Posts Categorized: News

Spud Picks: Moving Blanket

Moving Blanket
By Kostas Anagnopoulos
Published by Ugly Duckling Presse

August Spud Pick by Veronica Siehl, Spudnik Studio Manager

Shifting between poetry and prose, Moving Blanket by Kostas Anagnopoulos explores everyday moments. His prose stretches out mundane observations placing them in a realm that is based neither in reality or fantasy. This elegant book is nice to hold and easy to get lost in. The weaving of poetry with prose engages the reader and contributes to the sense that we are catching glimpses of dreams, conscious thought and collective feelings. Ugly Duckling Presse has fulfilled their aim of “calling attention to the labor and history of bookmaking” by publishing not only an engrossing read but a beautiful object.”

Spud Pick books can be found in the Small Press Library in the Annex

Spud Picks: Nox

Nox
By Ron Silliman
Published by Burning Deck Press

August Spud Pick by Hannah King, Spudnik Volunteer

“Nox by Ron Silliman, letterpress printed and designed by Rosmarie Waldrop of Burning Deck Press, is an incredible example of design and words working together to enhance meaning. Simple lines divide the text on each page encouraging a fluid reading experience – the single words of Silliman can be endlessly rearranged to create new content and interpretations. Rosmarie Waldrop’s skill as a printer and understanding of the ways in which the vessel delivering the text can enhance the reader’s experience are clearly evident in this elegant and interesting book. ”

 

Spud Pick books can be found in the Small Press Library in the Annex

Accepting Applications for Fall Internships through August 15

Internships at Spudnik Press focus on bringing students into every aspect of facilitating a community studio. Interns assist with daily maintenance of the shop, included cleaning, stocking, and ordering supplies, marketing, exhibitions, record keeping, fundraising, workshops, and classes, and more. Students typically work at the shop two days a week (Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday) 10-5pm. Internship interviews will take place the week of August 18 and internships will begin in September.

Each year, our two fall interns team up to organize and host our Holiday Art Sale. 2012 was yeti themed and brought together a mix of Spudnik members and current students. In 2013, we worked around the theme Prints in Space. Clearly, our fall internship is perfect for students interest in printmaking who want to get arts programming experience and learn the ropes of arts administration.

See all the Details or Download the Job Description.

 

Spud Picks: The Heads

The Heads
By Justin Sirois
Published by Newlight Press

August Spud Pick by Angee Lennard, Founder and Executive Director of Spudnik

“The Head epitomizes Spudnik’s mentality: The physicality and presentation of the text add meaning and evokes curiosity. The green cover is not colored stock but white paper inked solidly! Close inspection reveals an embossed title on front and secret stanza on back. This attention to form continues through the book with hand-sewn signatures and copious letterpress embellishments.  This quality of production is standard for Aaron Cohick and Newlights Press, a publisher worth following religiously.

For the writing, Sirois’ poetry is slightly surreal. It instigates spin-off narratives but doesn’t assume importance. The Head is a delightful read that makes me curious about his novels.

The Newlights Press Blog boasts many more publications that combine amazing literary talent with incredibly high production quality, usually including letterpress.

Justin Sirois has many other published works that look equally as interesting and perhaps heavier subject matter, like Falcons on the Floor that looks at the battle of Fallujah seen on the ground by Iraqis, and So Say the Waiters, a series of books about a software developer who has created kidnap, a social network that allows people to kidnap each other for fun.”

 

Spud Pick books can be found in the Small Press Library in the Annex

Fall 2014 Artist Residency Announced: More Benefits for Residents

We proudly invite Chicago artists to apply for our The Fall Residency position at Spudnik Press Cooperative. Now in its sixth year, The Residency Program has hosted 19 local artists, including Lilli Carré, Miller & Shellabarger, Jessica Taylor Caponigro, and Polly Yates. As our roster of artists continues to expand, the benefits and resources we can offer our residents grows as well. The Residency now includes solo exhibition, publishing, critique, and studio visit opportunities, in addition to three-month access to our facilities and free art supplies.

