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t h e BOSTON pp rr ii nn tt mm aa kk ee rr ss newsletter Spring 2008 From Mesh Size to Megapixels: Silkscreen to Digital in Holland Robert Tomolillo On a recent trip to Holland I spent time with two silkscreen Zeger, located 25 miles north, has set up shop in a small corner printers who were comrades of mine at the Printshop in of his first floor studio in Ijmuiden. He recently purchased a Amsterdam. The Printshop, located on one of the major canals twelve color Canon 8100 digital printer. As a screen printer, I in Amsterdam, was at the center of Dutch art- facilitating all have seen Zeger perform surgeon-like stencil cutting when he manner of traditional printmaking techniques to artists the produced prints for op-artist Victor Vasarely. He’s worked on world over. Although the Printshop has gone the way of most manual and automatic screen presses and has suffered through workshops from the same era, some thirty years later printers the years when lacquer-based links were the only alternative. Zeger Reijers and Bernard Zeger is currently working Rykrok continued to practice with Dutch artist Rob their screen-printing craft, each Scholte who produces having navigated through the images that seem perfect for changing modes of consumer digital printing. Scholte is demands. Several years ago things participating in a thematic started to change: gone are the venue based on Rembrandt’s large screen tables, stores of Night Watch. He purchased fragile silk stretched over a vast an antique tapestry catalog of frames, and depicting the famous enumerable cans of ink that led painting and photographed to the sacred mixing area which the reversed side, exposing usually revealed an explosion of the threads and an colorful drips on the table or abstracted version of the floor. Both Bernard and Zeger composition. The finished have made a transition into piece will be enlarged to digital printing. some 12x15 feet. Artist Rob Scholte and printer Zeger Reijers, at Zeger’ s Ijmuiden studio. Bernard operates from his first Digital printing doesn’t floor studio near the Rembrandts Plein and occupies a fraction replace silkscreen, but it does possess many similarities. With of the previous silkscreen area. Now he types onto his computer the introduction of denser pigmented inks and the ability to screen and directs the three digital printers or Giclee printers to print on 100% rag paper, the process gains more and more perform his bidding...”Giclee”” he says is a dirty word in favor. The greatest advantage comes when generating an image, French. Verifiably, Giclee means to squirt, spit or spray. The storing and manipulating the print. No messy inks or cleanup. digital printer sends impulses to the nozzles, which then spray However, the origin of the print image and its purpose remain the ink onto the surface. Bernard prefers to use the name Piezo- issues yet to be resolved in the acceptance of the technique. graphique to describe what he does. He was busy printing a While print collectors and gallery owners continue to evaluate portfolio of Escher’s woodcuts, an edited selection of the Dutch digital printing, it will be the artist and printers who will master’s work to be marketed abroad. ultimately define the importance of the process. From the President C. David Thomas many other book lovers, will want on their shelves. If you haven’t ordered your copy yet, please do so soon. The sales continue to be It looks like we have made it through another old-fashioned New brisk and we plan to print only 1,000 copies. England winter. With all of the snow we have had, it reminds me of my childhood growing up in Maine. Now we can look forward This summer BP member Kim Fink will be attending the to the beautiful spring crocuses and magnolias- then the warm Anderson Ranch Arts Center workshop given by printmaker summer beach weather. Phyllis McGibbon. This has been made possible by a $1,000 scholarship given to The Boston Printmakers by the Anderson This year promises to be yet another highly productive one for the Ranch and an additional $500 scholarship from The Boston Boston Printmakers. Several major projects are in the works. These Printmakers. Kim’s name was selected from several other members include the recently completed trip to Viet Nam, the publication who applied for this scholarship. Congratulations Kim. We hope to and release of Sixty Years of be able to offer this scholarship North American Printmaking, again next year. the opening of our members’ exhibition Field Report at Our Small Print exhibition will Gordon College on March 8, open for the last time at the opening of the exhibition Gallery 297 in Bristol RI, on The Boston Printmakers May 11th. The opening is from Celebrating 60 Years at the 1:00 until 3:00 pm. If any of Boston