Core Classes are tried and true class offered on a regular rotating basis. Special Topics Classes can explore specialized processes, advanced techniques, and introduce new and fresh ideas to the studio. Professional artists with prior teaching experience who would like to teach at Spudnik Press are encouraged to apply to teach either Core or Special Topics classes.

For all the details please download our 2015 Call for Class & Workshop Proposals. Please note we have extended the deadline for Fall classes to May 3.

To apply, please submit a resume and work samples in addition to the following documents:

2015 Workshop Proposal Form
2015 Class Proposal Form
2015 Supply Request Form.

This June, Spudnik Press Cooperative will be hosting Steamroller Spectacular as part of Printers Ball 2015: Push & Pull. Artists, community art organizations, students of all ages, and creative thinkers are carving hundreds of printmaking blocks, all responding to the question of how communities “push and pull” physically, metaphorically, and politically.

This Spring, Community Carving Events will pop up through out the city, inviting the public to join the large-scale community printmaking project, led primarily by the esteemed arts educator, William Estrada. All events are completely free and open to the public.

South Chicago Arts Center
3217 E. 91st Street
Chicago, IL 60617
Saturday, April 11, 10-2pm

Comfort Station
2579 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
Sunday, May 24, 11-3pm

Arts Incubator
301 E Garfield Boulevard
Chicago, IL 60637
Saturday, May 30, 2-5pm

Additional Community Carving Events may be announced through out the spring. On Saturday, June 27, blocks will be printed using the parking lot and a steamroller to create oversized printed banners.

To receive periodic updates about this project and Printers Ball 2015, please sign up for the Printers Ball newsletter.

Equivalents
by Kyle Schlie
Published by Healthy Mgmt.

April Spud Pick

With spring making its way back into Chicago, lets celebrate with Kyle Schlie’s Equivalents, published by Healthy Mgmt. The only text throughout the book is the numbered labels below each figure.

These figures may remind us of Chicago in the spring: mostly black shapes crowd around a small hint of green. The green space both interrupts and fits within the large black shapes, just as, somehow, grass makes its place among the concrete of the city.

Schlie’s introductory figures are rigid, rectangular, and seem to imitate sidewalks or brick walls. As the story progresses, though, these forms deconstruct into curves or disconnected pieces. In some figures the green shape grows to dominate the overall formation, yet by the end, green and black reach equivalent size. The green never quite retains its dominance, but it also never forfeits its position among the black shapes.

The same can be said of a Chicago spring. It may struggle in its scale and impact on the city overall, but once it takes hold it will stubbornly persist, adding color and variety to winter’s monotony.
You can find Equivalents in the Small Press Library in the Annex.

The Keyholder program at Spudnik Press allows 24-hour access to all of our facilities, including the all of the tools and equipment housed in both the Printshop and the Annex. Keyholders are able to use the studio at the hours that suite them best, often avoiding the high-traffic Open Studio hours in exchange for Sunday afternoons, weekday mornings, and late night hours.

Keyholder access is $150 per calendar month, and includes all the same materials and equipment provided during Open Studio sessions. Remain a keyholder month-to-month and the rate drops to $125. To sign up for Keyholder access, please set up a short meeting to review the requirements, receive a flatfile drawer, and find out where the light switches are.

Spudnik Press Cooperative is accepting applications for our Fellowship Program, our flagship opportunity for artists in a transitional point in their career to gain access unrestricted access to our studios.

This six-month program provides support for young artists through full studio access and professional development opportunities. Fellows will acquire Studio Assistance experience through monitoring one open studio session per week. Each fellow will also work closely with staff to develop and lead a Community Workshop at Spudnik Press.

In addition to monitoring one Open Studio session per week, Fellows will also take on leadership roles at special events, member meetings, and outreach efforts. Fellows will meet regularly to share artwork and support each others projects. The program creates accountability for the cohort of four fellows as they set personal goals, create healthy studio habits, and develop their portfolio.

Ready to apply? 

For details please download our Studio Fellowship Call Summer Fall 2015.
To apply, download and return our Studio Fellow Proposal Form 2015 and return to veronica@spudnikpress.org.

