Peasants!
Your vegetables are progressing nicely. We are looking at mid June as our first pick-up but will email one more time towards the end of May to give you the actual start date.

The farm staff is moving quickly this week since it has been “the only consecutively nice days since September” according to Todd and, according to the weather channel, bound to rain again.

All farmers in this region have had to delay their plantings due to cold, wet and just plain wet soil.  We did get spinach seeded before the rain, which has germinated. Kale, chard and broccoli have been/are being transplanted this week until the rain returns.

We do a few things to make sure the crops transplant well. One thing we do is blast them with fans while they grow indoors, to condition them to the world outside. We have put a thin covering of fabric (“row cover”) over the transplants this week to protect against any surprise frosts and to hopefully discourage bunnies. Lots of transplants await indoors and they will be ready when the soil is! Todd is continuing his work on the high tunnels, digging holes for concrete to anchor them. Oh, the saga of the high tunnels!

Check out most recent photos here.
Reserve your share of the harvest before we sell out!

Cesar Chavez Lower Grade Center 4747 S. Marshfield Ave. 60609
Tuesday, May 14th 5:30-7:00pm

Chavez Community WOW!

This spring, Spudnik Press partnered with Citizen Schools to pair five Spudnik artists with three classrooms to lead art apprenticeships with middle school students throughout the spring. You are invited to the Citizen Schools Spring Community WOW! At this event, the middle school students will show off what they have learned in the past 10 weeks of their apprenticeship.

Guests will get to learn new yoga moves, play student made video games, pick a side in a political campaign, participate in an improv sketch, see student artwork, and much much more! We need your to help make this WOW! memorable for our students, educators, and volunteers.

Please join us: RSVP and Learn More

Gina Myers recently interviewed Luke Daly, our Writing and Book Projects Coordinator, for the blog Frontier Psychiatrist. Read all about, how he got into book arts, his advice for those new to self-publishing, and what has been happening in our Annex.

While you are at it, sign up for our awesome writing class The Possibilities of Fiction with the super-talented Tadd Adcox!

Thank you to all who made it out to help for Spudnik’s Spring Cleaning Day! What a difference it made to our studio. This past Sunday, an eager group of volunteers split off into cleaning, organizing, and painting frenzies to transform Spudnik into a tidy print shop once again.

We are especially excited about the light blue washout room and white table top in the print shop. Not to mention the new curtain installed in the dark room, clean scoop coaters, desk, ink station, sinks, and more! Be sure to drop by the studio for printing and to see all of the changes. Happy printing in our newly cleaned studio!

🙂

Spudnik Press and Peasants’ Plot Summer 2013 CSA

This summer Spudnik Press will take on its second year as a pick-up location for Peasants’ Plot CSA, an organic vegetable farm located about 50 miles south of Chicago in Kankakee County.

The Plot is carried out by Todd and Julia McDonald, about 5 employees and 15 worker shareholders. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it is a way for people to know where their produce is coming from and how it is grown. Participating in a CSA farm means investing in seed and labor prior to the growing season. Your investment pays off in the form of regular deliveries of fresh vegetables straight from the farm.

WHAT:
Delivery of four to seven different types of freshly-harvested organic vegetables.

WHERE:
Pick up at Spudnik Press!

WHEN:
Every Thursday from 3 – 9 pm for twenty weeksbeginning the first or second week of June.

HOW MUCH:
$340 for the basic Individual Share. Pay in full or use our monthly installment plan. Pay buttons for both options are on the website.

WHY:
The CSA model is rewarding because the consumer can establish a relationship with their farmer through farm visits, emails, exchanging recipes and more. It is a relationship-based approach to the business of growing, selling and distributing food.

Buying locally-produced food reduces the chain of people and energy consumption between farmer and consumer. Want to know how your food is grown? Visit the farm and see. Worried about pesticides and disease? Talk with Todd and Julia. Is all the buzz about GMOs FREAKING YOU OUT? You can address all of these concerns with the farmer directly.

It is an easy way to assure a good amount of vitamins, nutrients and anti-oxidants get into your diet. Freshly-picked vegetables have more nutrient content than foods that travel great distances to sit in grocery stores. And they taste better.

For information about Peasants’ Plot and how you can join, visit their website.

Fall / Winter Class Proposals:
Due May 3, 2013

Through combining broad cultural programming, an educational library, and a vast array of professional classes and resources for printmaking, bookmaking, writing, and publishing, Spudnik Press Cooperative acts as a center for the promotion of, cultural and historical understanding of, production of, and collection of literary and visual arts.

By splitting our focus between idea-based classes and classes that develop physical bookmaking and printing techniques, we seek to provide an environment where writing and visual art is approached as a form of making.

The final class calendar will be determined by many factors including strength of each proposal, and our need to provide a diverse selection of processes, levels of difficulty, and approach. Please download the Proposal Form and Supply Request. We recommend downloading Adobe Acrobat 8 or later to allow you to save our editable PDF.

