Painted Tongue Studios

Special Guest Dan Welden to Teach Solar Etching at PTS in September

Painted Tongue Studios — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:20:04 GMT

Master printer and creator of the Solarplate, Dan Welden, will be teaching a three-day intensive solar etching workshop from September 11th-13th at the Painted Tongue Studios.

Solarplate is a UV sensitive polymer plate designed to allow artists to create etchings or relief images without the use of dangerous acids, solvents and grounds. The plates yield rich, intense ink, reminiscent of mezzotints, aquatints and Rembrandt quality etchings.

The plates can be created very simply, using a variety of techniques, including photography, drawing, digital imagery, painting, scraping, stamping, pen & ink, and collage.

Dan Welden developed the Solarplate in 1971 and is the co-author of “Printmaking in the Sun,” a well-written, beautifully illustrated, comprehensive guide to the solar etching process. As a master printer, he has collaborated with or printed for artists including
Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Dan Flavin, Eric Fischl, David Salle, and Lynda Benglis. He is a well-established artist in his own right, having exhibited internationally in over 65 solo and 350 group exhibitions. Dan has taught around the world, including Belgium,
Peru, Australia, New Zealand and Germany, and at over 100 universities, schools, galleries, and museums.

Solar etching is a common technique used and taught at Painted Tongue Studios, and we’re terribly excited to have this opportunity to bring such a skilled and renown instructor to share with our community. Dan’s class is being offered from September 11th – 13th in our West Oakland studio. The fee is $395 (+ materials). To join this workshop, please call us at 510-593-4221, or email info@paintedtonguepress.com to sign up.

Congratulations LGBT Community on CA Surpreme Court Ruling

Painted Tongue Studios — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:19:36 GMT

We would like to say, "Congratulations!" to the LGBT Community for the recent California Supreme Court ruling allowing same sex marriage. To show our support, we're offering a 10% discount on invitations for same gender weddings, for new contracts booked between now and December 2008. Cheers!

Art in the Hopper 5/22 Installation Art

Painted Tongue Studios — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:49:58 GMT

Our first salon included participants with many varied backgrounds. Those present brought their experience in installation art; interactive art; painting; metal, paper and wood sculpture; carpentry; movie set design, letterpress and other printmaking; art collecting; ceramics; gallery tending, photography, machinery, and uniquely, pointillism with bleach.

Our topic was the preservation of installation art for future generations (see previous May posting for details) Here are some notes taken during the discussion:

Definitition of installation art – Uses sculptural tools and other media to modify the way a space is experienced. Installations reflect associations and thoughts, three dimensional art, painting, poetry & prose, and many varied other media.

X brought up Chihuly project in Venice, a city-wide installation with glass sculptures hung all over the city and floating on the water and in the canals

X’s show was inspired by children playing on the beach making patterns out of rocks. He made a table with sand and video screen underneath. Table was divided in half by a wall. People could only see half of the set. On video screens, people could see what was being built on the other side, but could not see the person building. People did not necessarily know that there was another side. Artist wanted to see if people could interact with technology without knowing that they were doing so. It wasn’t immediately apparent that video screen was interactive. People figured it out as they played with it.

X felt that the piece did not want to be preserved. He took it apart, put the rocks in gardens and threw the sand away.

Y raised question: Can artists write a script so the art can be reenacted later, like a play?

Z responded with internet research “The European Project: Preservation and Presentation of Installation Art,” including case studies of documentation, preservation, and re-enactment. The research was lead by the Tate Museum.

M brought up “Rivers & Tides,” by Goldsworthy, who would build sculpture at low tide and let it float away when the tide rose. The work was documented through video. One member of the group described a scenario in which pictures of this work were shown to schoolchildren. The children were then turned loose in the woods to create. This projected Goldsworthy’s art into another generation.

P said, “That’s what storytelling is in some ways. People tell stories from generation to generation and it keeps changing.“

Q said, “There’s Art and there’s art. Someone has to decide if it’s worth preserving.”

