The past two weeks have been rolling along with quite a bit going on. The fall semester starts just after Labor Day so plenty of planning and changes being made, but during this time I have been able to get quite a few items accomplished and added even more to the list. Just last week I ordered and received, within a few days, a embosser for adding my chop to editions. I ordered it through Fred Lake and have to say I found their customer service people great. I contacted them a few times with designs and questions to make sure that my money would not be wasted and they very quickly responded.
Long reach 2″ desk embosser from Fred Lake
Practice of embosser to check chop’s detail
As you can see its a great impression, the actual design is only 1″ in size where the embosser could have done close to 2″. In a previous attempt, I made a chop to size and it did not get a good impression, could be the style/company, but I was wary to try again and am extremely happy with what I have.
Also, I had a few more commissions for EPI for some large scale inkjet prints. One for the artist, Audrey Flack and another for the artist, Najee Dorsey. These were individual images for different projects, but in the next few months I will be posting about a larger collaboration between EPI and the UMD printmaking department with a somewhat predominant African-American Artist. When things are more solidified, I’ll post about it, but for now just wonder.
For those of you in the Maryland/DC area, September 18th there will be an opening at the Driskell Center for the first ever Robert Blackburn retrospective. It will feature about 90 works by Blackburn and some works by his contemporaries in print. Along with the exhibition, there will be a printmaking forum and print fair October 25th-26th that will have multiple talks/panels and a selection of print publishers from around the country showing and selling their prints. I add more information about this as it is put out.
This past Sunday I met with Stephen Lambert, the computer engineer I am working on a new collaboration with. We had a great talk and he has a solid idea in the direction he would like to explore. Stephen is interested in playing with using different algorithms to interpret source imagery as an AI system might through edge definition, multiple focal depths, etc. These newly sourced images would then be experimented with until we found a single or combination that worked well for a final creation. This is only the beginning stages of the work conceptually, but I am quite excited about what might come.
And I will be getting back the Intersecting Methods portfolio from Frogman’s Print Workshop this week with the intention of hopefully sending it back out within a few more weeks. I have put in an application for the portfolio for an exhibition in Raleigh, NC at the Visual Art Exchange. The exhibition is titled Science Fair and I contacted the organizers about my interest in showing the portfolio. They seemed quite interested and suggested the best way for me to enter it in the application process as they are only allowing people to send in two works for jurying. Fingers crossed.
Lastly, I have been invited to do a demonstration and presentation on laser engraved processes at the Pyramid Atlantic Book Arts Fair. This is a two-day event November 15th and 16th located in Silver Spring, MD with a fair showing the products and works of artists and publishers and demonstrations at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center. As part of my demonstration I will be showing a time-lapsed video of the laser engraver cutting into a piece of wood. Today I work on putting that together by cutting a new piece of oak that I received from a friend. I got a variety of wood samples from him, so I will be experimenting with it over the next few weeks to see what results I get from the different types.
Wood samples next to one of my favorite printmaking books.
User interface for the laser engraver
Camera over laser engraver documenting the process.
R&D Editions 