atlantic studios! Now I hope to go back and print and burn my new plates in the acid about once a week so I can build up a portfolio of etchings. Thanks to everyone who supports my creative printmaking.
Next up I will be working at home on the metal plates I covered in hard ground yesterday readied to begin drawing new lines that I will etch in the acid the next time I visit the Pyramid Atlantic Studios to work solo or otherwise.

Printmaking II

"Vintage Roses" on a zinc plate using a combination of line etching and dry point to add richer blacks to the back ground.

"Kindly Light" is a spider day lily and leaves, made by dry point scratched on a Plexiglas plate.

" Wooden Chair" my first "line etching" intaglio print. It was completed with only one dip in the acid which I blogged about back in May here.

Sorry it took so long to share a scanned image.

"Nasturtiums" a first proof print of dry point on copper plate.

Recently, I had a second class with Jake Muirhead at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center he taught another Intaglio technique called dry point in which we scratched drawings on copper and Plexiglas plates. We used a sharp needle in a wooden holder to make lines with a burr that would catch some ink. Then we proof printed our plates the same way as the line etchings. After you see your first proof print one gets to decide if the image is complete or if you want to add more lines. I usually want to add more and watching Jake work on his own plates is inspiring because he works over his plates a lot and gets some beautiful passages of ink in his prints. It is very hard to describe without a print in hand to show you but the beauty in Intaglio prints is all about the various lines and tones that the inks leave on the page transfered from the plate. Jake's prints online show some of that rich deep print quality but you really need to see one in person up close to enjoy all that velvety ink texture. Intaglio print making is a drawing you make on a plate and each change you make to the plate is only clear after you run a proof print to see what your marks have done. It can be a lot of fun, if you like this process and it can be a lot of torture, if you are uncertain what you want in your print at the end. I enjoy the process and sometimes the torture; in some ways it is the experience of drawing amplified and in very slow motion.

Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center recently rented gallery space to Washington Printmakers Gallery a collective of printmakers who always have etchings and dry points on display upstairs above the studios. I visit there regularly to get inspired by many local artists. It is an intimate gallery that is very friendly and full of all kinds of prints. Your comments are always welcome to encourage my endeavors, to tell us about prints you have seen or just to say hello.