P pointed out that some art isn’t intended to be preserved. He recalled Native American sand paintings, and Hindu Mandalas. They’re made, they’re beautiful and they’re gone. And they’re supposed to be gone. Perhaps a larger metaphor of life to preserve and be gone.

R said that in New York, there’s a piece that runs an algorithm and it continues to change over time. Look up “Electric Sheep” at the Modern.

X said that some installations that use technology are exploratory, not thought of as an experience to hang onto. Instead they are intended to ask the question, “How will this help us get to the next step?”

L said that film sets are not preserved, despite their links to installation art. Nearly all are torn down and destroyed.

Y wondered, Isn’t there anyone who wants to preserve these? It’s is preserved on film, was someone’s response. L responds that Universal Studios does save some parts of sets. Spends weeks, months, building something that’s on the cutting room floor.

E brought up the art in the mud flats along the shore in Emeryville. Others responded. Photographer Doug Kiester recorded it and made a book. Some thought it was trash, some thought it was great. Concern for the fact that it was deteriorating? Always changing. People kept coming and building new ones. Graffiti sculpture.

Y brought up that large sculpture is similar to some installation work, and asked if there are ways that installation artists might adopt a similar strategy to building collectors who can preserve their work. Large sculptor on hand said that he does large works by commission only, not on spec. He works with private developers or building owners. He sometimes creates work for a city, but those contracts are much more complicated. He began by making brochures of his work, and mailed them to architects. He didn’t hear anything for years. Finally someone called, asking him to submit an idea.

Sculpture in Justin Herman Plaza – some love it some hate it, some laugh.
Z responds with quote from Robert Henri, “Great artists don’t paint furniture or houses etc. instead he paints the idea of the object.” You might not be able to recognize it. Someone says, “In winter ice skaters move around it, it becomes installation art.” Someone else recites a joke, “If there were an earthquake, would it fall into a building?”

Interested in meeting this fascinating, captivating group of art lovers? Then join us at the next “Art in the Hopper” on Thursday July 10 from 7pm 9pm at 237 E. 14th Street, San Leandro, California in the Anna Edwards Gallery.

Come join us and be inspired.

Accepting Applicants for Letterpress Internship

Painted Tongue Studios — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:26:26 GMT

This year has brought strong growth to our business. To meet the demand of our rigorous production and teaching schedule, we are formalizing our apprenticeship program. We’re excited to offer this extensive and focused training, and are now seeking our first applicants.The program requires a one-year commitment of 10 hours per week. Training begins with platemaking, maintenance, basic binding & assembly, and building quality control skills. In the second quarter the focus shifts to cutting & trimming, design file preparation, and ink mixing. In the third quarter the intern will be involved with letterpress proofing, project setup, and finishing designs. In the fourth quarter the intern will oversee complete design and printing projects using both the Vandercook and Heidelberg Windmill presses. The intern will also be included in our Sunday workshop free of charge, where he or she may advance personal projects throughout the year. If our business continues to grow steadily, there is a possibility for employment at the end of the training.
Our ideal candidate is a reliable, focused self-starter who understands instruction quickly and works efficiently and with precision to move projects forward. Must have keen attention to detail and a love of fine arts as well as printing. Ability to work reliably under deadlines is required. Previous letterpress and book arts experience is not necessary, though some familiarity with the medium and its demands is recommended. One candidate will be selected through an interview process. Interested persons please contact Kim at (510)593-4221, or info@paintedtonguepress.com.

Mutanabbi Street Starts Here - Exhibition at Florida Atlantic University

Painted Tongue Studios — Wed, 21 May 2008 22:08:50 GMT

Painted Tongue Studios is participating in the Mutanabbi Street Project. The project and exhibition at Florida Atlantic University are described below. Proceeds from the project go to Doctors Without Borders. To see more broadsides in the Mutanabbi Street Project, scroll to the bottom of this posting and follow the link there.