Fall Winter 2013 Class Proposal
Fall Winter 2013 Class Proposal Supplies

THANK YOU to everyone who came out to the Hashbrown 2013! Also a big thank you to the volunteers who made it all possible, especially the participants who brought us all the chili!

In an effort to raise money for our New Vandercook Press, we were able to collect nearly $2,000 with our Chili cook-off. We stuffed our faces with Meat and Vegetarian Chili as we listened to music and voted for our favorite print shop recipe.

Who won you ask?
It was a close race! Withing the last 10 minutes or so, The Printstitute tallied in enough votes to win the Golden Squeegie for the Meat category and The Chicago Printmaker’s Collaborative (CPC) took home the Gold for the vegetarian category.

It’s not too soon to perfect your chili recipe for next year’s event!

Click Here for all of our event photos

Interested in being the next Artist in Residence at Spudnik Press? The application deadline for our Summer residency is April 22. Click here for more information and to download the application!

From February 15 to March 8, anyone participating in Zine Fest can use Open Studio at a reduced rate – just $5 per session!

Spudnik Press is pleased to be a sponsor of this year’s Zine Fest. The goals of our new studio space, The Annex, align perfectly with Zine Fest’s mission to create an outlet for small press and independent publishers to showcase their work, swap skills, sell books, and build a wholesome community.

The Annex has been accruing tools and resources to help artists and small publishers since last fall. We’ve got a photocopier, long-range staplers, sewing machine, stamps, craft supplies, and more. We even have a hot foil press and a typewriter that types in cursive!

More details:
The $12 Base Fee for Open Studio will be reduced to $5 for all Zine Fest Participants.
Artists new to Spudnik should first come to Orientation (Mondays at 6pm; Fridays at 12pm).
Annex Open Studio Hours are Mondays 6:30-11pm and Fridays 12:30-5pm.
Anyone who also wants to use The Printshop (for screenprinting, letterpress, etc.) can do so. There is a $10 material fee for use of presses and printmaking materials.
Don’t want to use plain old copy paper? We have Paper Resale stocked with a variety of weights, colors, and sizes, plus a large selection of swatch books.
B&W Photocopies are $0.05; Color Copies are $0.50.
Much more information about utilizing our studio can be found at here!

Friday March 1 and Saturday March 2
10:00 am – 4:00 pm

Chicago Cultural Center
78 E. Washington Street
Chicago, IL 60602
Admission Free!

The Creative Chicago Expo connects Chicago’s creative community with resources they need to thrive. Through Keynotes, Workshops, Vendors and more, get professional development expertise from top local and national providers.
Spudnik Press will have a table to share what we offer to the local print community, so stop by and say hello!

Screenprinting Apprenticeship Program

Combining professional printing experience with entrepreneurial guidance

This nine-month position combines professional experience working with clients through our Publishing Program with entrepreneurial guidance. Artists apply with a substantial project they would like to get off the ground. Over the course of the year, the apprentice will work with an advisor to develop their project, which could be along the line of establishing their own business, developing a line of products, coordinating a collaborative project, or simply developing their art practice.

Through weekly check-ins, Spudnik Press staff (Angee Lennard and Brandy Barker) will provide structure and dedicated time for the apprentice’s personal project. Staff will work with the apprentice to create and execute a project plan, including but not limited to developing a mission and a brand, creating a budget, launching a website, or developing a cohesive portfolio.

Enriching the experiences, apprentices are hired to work at Spudnik six hours per week (two three-hour shifts). While working for Spudnik Press, apprentices will assist with in-house and commissioned publishing projects. Over the course of the year, apprentices will gain experience with every aspect of publishing, honing professional screenprinting skills while learning the administrative skills required to support the printing projects.

Spudnik Press Apprentices are hired employees of Spudnik Press compensated at $8.50/hour. Additionally, Apprentices receive complimentary keyholder access to the shop, valued at $120/month.

This apprenticeship was developed to expand the educational value of our publishing program through providing mentorship opportunities for emerging Chicago artists. For more information about Spudnik Press Cooperative, please visit spudnikpress.com

Applicants must have:

To Apply:

Review of applications will begin on Feb. 8, 2013. The 2013 Apprenticeship Program will tentatively run from March 1 – November 30, 2013. Please contact angee@spudnikpress.com with questions.

Download this information as a PDF

The best way to start off your Friday is by having friends from The Arts of Life stop by to screenprint with you!

This morning, we worked together to create three exquisite corpse drawings and turned them into screenprints. The pro-printers (seriously, they can screenprint circles around you) made three editions of 10, all rainbow-rolled, and all amazing. Take a look at the images (taken by Liz) and check out our fun collaborations. More importantly, check out The Arts of Life organization!