Public Library on you are in the area, I urge you March 15 and a book signing to see the exhibition. This by David Acton on June 10th, exhibition has been traveling the sponsorship of another for the past five years to eight artist-in-residence at the Hanoi locations in the U.S. and Contemporary Art Center in Canada (see inside for list of Viet Nam and a new venues and dates). Thank you scholarship to the Anderson to all of our members who have Ranch Arts Center in loaned their work for such a Snowmass Village, Colorado. long time and to Board member Malgorzata From December 28th until Zurakowska for her hard work January 12th eighteen members in circulating this exhibition. of the Boston Printmakers traveled to Viet Nam (see article Several of us have been meeting by Susan MacDougall inside). with members of Rick It was a highly successful trip, Rawling’s design class at the which concluded with a series Art Institute of Boston to of printmaking workshops and freshen up our graphics. They exhibitions at the Hanoi have come up with some Contemporary Art Center and interesting ideas that will be a private gallery in Hanoi. All presented to the full board of were well attended and covered directors later this spring. If all extensively by the Vietnamese goes well, you will see a new press. I want to thank all of David Thomas, president of BP, and Tran Khanh Chuong, chair man of the and more contemporary look VFAA, exchange gifts those who came to Viet Nam in the fall newsletter. with me and generously donated their time and energy to make this exchange such a tremendous success. We have begun planning for our Biennial exhibition in 2009. We are very excited that Roberta Waddell, Curator of Prints at the New There have been several delays in completing the work on 60 Years York Public Library has agreed to be our juror. The exhibition will of North American Printmaking but it looks like we will make our again take place at the 808 Gallery at Boston University in spring deadline for the release of the book. Curator David Acton’s February-March 2009. Look for more specific information in our extensively researched essays and Christiane Corcelle-Lippeveld fall newsletter. stunning design make this a book that every printmaker, as well as THE BOSTON PRINTMAKERS SPRING 2008 2 MANHATTAN MGC offers a creative environment to exchange ideas, and provides its members numerous opportunities to show their work GRAPHICS CENTER in monthly exhibitions in our gallery. We have had exchange shows with printmaking studios in India, Poland and Scotland. MGC maintains a slide registry, and we also organize group portfolios. Meredith Mayer One of our shows, Portraits in Words and Images, was shown in the Harper Collins Gallery. Another, on 9/11, was acquired by the New In the city known as the epicenter of the art world, there are York Historical Society and the New York Public Library. surprisingly few studios catering to the needs of printmakers. Of them, The Manhattan Graphics Center draws perhaps the most Because of our dedicated volunteer staff, MGC is able to support heterogeneous, serious and loyal group of artists. Unique in its all- most of its activities through class tuition and studio rental, volunteer administration for twenty years, the Graphics Center is managing to keep fees low. With the help of annual grants from still run by its artists. (Although, we have recently added a part- foundations and the city, as well as individual gifts, we are able to time employee.) fulfill our mission and remain an enormously popular home away from home for New York City printmakers of all ages. Visit to Firestation Print Studio Ann McCall Printmaking is alive and well here in Australia, as evidenced by the large membership of the Australian Print Council and a quarterly journal called Imprint, devoted to the art. Artists’ books are popular; there are print competitions and master printers to do custom printing. Some commercial galleries are devoted exclusively to the sale of original prints. One has been handling my work for 20 years. Australia has become my home away from home. I am just finishing up a 6-week visit in Melbourne, Australia where I spent many hours in a workshop by the name of Firestation Print Studio. The old fire station has been perfectly renovated to suit the members’ needs, including 5-6 private studios which were at one time the fire-fighters’ bedrooms upstairs. The studio at Manhattan Graphics On the second floor of an old industrial printing building in Founded in 1992, Firestation provides classes open to the public in western Soho, MGC has houses three etching presses, three litho everything from work on a letter press, book-binding, life-drawing presses, an acid / aquatint room, dark room, silkscreen exposing to periodic workshops in Monotype with Sarah Amos.