Our broadside is called "Diameter of the Bomb." It is an interactive, letterpress printed paper sculpture illustrating Yehuda Amichai's poem by the same name. The poem is translated by Chana Bloch. Directly below are pictures of the broadside closed, open, and a close up of the drawing of the bombing that was printed behind the poem in transparent ink.

MUTANABBI STREET STARTS HERE
through JAFFE CENTER for BOOK ARTS
Now through July 28, 2008
at Florida Atlantic University's Wimberly Library

On March 5, 2007, a car bomb was detonated on Mutanabbi Street, the centuries-old center of bookselling in Baghdad. Soon afterwards, an international group of poets, writers, artists, letterpress printers, booksellers, and readers gathered to create the Mutanabbi Street Coalition--in response not only to the tragedy of the 30 deaths and 100 injuries, but also to the idea of a targeted attack on a street that has always been a place for the exchange of ideas.

The coalition’s goal was to respond to the tragedy with positive creativity: by printing broadsides featuring the work of Iraqi poets and supporting Doctors Without Borders––a non-profit agency working to relieve suffering in Iraq and in other troubled areas of the world––through the sales of these broadsides.

San Francisco poet and bookseller Beau Beausoleil is the coalition's founder and organizer. This exhibition at Florida Atlantic University marks the first time these broadsides have been shown collectively outside of California. FAU Libraries has also undertaken the task of creating a digital library of the project, and one complete set of the broadsides will remain here permanently at the Jaffe Center for Book Art.

This library-wide exhibition runs through Monday, July 28, 2008. This includes the main lobby of the Wimberly Library, the Wimberly Administrative Offices (2nd floor west), and the lobby of the Jaffe Center for Book Arts (3rd floor east). The exhibition may be viewed anytime during regular library hours, which may be found at www.library.fau.edu/geninfo/hours.htm?boca or by calling 561-297-3770. A few of the broadsides are being exhibited inside the Jaffe Center; these may be viewed during regular JCBA hours: Monday through Friday, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

Find more details on Mutanabbi Street Starts Here at the "Exhibitions" link at our website:

http://www.jaffecollection.org

Please Join Our First "Art in the Hopper" Salon

Painted Tongue Studios — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:49:03 GMT

Who is invited? Artists, collectors, and art enthusiasts.
What is it? A forum of vibrant discussion and time to share our goals, joys, treasures, questions, and puzzles, as they relate to the art scene today.
When is it? Every other month on a weekday evening with a cup of tea or a glass of wine, and thou.
Where is it? At the Anna W. Edwards Gallery, 237 East 14th Street, San Leandro. (Just a 15 minute drive from downtown Oakland. Write us for easy directions.)
What is it like? An open, friendly atmosphere, with all experience levels welcome.We begin the evening with each attendee sharing either a piece of one's own artwork, or a latest or favorite art acquisition, or one's response to a recent museum or gallery show or arts article you have seen. After this exchange, we will lead a discussion about a facet of contemporary art.

Our May 22nd topic is: How to preserve installation and performance art so that it may be experienced by future generations.
Many paintings demand only a patch of wall. Many prints and drawings need only a drawer. A book may be stored on a shelf. What happens when the artwork needs an entire room? Or is not even bounded by a room? Or when the art is highly perishable? Is today's installation art display doomed to the same fate as the latest gadget -to be enjoyed for a time and then discarded when the next gadget replaces it? Often installation and performance artists sell prints, photographs, or other digital documentation of their work. Is this adequate? With paintings, prints, and books, we can experience the artwork in the same way our parents did and their parents did, provided the work is well preserved. How can the original experience of installation and performance art be preserved? What role can/should the museums play? The artists? The collectors? The dealers?
Coming up at the July "Art in the Hopper:" Making contemporary art from traditional subjects. – Reflections on show at Jewish Contemporary Museum (see Gallery Hop below). Plus Gerhard Richter, Neo Rauch, Markus Lüpertz creating contemporary church windows. Plus more to come.