In 2013, we opened our gallery, The Annex, which now hosts solo exhibitions of new work by the majority of our residents. At the same time, we began working closely with our residents to publish an Artist Book to accompany their exhibitions. Publications created through our Residency Program include Walking Driftward by Hannah Ireland and Aboutface by Veronica Siehl, both of which combine illustrations and visual artwork with original writing and poetry.

This fall, we increase the opportunities for critical dialog and exchange by coordinating two studio visits during the residency period with established artists, curators or gallerists. The Fall Resident will also have the opportunity for group critique with artists participating in our Studio Fellowship program.

Please download the Fall 2014 Residency Packet and help spread the word about this opportunity.

 

 

The Best Practices Series kicks off August 13

Spudnik Press Cooperative and the Chicago Printmakers Guild are thrilled to be teaming up to present three professional development opportunities designed specifically for our members. After polling the audience, we lined up seven outstanding guest presenters to share their insight and expertise, including Dan Devening (Devening Projects), Jason Teegarden-Downs (Delicious Design League) and Allison Glenn (Monique Meloche). In conversation with one another and attendees, the series will address self-promotion and marketing for artists, ethical pricing, commissions, and how to build relationships with galleries, collectors, and curators.

The series kicks off on Wednesday, August 13 with a free panel discussion with Angela Bryant, Anna Marie Wilharm, and Renee Robbins.

Best Practices Detail and Registration

Printers Ball Marketplace: The Roster

This Saturday, The Hubbard Street Lofts, will again host Printers Ball. This year is the tenth anniversary, and we are thrilled to highlight a few of the artists who contribute to the success and reputation of Spudnik Press Cooperative. Artists include a mix of Teaching Artists, Studio Assistants (current and past), artists we’ve collaborated with, and artists who have private studios within our printshop. Many artists are producing their work here at Spudnik. Others have set up their own shops. All are using print in innovative and fresh ways, and are excited to share their artwork at the tenth annual Printers Ball!

Perfectly Acceptable; Matt Davis
Perfectly Acceptable offers simple and affordable Risograph printing, design, and consultation services for cartoonists, zinesters, and anyone interested in printing on a small- to medium-sized scale. We are pleased to announce that we will be debuting the first of our series of artist prints at Printer’s Ball 2014, by Andy Burkholder, alongside a number of other Riso-printed goodies. Perfectly Acceptable is run by Matt Davis in a private studio in Spudnik Press’s Annex. 

Alamo Igloo; Keith Herzik
Dog lover, Keith Herzik has been making screen printed concert and show posters in Chicago since before the millennium.  Recently Keith has focused on hand printed art book zines entitled Alamo Igloo.  A new three-color woodblock print designed by Keith published by Spudnik Press, is currently in production.

Hoofprint Workshop; Liz Born and Gabe Hoare
Hoofprint Workshop is a Chicago-based printmaking studio specializing in fine art editions. Processes they use include relief, intaglio, plate lithography, monotype, and screenprinting. They work with emerging artists, students fine-tuning their craft, and clients who are looking to commission a custom design or have their own imagery reproduced by hand. They work with 4 artists each year to create innovative editions that represent the collaboration of the artist and team of skilled printers. By subsidizing printing costs for these projects, we encourage artists to make ambitious works that expand their studio practice, and re-contextualize existing themes. Their shop is located in the Heart of Chicago neighborhood between Pilsen and Little Village in a re-purposed funeral parlor.

Kim Morski
Currently, she is working on a body of prints that explore the conflation of domestic and scientific activity in St. Louis, Missouri in the 1950s. After World War II, the United States Army contracted with private corporations and a select group of scientists to spray zinc cadmium sulfide with a fluorescent additive over certain parts of St. Louis as part of a biological weapons development program. They researched particle dispersal patterns and their effects on unknowing St. Louis residents. In response to this information, she is interested in constructing images that represent the concept of duality and hiding one narrative within a more desirable one.  Her current artwork includes screenprints, as well as an edition of small books and collages.

Rough Ray Press
Rough Ray Press is the design studio and print shop of artists Bailey Romaine, Becka Cooling, and Nick Humber. The press is an aesthetic project that supports these artists’ independent and collaborative approaches to printmaking. We produce books, multiples, and fine art prints, as well as works on commission, including but not limited to book covers, invitations, and posters.

