Podcasts and Blogs
Recently I discovered ‘A Small Voice‘, a wonderful podcast of photographers interviewed by Ben Smith. I’m a little late to the party when it comes to podcasts and I usually listen to BBC Radio or Spotify in the studio and the car. Ben’s from London, lives close to my part of the city and has that London-ness that is hard to describe but is what I miss so much. He’s also interviewed a few photographers that I used to know and print for back in the 1980s and 90s.
This blog never really went away or stopped, but it seems that plenty of others are springing back to life once again all over the place. I’ve always felt uncomfortable posting images and thoughts, however random or inconsequential, elsewhere and so I really don’t have much of a Facebook or Twitter presence any more. A story by Signal v Noise, which I wrote about a while back, summed it up nicely here.
Traditional blogs might have swung out of favor, as we all discovered the benefits of social media and aggregating platforms, but we think they’re about to swing back in style, as we all discover the real costs and problems brought by such centralization.
Ironically, as I write this, Instagram and Facebook (and many others) are down.
New Print Edition
It’s Memorial Day in the United States and the unofficial start to summer, so how better to celebrate than with a special print offer! It’s been raining and quite wet in Minnesota lately so the image is fitting.
Rain Storm and Church, Wisconsin has been hand-printed in an edition of just 10 prints on Rives BFK paper in beautiful Charbonnel ink. (Since starting to write this newsletter 2 have already been sold, so we’re down to just 8 now.)
Prints will be well packed and shipped USPS Priority Mail, so most buyers will receive their prints within 3 days. Once again, thanks for your support and interest in my work, it’s truly appreciated. Have a great summer!
Print Details
Title: Rain Storm and Church, Wisconsin
Printed: May 2019
Medium: Polymergravure
Paper: Rives BFK
Dimensions: 10 x 5.5″ image on 11 x 14” paper
Signature: Signed, numbered and dated
Edition Size: 10 numbered prints plus 2 proofs
The Process
Polymergravure is a contemporary alternative to the traditional copperplate gravure process and one I’ve been working with for 20 years now. More details about the process can be found on here.
Bill Jay Documentary
There’s a great documentary on the writer, photographer and curator Bill Jay, titled Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay. Until this week is was only screened at selected venues, and those were primarily in the UK, but it’s now available on YouTube. I’m only part way through, as I usually am with most things right now, but I can really relate to many of the people in it and status of photography as it was then, in the 1970s in the UK, having started a serious interest in photography around 1972.
Studio News
Spring is finally here in Minnesota, thankfully. I love the seasons but I’m as glad to see the back of all that snow and ice as everyone else.
Something else I’m thankful for is the variety of work I get to be involved with working with other artists. I’ve just finished printing two exhibitions as inkjet prints, both of which I’m really happy with, and now I’m currently working on projects that include albumen prints, salt prints, a platinum-palladium portfolio and an edition in polymergravure.
I love working one-on-one with photographers and I’m as happy making one print as I am a portfolio, an edition or a clamshell portfolio box to put it all in.
The Handmade Photograph
Recently Bostick and Sullivan, all round good people and who have supported practitioners working in the field of alternative and historical processes for decades now, had their first call for entries — The Handmade Photograph: Contemporary Photographers Working in Historic Processes.
Christopher James was the juror and I’m really pleased that not only did I have two prints accepted but that one was awarded an Honorable Mention!
The exhibition will be at the El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, in the Railyard Art District, June 7th – July 27th, 2019. The opening reception will be on June 14th 5 – 7pm.
El Museo Cultural
555 Camino de la Familia
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
Honorable Mention
Polymergravure, 4.25″ x 8.75″
Minnesota State Arts Board Grant
This year I’m one of the very grateful recipients of a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.
The grant will allow me to continue working on Otherworld, to make images around the state and print them in silver-gelatin. We’re so lucky to have such funding opportunities here in Minnesota.
Polymergravure Class
We’re also getting close to the end of an eight-week Continuing Education polymergravure class at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. This is always a fun class to teach and so rewarding, seeing the prints that are produced during that period.
Fortunately/unfortunately it’s usually oversubscribed, so check my website’s workshop page regularly for details of any upcoming classes at either MCAD or Highpoint Center for Printmaking, or sign up for my newsletter.
Aquatint Screens
These fine-micron stochastic screens, the ones I use for my work, my clients and in the workshops I teach, are now available on my website at a special introductory price until the summer. Used with photopolymer plates, they are available in three contrast resolutions, soft, medium and hard.
These screens have been shipped to print shops across the U.S. and to Scotland, England and Australia. If you’re a school or college, or run workshops in polymergravure, email me to enquire about the availability of test screens.
Available in sizes from 8″ x 10″ to 20″ x 28″ although larger sizes are available – prices on demand.
FilmNorth Exhibition
STATES OF MATTER — New work by Lisa Nebenzahl and Keith Taylor
Photographers Lisa Nebenzahl and Keith Taylor look at elemental components of the natural landscape, turning their cameras to land, water, and sky. These quiet investigations move in and out of abstraction, using light, scale, and perspective to describe the subtle surfaces of our environment.
I’ll be exhibiting some new work at FilmNorth in St. Paul, MN alongside my friend Lisa Nebenzahl. Lisa was awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board grant last year and spent several weeks at the studio with me making a series of diptychs in polymergravure.
Opening reception: Saturday, March 9, 2019, 5-8pm
Marsden/Gustafson Gallery at FilmNorth
The exhibition is free, accessible, and open to the public.
Gallery hours: Monday — Friday 10:30am – 5:30pm.
FilmNorth, 550 Vandalia Street, Suite 120, St. Paul, MN 55114.