Quarterly noise report, self-initiated projects + William Blake 36 editions

On Thursday I ran into Ke over at FHE and talked to him about the next few projects coming up. The James Sienna reverse wood-cut will run not as a wood block, but with a different relief process, once the proof is approved. I asked him about the possibility of burning a plate and running some of my own poster prints I have been working on :


... for the Quarterly noise report this month. The design is a work in progress but I think it will look good when we run it on the press, black, nothing fancy. Maybe print this on colored paper. I made this in illustrator, and I have little experience with the program, but this was a good exercise, just simple layout and type-setting.

I have a few other projects I want to work on like the favorite record prints series, a conceptual piece, will be a series of relief prints made from my favorite records. Want to make about 10 or so different prints. Document the process and hang the work as an installation. Maybe continue with the series and do cassettes, vhs, cds, etc... The idea is to exploit old technologies, ruin them, then make a print of them, black ink, which tells the viewer something is lacking. Maybe then digitally photograph the prints? Commenting on reproductions and originals, does it matter which is superior... no.

A project that I mentioned earlier, Songs of Innocence and Experience is the job Dennis Ahearn is working on for FHE in collaboration with Michael Phillips, who is a William Blake expert. The process is almost exactly the same as the process from the early 1800's, which looks a little like this image.
But the ink is a burnt umber. There will be 36 editions. The trick is to replicate the 1790's approach to printing these, down to the imitation 1790's hand made paper, the amount of embossing and beveling as a result of printing is fine tuned, the application of ink to the plate is also interesting and quite particular; they did not have rollers back then to apply the ink so a dabbling technique was discovered by Phillips, and Ahearn is laboring away at as I type this.

Another project going on is the video work I am doing for Pat Greene, which is a video installation showing all month at the Maitland Art Center called RS:21. I helped Pat edit the video and burn the DVD. I will doing more collaborations with Pat, working on my own school projects and prints, and drawing for DII class.
Till then.

Day 2 Start blog, James Sienna Print, Screenprinting

"We Print Stuff," was the old Photoscan mantra mixed with the smell of ink, paint thinner, emulsion and BO. Or something to that extent. I met up with Ke and Larry down at FHE after not seeing them around the VAB. Rode out to the studio and started to learn about the trials and tribulations of finicky presses and even finickier ex-wives. A laugh was shared, making headway as the intern. So, the word is the James Sienna ( an artist in residence at the Atlantic Center) print job started as a drawing and now exists as kind of a "reverse woodcut". I will hopefully provide photos soon, but just imagine building up a piece with wood and then printing it out on paper. Looks like a numbered maze/sudoko in black and red ink.

We screened some more of the poetry book proofs, matched the colors, and tried to nail the registration. I talked to Larry about monoprints. Will try to make some this summer.

Day 1 Schedule, Paperwork, Screenprinting, Library, Drawing etc...

Just as the title suggests, this is my first day at Flying Horse Editions. By the way if you are wondering, FHE is the UCF run fine-art print studio and my role here is to do "labor" as well as find some sort of rewarding experience out of the internship for 3 hours of upper-level college credit. So far, I have laid out my schedule: T/Th 1:30-5 May 18-Aug 14. I completed the necessary paperwork and also submitted my letter of intent:

I have prior print experience from Great Graphics Photoscan. And I have friends who run this totally great shop called Seizure Palace in Portland. I have gleaned so far that I will be refurbishing some equipment and helping to get ready for the move of the studio to its new downtown location.

There are a few projects going on right now at FHE. One of which includes a book of poetry, and another is a William Blake book project. The poetry book is a collaboration with a poet and an artist and FHE as the screenprinter. The work mostly incudes color matching the paint sheets, because when the poet and artist were conceptualizing this project they were throwing down paint swatches, going back and forth and playing off eachother. The prints will be sent off and have to be accurate or the whole idea won't work. The Blake project was all specked out on the wall of the print studio and I am not too sure of what is happening with that one.

I gripped some books from the library to help with this internship. One is an older book on printmaking which I started reading. It leaves a lot of room in its definition of printmaking and allows for "monoprints" or prints which are only run once. Sometimes these are deemed drawings, eitherway I appreciate the authors loose take on this. Another is the the classic Experimental Drawing. I want to work on some drawing projects in my downtime and build up my portfolio. I plan on borrowing a few more drawing books this semester, and I hope to make prints of a few of my drawings with access to the equipment at FHE. I also have some other texts checked out on Adobe programs that I need to re-check out, which reminds me...