Additional Artists:
Rar Rar Press
Ilyana Schwartz
Brad Vetter
Matt Harlan

Additional Vendors:

Cushing
Chicago’s print and digital communications expert, Cushing has stood for premier reprographic imaging since 1929. From small and large format color graphics to cross media marketing campaigns, the company offers an assortment of cost-effective print solutions. A city of Chicago-certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE), the organization’s philosophy is firmly rooted in going the extra mile to provide optimal customer service. From short run to wide format color printing and cross media marketing, our network provides access to over 200 industry partners, across the globe.  Projects are executed with care and precision. 

 

Spring Residency in Review

Through out the spring, we have had the honor of working with animator and printmaker, Ali Aschman, as our 19th Artist in Residence.

From March through May, she has been diligently working in the studio, creating a ton of new artwork.  Her portfolio of woodcuts and screenprints that will be used to create a stop-motion animation, integrating the process of printmaking with a filmed narrative. Ali starts with flat prints, then cuts, collages, and photographs to create new environments reminiscent of the dioramas we made as youth. Within these hand-made worlds, characters enact mysterious, melancholy narratives that question innocence, violence, and moral grey areas.

Her allegorical new animation will screen in The Annex at Spudnik Press as part of her solo exhibition, The Wrong Story, on July 19. Spudnik Press Cooperative’s next resident will begin their sojourn in September of 2014. Applications will be available on July 1.

Welcome Home: Risograph 3700!

We are thrilled to announce that we just brought home our newest addition to the Spudnik family: Our very own Risograph! Staff has a little work to do before we will be able to authorize artists. But rest assured, this Risography will be making itself useful in the near future.

More details are coming soon!

 

 

ALERT: Orientations Move to Tuesdays in July!

Hold on tight, Spudnik is switching things up! Beginning Tuesday July 1st, we will no longer be offering an orientation on Monday evenings. Instead we will be offering studio orientations regularly on Tuesdays & Fridays. Don’t worry—they are still free and you still do not have to make an appointment.

Why the switch up? By offering orientations on Tuesdays and Fridays Spudnik will be able to do a better job providing consistent and reliable orientations. To maximize our bandwidth, the weekly orientations will now align with our business hours.

What’s that you say? Monday is the only day of the week you have available?! Spudnik still offers by appointment orientations for those who cannot make the standing orientation sessions. Here is the Recap:

Spudnik Orientations:

MONDAYS:  6 pm sharp
TUESDAYS:  6 pm sharp
FRIDAYS:  Noon sharp

Store Feature: Veronica Siehl and Hannah Ireland

This week our online store has gained prints from two of our most recent Artists in Residence: Veronica Siehl and Hannah Ireland.

Veronica Siehl spent her summer 2013 residency creating a series of cyanotype and letterpress prints. She combined a series of poems with cyanotypes to create suites of delicately printed poems. Additionally, Siehl completed a series of large cyanotype prints.

Hannah Ireland based her Fall 2013 residency work on exploring and creating around a hiking trip in Spain and Portugal in the summer of 2013 – specifically walking portions of the long distance hiking track the GR11, which follows the peak of the Pyrenees, and El Camino de Santiago del Norte, a pilgrimage route along the northern coast of Spain to Santiago de Compostela. According to Ireland, she was interested “in how recognizable imagery from nature and the actual locations I visited – which are tangible, real, and lasting – will combine with abstracted imagery from the subjective memory of my experience there – which is intangible, enigmatic and changes as time passes.”

2014 Collectors Print: Sneak Peak

This spring, Spudnik Press has working with Keith Herzik, known both for his gig posters and his non-linear colorful zines under the moniker Alamo Igloo. When creating our short list for who we would like to work with in 2014, we got obsessed with the idea of translating a loose hang-drawn line to a carved wood block. We aspired to merge the best of two distinct print processes: The loose, flowing, and graphic marks of a screenprint and the textural physicality of a relief print.

We still have lots of carving, proofing, and printing before we are ready to unveil this year’s print. In the mean time, Spudnik just joined Instagram and will share progress as we complete this epic print! Plus, pre-orders will be available soon!