Spudnik Press Cooperative has 4 permanent staff. Our Board of Directors works closely with staff to guide overall policy and direction. Each year, we work with 4 Fellows who monitor our open studio program, and approximately 25 teaching artists.
Our Member Directory highlights the amazing community of artists involved with Spudnik Press Cooperative.
In the ten years since Angee Lennard founded Spudnik Press Cooperative, Chicago’s nonprofit community-based printmaking studio, the organization has evolved from an experimental work/live space to a multi-facetted organization unique in its dedication to providing approachable access to fine art printmaking to anyone who wishes to be creative through print. Under her leadership, Spudnik Press Cooperative provides pathways for individuals to grow their artistic practice over time and at their own pace through studio access, residencies, fellowships, classes, exhibitions, collaborative projects and public programs.
Angee Lennard is also a devoted educator whose teaching experience ranges from arts administration to illustration. As a lecturer at SAIC in the Arts Administration and Policy department, Lennard is able to share her perspective on the parallels between art making and arts administration and inspire students to find enjoyment in administrative roles. At Marwen, Lennard leads high school students through illustration, design, and printmaking projects. Her teaching at Spudnik Press Cooperative focuses on the technical elements of printmaking. She earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Printmedia from SAIC in 2005.
E-mail: angee@spudnikpress.org
Photo by Jamie Davis.
Grace Makuch is a printmaker and artist living in Chicago, Illinois. She is interested in the dissemination of language and information within the context of contemporary social entropy. Deeply bothered by a political administration and status quo that is shrouded in secrecy and thrives upon the decomposition of thoughtful communication, Makuch makes work that is a call and response to feeling helpless, manic, and confused in the 21st century. She graduated with her Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art, Magna Cum Laude, from Columbia College in 2016. Her work has been shown at the Chicago Printmaker’s Collaborative, Spudnik Press, and Mouthwash Magazine. Makuch is a recent alumni of the Spudnik Press Studio Fellowship program.
She may be reached at gmakuch1@gmail.com.
Updates on her ongoing drawing project and other art related content can be viewed at instagram.com/polenta_girl
A recent BFA Printmaking graduate of Ohio University, Dan Manion is an interdisciplinary artist and storyteller with an affinity for all forms of visual and auditory narrative. He wishes to continue pursuing printed and moving imagery to expand upon his experimentation with various storytelling forms which allow us to simultaneously escape, cope with, and confront our own experiences with the world. His narrative goals aim to evoke intimate, visceral and empathetic connections between diverse viewers.
In August of 2016, my brother and I exhibited a collaborative installation called “We Are Building A Ship,” where we crafted an experimental comic consisting of three interrelated storylines, each covering their own wall. The comics surrounded the viewer, placing them in the center of this imagined world. We used large screen printed comic panels in tandem with painted glass sculptures of the setting in which these stories were taking place. We wanted the audience to experience a fictional world we conceived through small fragments that provoked further investigation.
My intention with this Studio Fellowship is to continue my experimentation using print media as a vehicle to produce immersive narratives. Stories encourage empathy, which is exceedingly important in cultivating understanding between individuals, especially in the current political climate. These stories would be told through comics, vignettes, moving imagery, and other forms. I want to utilize printmaking methods I am already familiar with (i.e. relief and silkscreen) as well as with methods I would like to learn more about (i.e. risography and letterpress) to disseminate my work.
Bianca is founder of Marks on Canvas, a Chicago-based boutique agency that specializes in strategic creative content, marketing media, project management and public relations for clients engaged in the arts, including: visual artists, galleries, art fairs, organizations and creative spaces. She’s an arts enthusiast with 12+ years of proven expertise driving brand awareness through compelling campaigns and multi-channel communications that integrate social media, content creation, public relations material, advertising, media, and team collaboration.
Notable clients include visual artist Amanda Williams. She’s collaborated on projects with art institutions and publications including: The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Arts Club Chicago, EXPO Chicago, Monique Meloche gallery, The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Magazine. She is a guest speaker for the 2017-2018 FIELD/WORK Residency at Chicago Artists Coalition on the subject of Marketing Strategies for Artists, the 2018 US Pavilion Venice Biennale Communications and PR liaison to Amanda Williams and Andres Hernandez and President of the Board of Directors for Chicago-based arts organization, Spudnik Press Cooperative. She resides in Chicago, IL.
Yasi Moussavi is a visual artist whose work reflects the spiritual attachment to places and the emotional tension between today’s precarious living and the Persian’s poetic tradition of “living in harmony with nature.” Moussavi was born in Tehran, Iran and she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Al-Zahra University of Tehran.
