Our shop had some very good energy in it the past few days and we were all a little sad and a lot tired when Nicole headed back to Murray. It was one of the most intense and productive printing sessions in a long while. Starting on Sunday afternoon and finishing the printathon on Monday evening, resulting in an edition of 35, with a small hand full of printers proofs for Wende, Dani, Daniel, Pako, Brian, and Donna. Rolling Knob press is especially please to have one of Nicole's prints in its collection.

Declining Constraint is a four plate, six color intaglio print, filled with personal symbols, rich textures, and subtle references to Nicole's life, her losses, and obviously her passions. She discussed the developments in her work to many students and many different classes, including drawing, foundations, and ceramics.

Nicole presented two very impressive portfolios, one of her prints and another of her current and former students. Our students and the printmaking faculty were especially impressed to see the work that students were doing at Murray State. They were ambitious, large, and beautifully drawn and printed.

Here Nicole places one of the four plates on the press bed, the RED! plate. Wende was the master of that plate for most of the printing sessions. Nicole leaves the paper engaged so that the multiple plates register, and her template is a thin tympan with a plate-sized hole cut out to fit each subsequent plate into. There were only three registration issues, all caused by me (rats!)

Daniel had a session with the RED! plate as well when Wende and Dani got promoted to other plates. All had very rewarding experiences with the entire process. We're going to try to bring Nicole back next year for a special book making workshop, and Donna's paper making class this summer will be geared up for creating some very special papers for that experience.

See some of the past few posts for additional images from the past few days.

Thanks, Nicole.

Nicole Hand Printathon

Yesterday was a full day in the shop with a support group that inked and printed almost 40 impressions, four plates and six colors - that's 160 pulls through the press. This group was the last combination of printers on the last impression: Donna Stallard, Nicole Hand, Wende Cudmore, and Danielle (Dani) Maudlin.

Nicole gave an impromptu presentation to about 60 students during the day. Talking about her works, its processes and content.

At the beginning of the day, donna was the 'yellow' plate.

Arts and Letters Academic Advisor, Greg Roberts, stopped by the shop to meet Nicole and see the progress of print.

Nicole and Wende examine one of the first impressions of the day.

Check by later, there'll be a wrap-up of images and commentary.

Nicole is in the shop!

Nicole arrived today, and within a very short period of time pulled a beautiful proof. A four-plate color intaglio. The above image is one of Nicole's prints she created for the Vitamin I Portfolio from 2008. She will be in the shop through Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, from 1:30 - 3:00 and from 6:15 - 7:45, Nicole will show and discuss her portfolio of prints and the current project for Rolling Knob Press. If you can't make either of those presentations, please stop by anytime to see the progress.

NICOLE HAND VISITING ARTIST

This year's Rolling Knob Press artist, Nicole Hand, will be in the shop from Sunday, April 10 through Wednesday morning, April 13. She will be printing an edition for Rolling Knob of a multi plate color intaglio.

Nicole Hand is currently a Professor of Art at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky where she teaches printmaking, bookbinding and drawing. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in over 200 solo, invitational, and juried exhibitions. Recent exhibitions include Varied Voices, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, Delta National Print Exhibition, North America Print Biennial,Color Print USA, and Parkside National Small Print Exhibition. She has given lectures and workshops in over twenty venues including Atlanta Printmakers Studio, Arkansas State University, The University of Arizona, University of Texas at Arlington, Ohio University, University of South Dakota, Arkansas State University and The University of Kentucky, Lexington. The Cumberland Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee and The Heike Pickett Gallery, Lexington, Kentucky represents Nicole's work. She received her MFA in printmaking from the University of Miami, and a BFA from the University of South Dakota. Nicole lives in Almo, Kentucky with her husband Jim Bryant and daughter Ella.

We're excited to have Nicole with us this next week!

New Intaglio prints

The beginning printmaking class has been working on their first intaglio prints. Here are examples from our midterm critique.

Anna is exploring the theme of "home" in her work this semester. In this print she incorporated soft ground, aquatint, and chine colle.

Nick is visiting all the things he likes to do; it's a Nick world. In this print, he pushed his aquatints with lots of scraping and burnishing, and after inking the intaglio he did a surface roll over the plate.

Daniel and/or Frank is expanding the beauty of sound and movement in his work. Here he interpreted the scratchy sounds of DJing, even allowing the edges of his plate to become scratchy (intentionally).

David is looking at robotics and technology and it's impact on human beings. A cyborg skeleton with aquatint, roulette, and a surface roll yields an interesting interpretation.

Dani is looking within to explore self-portraiture. In this intaglio print she has chine colled the figure onto a thin decorative paper later mounted onto a piece of handmade paper.

All five of these print are well executed through a variety of processes, and represent strong first attempts at the intaglio process. Later in the semester we will all be creating another edition of prints for a theme-based exchange portfolio (Self-Portraits). Each participant will print an edition of 11, for 17 portfolios. Each portfolio will contain 10 random prints from the class. Extra credit will be awarded for the uniqueness and the craftsmanship of the portfolio containers.

I'll be back soon to show what the advanced group is up to.

Wild and Wooley Video

Brian Harper has posted a video of Rob's visit on his blog and shared it with me to post here. Enjoy.

Rob Wooley Day in the Printshop

Rob Wooley was our visiting artist in the print shop yesterday and he stayed busy from early morning until late in the evening. He discussed the directions of his recent work, and the explorations with a variety of materials, including exotic papers that he chine colles onto one-of-a-kind prints. His two demonstrations were very informative. It was great having him back in the shop.

We all gathered around to look at the portfolio of prints that Rob brought with him. The layering of paper that he's utilizing with his work creates some really beautiful images, subtle veils of color and texture like the print at the top adds an almost spiritualness to the images. There are no longer hands or figures or portraits in his images, or at least not that are immediately readable. But instead dense textures, passages of light, and movement of amorphic shapes. Pretty amazing things happening in his work in what seems like a relatively short time.

Here Rob demonstrates the application of a tusche wash on a zinc plate, pushing it around while it's fluidity allows. After it dried, he etched it in nitric acid. The particles of the tusche produced a rich and velvety aquatint.

We had some refreshments before Rob began his presentations. Miranda was all about it!