Studio News

by | Mar 27, 2019 | Blog, Grant, News, Platinum, Polymergravure, Silver-Gelatin

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

Left
Temple of Apollo, Corinth, Greece
Platinum-palladium, 7″ x 7″
Honorable Mention
 
Right
Dust Storm, near Saguaro National Park, AZ
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.

B&W Magazine

by | Feb 16, 2019 | Blog, BW Magazine, Silver-Gelatin

BLACK & WHITE MAGAZINE

Several of my images are featured in the latest issue of Black & White magazine as part of its story on the Obsolete and Discontinued project that I was invited to be part of.

 

The paper I chose was Kodak Royal Bromesko, a paper that was available between 1962 and the late 1970s, so at best, it’s close to 40 years old. The image is from a series I have been working on titled Otherworld.

 

Thanks Debbie for sending me the magazine image!

Nigel Henderson

by | Aug 29, 2018 | Blog, London, Silver-Gelatin

© Nigel Henderson/Tate Gallery

 

Another of the small shows that I happened upon was one in the basement archives of Tate Britain showing the work of Nigel Henderson. The Tate holds his archive of approximately 3000 photographs, made between the late 1940s to the mid 1950s in Bethnal Green, around London’s East End and the jazz scene in Soho. I wasn’t familiar with his work before, but these were beautiful.

Letter from Eduardo Paolozzi to Nigel Henderson
— 20 September 1949

 

In this letter Paolozzi details the photographic enlarger that he would bring back from Paris as a gift for Henderson. (No way around the shadow, I’m afraid.)

The Great Plains Project

by | Dec 8, 2017 | Blog, Boxes, Silver-Gelatin

I’m currently in the middle of a great project for a local artist, Peter Latner, (a photographer who still works with medium and large format film) as part of his Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant that he received.

 

The project will involve an small edition of clamshell cases that each hold 58 gelatin-silver prints hand-printed by Peter, which are stunningly beautiful. I’m debossing 4-ply Museum board and dry-mounting the prints into the resulting plate mark. There will also be a title page, statement and colophon. Once I’ve mounted the prints and printed the text sheets I’ll have a better idea of the exact depth required, then I can start making the cases. That number of mounted prints will result in a nice, substantial case that’s about 4.5” deep. I’m going to try and post more images of the production as we progress over the next few weeks!

 

DSF0180

Just a small section of 300 sheets of Museum board.

 

DSF0203

A stack of prints ready for dry-mounting.

 

DSF0196

Detail of the debossing with space for numbering.

 

DSF0215

It’s a start…

 

The Badlands, SD

by | Nov 11, 2017 | Badlands, Blog, Film, Silver-Gelatin

I’m slowly working my way through processing the film from a recent short trip to the Badlands of South Dakota. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of visiting there.

 

These are scans from the film originals which were made on Ilford Delta 400 with the Rolleiflex 3.5F and the Mamiya 6 and processed in PMK Pyro. Eventually I’ll get in the darkroom to make gelatin-silver prints from them but I often find it easier and cheaper to scan the film and to edit them in Photoshop, just to give me an idea of how to print them.