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printmaking is awesome. period.

Last Thursday Megan and I went to see and hear Kiki Smith talk at the High Museum. It was really great… Instead of just being Kiki speaking about her work and the exhibit she has at the High, there was a panel of her, Valerie Hammond(a-m-a-z-i-n-g artist I learned about that night), and Robert Brown(artist and printmaking instructor at SCAD.) The talk was all about printmaking, and the nature of making prints. Lovely and inspiring. I love how the communal aspect of printmaking was brought up again and again. Valerie kept bringing up “photocopy art”  quite a few times which of course made my heart soft as I have a fondness for the photocopy myself. And Valerie and Kiki kept speaking of etchings, which is also my favorite of printmaking processes…so I was in heaven.

Here is a very tiny scribble that actually isn’t great but there is something I like about it enough to share it. We saw Kiki from this angle throughout the talk, and she is very animated with her hands… and had some stylish shoes. The drawing looks like she’s casting a spell.

this first month of this year finds me: deciding to devote more time to posting on this blog, moving through darkness picking up pieces and fragments and respecting what they are by putting them to paper, Eyvind Kang, pulled towards the printmaking arts more than ever—particularly etching processes, William Blake, watching Freaks and Geeks with my lady, Madlib, Illuminated Manuscripts, putting work into curating a group printmaking show at Kibbee Gallery in April, drawing and looking at leaves…

 

This was also done as part of the Living Walls Conference… It is located at 1519 Norman Berry Rd, East Point, GA 30344. (That is the Dairy Queen right next to the bridge that the piece is on.) Hope some of you get a chance to see it in person… … … A kind man named Michael hung out during the final stages of putting it up. We talked a bit afterwards (he took this picture). He said something that any person that puts work on the street wants to hear (I would think)… that he felt that now the artwork was also his… and part of the community. (since he lived a couple blocks away from where I put this.) …Very moving to me…

 

This is my second graphic design job for the year. I was asked by Streetela (http://www.streetela.com/), an “urban art platform” located in Atlanta, to do a design that will be reproduced on a tote bag and t-shirt… this is what spilled out of me. This will most likely be my last design job for a while…

BurnAway  (burnaway.org), a local Atlanta non-profit organization dedicated to the arts, asked me to do a design to be screenprinted on a canvas bag to be given away at an upcoming BurnAway funraiser on Feb18th. (I dont know where it is being held yet) This is the design… I was really happy to use my drawing of Evelyn in a “design” oriented piece. I am a big fan of graphic design, as I find myself always coming back to the work of  graphic artists Tadanori Yokoo and Julian House quite often. I also get to design a t-shirt soon for an Atlanta based company, Streetela, very soon. So, I am getting my graphic design fix on. Yes!

This is the slightly unfinished head portion of the life size figure drawing I just completed that you can see at the “My Sweet Sweet…” Opening Reception at Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott College. This Thursday, Feb. 3, 6-9pm. Come on out if you can make it!!