#printerviews

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Since we've been spending some time UK-side this month, today's printerview is appropriately with a Londoner. Ruta Daubure is an illustrator, printmaker and it seems maker of amazing-looking-miniature-set-designs that are featured above too. She has a beautiful aesthestic that translates to all her varied projects. Thanks Ruta!

When did you start printing?

The first introduction to printing making I had when I was around 16. There was etching, lithography and lino cut lessons at the art high school I attended in Latvia. But those were only the basics and I wasn't really experimenting much with it up until I got into Camberwell College of Art. Only then I started to learn more about lithography - stone and zinc plate and experiment more with it. I guess the soil in college is much more relaxed and open for mistakes and fails and that really helped me in doing printmaking without anyone watching over my shoulder. I really do enjoy the process of being on my own in print room and just printing, when there is just me and print.

Where do you make your work? Home studio? Shared print space?

I am quite a lone worker as I do get distracted by things and people very easily. At the moment I work in my room which is also my studio at my house.  Me and my house mates also happen to have a lovely conservatoire downstairs that we use as a work space, so there is plenty of room to go to change the setting if I get fed up with sitting at my own desk. Though I like to work in silence and on my own, I also like occasional chat and coffee break, which is great when you have a studio. 

Who would you love to collaborate with?

Most of my peers are illustrators and do printmaking, recently we participated in Pick Me Up 2014 as a collective Olio Studio, which was really a great fun! I always like to see what people been up to especially from more distant disciplines from illustration. It would be really hard and super ambitious to name anyone specific, but I would love to collaborate with people working in such disciplines as set design and sculpture. I find it great to do things that I don't feel comfortable with and possibly may never succeed at them but by learning form great people and just simply seeing things from even slightly different angle makes possibly a big difference when I go back to doing an illustration. 

Where are some of your favorite spaces in London for contemporary art or design?

I am actually not going to see that much contemporary art, it is more sort of an eclectic mix of different stuff I like to go and see. Also more and more I find it much more engaging and inspiring to see things that do not literally concern illustration or printmaking and maybe even has nothing to do with it. Personally,  things like a visit to Science Museum or seeing a ballet or opera at Royal Opera House is much more what I am after.I mean some of the set designers commissioned by ROH are just amazing artists, it is good to keep an eye on what they have on offer once you're in London. And I guess there are always the big blockbusters at Tate or RA and in most cases they really are worth seeing.

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Our newest printerview is with Colorado Springs-based printer Hailey Walsh. We were most taken with Hailey's series of photopolymer plates titled "Schema I and II", a few of which are included above. Hailey kindly answered our questions below:

When did you start printing?

My mom is an artist so I have grown up always making art. It wasn’t until I discovered printmaking, however, that I felt like I had discovered an art form I was truly passionate about.

When I was looking at schools, I visited Colorado College as a prospective student and sat in on a book making class in the Press. It was love at first sight. My early obsession with letterpress eventually led to a love of all different forms of printmaking. I’ve been printing year round ever since.

Where do you make your work? Home studio? Shared print space?

At school, I have an incredible third floor studio space with an amazing view of the mountains. Most of my time however, is spent in the basement printshop. I love the community aspect of printmaking, and I enjoy working among the energy of other students and professors most. 

When home for the summer, I have worked internships at places such as the Lower East Side Printshop and the Printmaking Center of New Jersey, where I have access to the studio in exchange for work hours. I also have a Utrecht Baby Press, which is this tiny little thing with a 7 x 12 “ press bed. Whenever I am home and feeling withdrawal from the printshop I can crank out a few post card sized prints on that baby. 

Who would you love to collaborate with?

I’ve worked with a lot of the same students during my four years of undergraduate and have really loved watching their work develop and have become really attached to so much of it. All of the students in my program are so talented and every day I see someone different making something that I wish I could pop into one of my prints. It is a really inspiring group of people to work among and everyone is so supportive that a lot of days feel almost like one giant collaboration. 

In terms of professional artists, is it too lofty to ask Michael Heizer if he wouldn’t mind if I made photopolymer prints of his sculptures?

Where are some of your favorite spaces in Colorado Springs and beyond  for contemporary art or design?

UCCS’ Galleries of Contemporary Art (Goca) hosts really exciting events and openings regularly and it is a great chance to see what other local artists are up to. The Denver Art Museum is also always a wonderful spot for inspiration.

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We've got another Brit on deck for this week's printerview, this time from Edinburgh-based artist and illustrator Dominic Kesterton. Dominic is able to lend a huge amount of character to his designs, even when they're purely abstract. His prints and zines are also available through his online store. Have a read!

When did you start printing?

In my second year at university I stared screen printing and the year after that me and my flatmates bought a Risograph duplicator also.

  Where do you make your work? Home studio? Shared print space?

Home studio at the moment. I only really use an A3 sketchbook and some pens at the moment so I can do my thing anywhere really. I still need to find somewhere I can screenprint. I'd like to get back into a studio soon.

  Who would you love to collaborate with?

Hieronymus Bosch

Where are some of your favorite spaces in Edinburgh for contemporary art or design?

I'm floating at the moment so I'll answer this for Edinburgh where i've spent the last 4 years. Analogue books is good for zines and art books. Superclub Gallery has good exhibitions.