Important Dates:

Deadline to Apply: April 13, 2015
Fellowship Orientation: May 2015, exact dates TBD
Monitor Training: May 0215, exact dates TBD
Fellowship Begins: June 1, 2015
Fellowship Ends: November 30, 2015

Pictured Above: Current Studio Fellows, Caroline Walp, Heather Anderson, and Ashley Shaul with Fellowshop Coordinator Tara Zanzig and Studio Manager, Veronica Siehl.

Steamroller Spectacular at Printers Ball 2015 will bring together 300+ artists, teachers, organizations, and creative thinkers to reflect how communities “push and pull” physically, metaphorically, and politically.

While we cannot yet share our outstanding line-up of 2015 festival guests, we are beyond excited to announce a large-scale community based printmaking project that will take over the Hubbard Street Lofts parking lot on Saturday, June 27.

“Steamroller Printing” is a long-standing yet little-known printmaking tradition. Our version, Push & Pull: Streamroller Spectacular, is headed up by the esteemed Art Educator, William Estrada. We are seeking artists, community organizations, and art teachers to contribute hand-carved woodblocks to be printed onsite using a steamroller to create banner-sized collaborative prints. Anyone interested in joining simple needs to complete the Online Submission Form to participate.

The project aims to create a dialogue with multiple voices from various communities through the development of a large scale printmaking project that engages various community stakeholders to reflect how communities “push and pull” physically, metaphorically, and politically.

How it works

Each participant will receive a 6×6” or 12×12” block of MDF. Educators and organizations may request multiple blocks. Block size is determined by age and printing experience. Blocks will be available for pick-up at Spudnik Press by April 1. Simply carve and return blocks by June 1. Blocks will be printed at Printers Ball 2015 on Sat. June 27.

Community Carving Events

There will be opportunities throughout the city for participants to meet and carve together, beginning Saturday April 4, 1-5pm at Spudnik Press Cooperative.

Additional dates and locations will be announced via printersball.org. All carving events are free. Download the Call for Community Carvers for details.

Three Very Small Comics, Vol. III
by Tom Gauld
Published by Cabanon Press

March Spud Pick

March’s Spud Pick is Tiny Book “Three Very Small Comics Vol. III” by Tom Gauld. Published by Cabanon Press in 2007, this small envelope of tiny comics is a delight. The comics are “The Art of War,” “Gardening,” and “The Gauld Collection, Case W (misc).”

The variety and size of Gauld’s three comics are whimsical, but the stories keep the volume from losing all nuance. Both “Gardening” and “The Art of War” are tongue-in-cheek observations on the follies of human behavior. The characters are oblivious to their own ignorance, but the irony is on full display for the reader. Then, “The Gauld Collection” turns out to be a light-hearted examination of mortality: the author has drawn a strange collection of artifacts beginning with “W.” The objects would be comedic if it wasn’t for the realization that possessions are usually archived after the possessor’s death.

These “Three Very Small Comics” prove that being small doesn’t always mean small-minded. To explore the whole Tiny Books collection, come to the Small Press Library at the Annex!

Featured Artist:

Adrienne Miller

Dates:

3/28/2015 – 6/12/2015

Location:

The Printshop @ Spudnik Press

Opening Reception:

Saturday March 28, 2015
6:00-9:00pm

Press Release:

Adrienne Miller, a southerner by birth, just survived her second year as an official corn-eating, snow-shoveling, midwestern resident. After graduating from Murray State University in 2007 with her BFA in Studio Art, she found her way from Kentucky to Nashville as a summer intern for Hatch Show Print, a world famous, 130+ year old letterpress shop. She also spent time working as the Studio Manager and Gallery Coordinator for Vanderbilt University’s Department of Art.

And here is the final contestant competing in tomorrow’s  2015 Hashbrown Chili Cook-Off.

Spudnik Press Cooperative (SPC): What is LATITUDE

(SPC): What are three food-related adjectives you would use to describe your organization?

LATITUDE: Late-night, Community-driven and Umami.

(SPC): In what ways does your chili embody your organization?