She holds an MFA degree with an emphasis in painting and print making from Texas Tech University, where she explored and developed her skills in papermaking, printmaking and installation art. She has participated in many group national and international exhibitions such as Juried International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Irving Art center, TX, A.I.R Gallery Biennial, Brooklyn, NY, “Norouzaneh” International Mini Print Annual Exhibition at Sagene Kunstsmie, Oslo, Spazio 74/b Milan and Chicago.
Starting in the late 80’s as an American folk art dealer, Aron Packer built his early career focusing on outsider and self taught artists. Also exhibiting unusual objects such as sideshow banners, tattoo drawings, and wild looking magic tricks, his early venue was an apartment gallery, and he became known for a broad yet unusual vision. He added contemporary art and established his first public gallery in 1992 in Wicker Park, joining an alternative gallery scene that included Beret International, Ten in One, and Oscar Friedl Gallery. As business forces changed over the past 25+ years, Packer migrated to locations in River North and the West Loop, continuing to expand his notable group of artists. In 2015 he closed Packer Schopf Gallery on West Lake Street after nearly a decade of ambitious shows. Currently Aron Packer Projects has a permanent pop-up space in the offices of the Chicago Gallery News through 2018 which is open 5 days a week. The Gallery lives on!
Susannah Papish is a Chicago-based artist and is currently Program Director at Spudnik Press Cooperative. She attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago graduating with a MFA in Painting and Drawing and the University of Illinois, BA in Art History. Solo and two-person exhibitions include slow Joan Goldin + Susannah Papish, Chicago, IL, Susannah Papish: Big Love, The Beverly Arts Center. Representation through the former Skestos Gabriele Gallery, Chicago IL. Her work has also been exhibited in exhibitions at slow, [prak sis], Gallery 400 at UIC with The Alliance of Pentaphilic Curators, Everybody Paints, Sexier, Paul WHO?, Paul is NOT Gay, and Sexier at Zhou B. Arts Center, curated by Larry Lee. Recipient of an Individual Artist Grant, Illinois Arts Council, 2012, Community Arts Assistance Program grants 2005-2007, and finalist, Beverly Library, Public Art Commission, 2009. Recent projects have included guest curating at the Beverly Arts Center: Larry Lee: The Reports of my Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, June 2016 and Accretion: the Works of Noelle Allen, Ann Chen and Ana Zanic, April, 2015. She served as public art curator for the Beverly Area Arts Alliance in 2015, selecting works for the Beverly Art Walk which included Claire Ashley’s Disco Dozen, Jennifer Reeder’s Feminist Parking Lot and Carron Little’s Neighborhood Magic. An essay entitled “Neighborhood Magic” was published by Sixty Inches From Center. In June, 2017 Susannah and Larry Lee co-founded boundary, a contemporary project space in the Morgan Park neighborhood where she has resided since 2000. Susannah was a recipient of the 3Arts Make a Wave award in 2017. Susannah is also a contributor to The Visualist, a Chicago Visual Arts Calendar.
Mike Pennekamp is not only the Studio Technician at Spudnik Press. He is also an internationally exhibited artist, printmaker, and illustrator. Mike earned his BFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2010 and spent the next five years working at Tom Huck’s Evil Prints in St. Louis, MO. Eventually he decided to earn his terminal degree and, in 2017, graduated University of Arkansas with his MFA with a concentration in Printmaking.
Email: mike@spudnikpress.org
Design by Angelika is a multi-service design and print shop based in Chicago led by Angelika Piwowarczyk (and her trusted sidekick, Flora the German Shepherd). The projects that come out of this little studio vary from custom stationery to small business branding to commissioned artwork, and anything in between!
Currently a designer in Chicago, Brendan Robson graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Graphic Design in May of 2017. As a designer Brendan enjoys exploring the areas of intersection between analog and digital content and the opportunities for discovery that exists within that space. Primarily focused on aspects of design, printmaking, and multimedia installation, Brendan’s personal body of work addresses themes of memory constructs, genetics, digital identity, and stasis.
Nicolette has long been a contributor to the Spudnik Press community. Since first joining our organization in 2012, Nicolette has been an active member and volunteer, while teaching many of our relief printmaking and bookbinding classes.
She holds a BFA with an emphasis in Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Central Florida, and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts from Washington University in St. Louis.
She is the Studio Manager at Double Trip Press, a premier letterpress studio located in the East Lakeview neighborhood.
@rosspressandbindery
nicoletterossprint@gmail.com