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Today we've got a doozy on the printerview front. British-born, Sydney-based artist and printer Kate Banazi kindly answered a few of our print-centric questions. Kate is quite the inspiration, she has collaborated with the likes of Aussie fashion dynamo Dion Lee, translate her unique print style and design aesthetic to illustration jobs and also has a brilliant online store where you can nab some of her fantastic work. Have a look if you please...

When did you start printing?

I very first tried screenprinting in the textiles department at the art college I want to, but for some reason it didn't really grab me at the time. A few years later my friend, Kate Gibb, asked me to assist her and I loved everything about it. Every day I go to print I remember very happy times with her so for me it's not just about the career that its become but also a hark back to a very special time in my life. She taught me so much and without her, I wouldn't be in the place I am now. 

Where do you make your work? Home studio? Shared print space?

I have a beautiful studio in a massive warehouse space in Rosebery, Sydney which is part of the furniture store, Koskela. I share my space with the textile designer Joanna Fowles and the illustrator James Gulliver Hancock.

Who would you love to collaborate with?

For me, ideal collaboration are the ones where it is really a visible conversation between two different disciplines. There are a few potential collaborators that I'd love to work with, but really I love the surprise of an idea coming to fruition after an unexpected meeting or introduction, no pressure just a mutual admiration of each others work and discipline..."Let's do something together!"

Where are some of your favorite spaces in Sydney for contemporary art or design?

Sydney has a thriving arts culture with the larger public galleries through to private an artist run spaces. The range is so diverse that it would be hard to pick a favorite. I do love taking a day off work in the week, a walk through the Botanical Gardens to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and spending the day filling a sketchbook with flora and fauna, people watching and inspirational art. 

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Chris Turnham is a super talented illustrator and printmaker based out of Los Angeles. He has found a way to seamlessly move between illustrative and print-based mediums and we recently had him answer a few questions for our latest printerview!

When did you start printing?

For years I’ve created my own giclee prints and had some screenprints printed by a studio. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I took my first screenprinting class that I started making my own screenprints.

Where do you make your work?

I paint all my illustrations digitally in my apartment. When it comes time to sceenprint I go to Otis College of Art and Design in LA — they have a great print lab and continuing education screenprinting class that I repeatedly take to use the space!

Who would you love to collaborate with?

I’d love to collaborate with the ghost of Miroslav Sasek — his “This Is” books are a huge inspiration.

What are some of favorite places in LA for art and design?

The LACMA always has great exhibitions of modern art and the MOCA downtown continues to bring interesting and experimental art shows and events to a wider audience.

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Print Club first became aware of Jeffrey Dell's astounding screenprints at the IPCNY New Prints Autumn 2013 show. We recently did a short interview with Jeffrey who teaches at Texas State University, take a wee look:

When did you start printing?

I started in 1991, with a class at Hamline University studying with Leonardo Lasansky. There have been many other important instructors since then, like Rosalind Richards at Bucknell University and Jose Rodriguez at the University of New Mexico. People I've known in Venice at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica like Matilde Dolcetti have also been influential for me. Since you're from Boston, I'll mention a time that Michael Mazur helped me make an important decision to return to the States from Venice. 

For many years my prints were almost exclusively intaglio, and of that I almost only did drypoint and mezzotint. It's direct and fast, sort of. For the last six years or so I've been doing nearly exclusively screen printing. One Christmas break I was simply sick of what I was doing with copper plates and wanted to play with screen for a while, and I haven't really turned back from that yet.

  What's the hardest thing about teaching printmaking to first-timers?

That's a tough question. I think one of the most difficult things to teach in printmaking at any level is that the best solution is not necessarily the one that is technically most complex, nor the most difficult. I think we need to help people think creatively about how to achieve results and find solutions. Sometimes that can involve solving fairly complex technical problems, but often those technical problems subsequently become the sole criteria for whether a project is valued. This is a real pitfall with printmaking, and it alienates us from the other art worlds. 

  Who would you love to collaborate with?

That's tough, but I might say Rafael Rozendaal, or Tauba Auerbach. They're both doing things with graphics that are very fresh and not exclusive to known print styles. Another that I would have to mention is the collaborative duo Sonnenzimmer in Chicago, for the same reason.

  Where are some of your favorite spaces in San Marcos/Austin/San Antonio or elsewhere in Texas for contemporary art or design?

Well, in San Marcos the only real resource is Texas State University, where I teach, and it's an amazing program with great exhibitions. We have top notch colleagues and wonderful students. In Austin, Flatbed Press is a real leader in both print and contemporary work. Slugfest Printmaking Workshop, also in Austin, has world class print shows and good personality. Canopy, a new contemporary art space in Austin, has been opened by the Big Medium people, and they're the ones who have, over the years, started the East Austin Studio Tour and the Texas Biennial, so they're real movers and shakers. For Austin galleries, Art Palace Gallery really changed the dialogue and has since moved to Houston. Champion Contemporary also helped raise the conversation, and Tiny Park Gallery is doing great programing. The Contemporary Austin, formerly both Arthouse at the Jones Center and the Austin Museum of Art, has a new director and has a lot of momentum and energy. The Blanton Museum of Art at UT Austin has a really amazing collection of prints, one of the best in the world. Their former director Jonathan Bober was able to acquire the print collection of Leo Steinberg, and the current director, Francesca Consagra, is doing really good programing and is collaborating well with the larger community.

Central Texas is really a great place for print, whether from the above mentioned or from the fact that the music scene is so big and it's one of two cities to annually host Flatstock gig poster convention. That's a different community than contemporary art, but there's lots of cross over.