LATITUDE: Our not-so-secret ingredients are coffee and alcohol.

(SPC): What is your favorite place in the city to enjoy a hot bowl of soup?

 LATITUDE: Lindy’s Chili & Gertie’s Ice Cream. You can order a 55-gallon chili drum there.

(SPC): If you could invite anyone, past or present, to chat over a bowl of chili, who would you choose?

LATITUDE: Woody Guthrie

(SPC): Do you have any words of warning for fellow contestants?

LATITUDE: It’s not like that. Let’s split this mother******.

(SPC): Have you competed before? If so, what keeps you coming back?

LATITUDE: The chili. This is our 1st year though. Next year though, the chili.

PURCHASE TICKETS TO THE 2015 HASHBROWN CHILI COOK-OFF

This week, we are highlighting all of the 12 organizations that will compete in the 2015 Hashbrown Chili Cook-Off. #10 on the list is North Branch Projects.

Spudnik Press Cooperative (SPC): What is North Branch Projects

(SPC): What are three food-related adjectives you would use to describe your organization?

North Branch Projects: Slow cooking, fermented, and tasty. Because we are on hiatus from our studio, we are like your favorite kimchi, carefully ripening for a pungent come-back!

(SPC): In what ways does your chili embody your organization?

North Branch Projects: Community Binding is largely a group effort. We’re consulting our favorite chefs to cultivate an inventive and delectable chili.

(SPC): What is your favorite place in the city to enjoy a hot bowl of soup?

 North Branch Projects: L.D. Pho on Lawrence Ave!

(SPC): If you could invite anyone, past or present, to chat over a bowl of chili, who would you choose?

 North Branch Projects: Mr. Rodgers

(SPC): Do you have any words of warning for fellow contestants?

North Branch Projects: “There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.” -Mr. Rodgers

(SPC): You’ve competed before. What keeps you coming back?

 North Branch Projects: So our crockpots don’t get lonely…

PURCHASE TICKETS TO THE 2015 HASHBROWN CHILI COOK-OFF

Love is a Certain Kind of Flower
by Stephanie Brooks
Published by Green Lantern Press

February Spud Pick

This month Spud Picks return with Love is a Certain Kind of Flower by Stephanie Brooks, published by Chicago’s Green Lantern Press. Brooks has put together a series of lists about Love and all its variants. Brooks’ unpunctuated, serial style devoids love of its unique romance, and the small poems become more like compilations. Brooks reveals that Love is variable; as she provocatively asks on the back cover, “When is love like one thing, when is it like something else, and why?” 

For love story cynics, this is a welcome relief to the hyper-affectionate genre. Brooks’ lists conform all of love’s meanings to manufactured expressions. Yet, romantics need not despair. Part of the ingenuity is that the reader can sift through the lists to find their own. The reader searches for its name in “Love is a proper noun” or can relate to the feelings described in “Love is moody.”

Come read Love is a Certain Kind of Flower yourself at the Small Press Library in the Annex!

Leading up to next week’s Hashbrown Chili Cook-off, we are profiling each participant. Chef Profile #9 introduces the Chicago Art Department, a Pilsen-based artist residency program.

Spudnik Press Cooperative (SPC): What is the Chicago Art Department?

We are an arti-driven not-for-profit organization. The core of what drives us is a 12-month residency program for 20 artists. Our goal is to develop studio practice and new works, to participate in exhibitions as exhibiting artists or curators and to engage in monthly dialogues around Resident Artist works among other activities.

(SPC): What are three food-related adjectives you would use to describe your organization?

Chicago Art Department (CAD): Thick, rich and smooth.

(SPC): In what ways does your chili embody your organization?

CAD: Thick, rich and smooth.

 (SPC): What is your favorite place in the city to enjoy a hot bowl of soup?

CAD: Lula Cafe

(SPC): If you could invite anyone, past or present, to chat over a bowl of chili, who would you choose?

CAD: Diane Vreeland

(SPC): Do you have words of warning for fellow contestants?

CAD: Good luck.

PURCHASE TICKETS TO THE 2015 HASHBROWN CHILI COOK-OFF