Artists and Enthusiasts, Join us for Gallery Hop

Painted Tongue Studios — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:32:45 GMT

Please join Anna W. Edwards and Kim Vanderheiden for bi-monthly gallery visits around the Bay Area. We will look at new art and artists, reacquaint ourselves with established artists, and immerse ourselves in art.

On Friday March 7th 2008, join us at Swarm Gallery at 2nd and Clay streets, at 6:30 pm. We will continue to Joyce Gordon Gallery and then some of the new happening galleries in the Grand Avenue and Telegraph Avenue area. Please rsvp if you intend to join us, so we don’t leave without you!
On the in-between months when we do not tour galleries, we invite you to join us at Anna’s new gallery for an informal salon over coffee and wine. There we will reflect on the shows we’ve seen, and discuss current topics in the art world. Artists may share recent work, collectors may share recent acquisitions, and enthusiasts may share inspiring images and news.

So, don your beret and perfect your French accent. Imagine you’re on the left bank of Paris, with the ghosts of Piccasso, Cassatt, Lautrec, Caillebotte, and Braque, with jazz streaming through your ipod. A bientôt!

Kim Vanderheiden & Anna W. Edwards

Rsvp to info@paintedtonguepress.com or 510.593.4221

Image:: Zachary Royer Scholz, Situation 91207 (wall, crack, stick, sidewalk) (2007), UltraChromeK3 Giclee print, 23.5" x 31.5" at Swarm

Isabel and the Printer

Painted Tongue Studios — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 14:20:49 GMT

This poem was written by Bill, our Head of Production, as he was printing a birth announcement for little Isabel. Her mom is one of our clients.

Isabel’s tiny hands and feet
    have found a permanent place
    somewhere, down there in my heart.
    I have studied them with such care and intensity,
    bringing them to life (again)
    with just the right shade of pink,
    delicately debossed into the crisp elegance
    of the rough textured, heavy, fine art paper—
    her chubby little left foot, slightly crooked right pinky,
    and on her right foot, the nerve-like cluster of creases
    that caught the light just so, each time I pulled the print from the press—
    studied it for color and coverage and placement,
    to get as close to perfect as those little feet and hands
    had already gotten.

                        Bill Denham
                        December 21. 2007

Workshops Resume at Painted Tongue Studios

Painted Tongue Studios — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 14:20:52 GMT

by Kim Vanderheiden

Painted Tongue Press will be resuming its workshop program on October 21st in Oakland, California. The weekly, Sunday afternoon course will accept students interested in learning any of the following disciplines: letterpress design or printing, monotype printing, solar etching, drawing, or painting (oil, watercolor, or acrylic). This workshop has a unique structure. At any given time, the participants are at various experience levels and working in different media. Studio staff move from student to student, providing instruction and guidance specific to the student's project and background. We've used this format in the past with wonderful synergistic results. It also works well for those who have a project in mind, and would like feedback, information, and tools to help them achieve it.

The studio is equipped with a Vandercook 4 letterpress, a Heidelberg Windmill, a 40x60" Griffin etching press, and a tabletop Griffin etching press, a 40" paper cutter and 23" guillotine, photopolymer platemaker, plus a few other gadgets that we like to experiment with. The workshop fee includes the possibility of pre-scheduled, uninstructed work time during the week, using any equipment the student is qualified to use.

The workshops will run on a semester system. There will be three semesters each year. The first one will be a partial semester from October 21 to December 9th for $280. This includes instruction plus materials that are reusable and remain in the studio. There is currently space for 8 students. If more students enroll, we will consider opening another session.

Before the workshop begins, each student will have an opportunity to meet with me to create a personal syllabus, establish the goals that the student would like to learn or accomplish, go over what materials the student will need for class, and whether it makes more sense for the student to purchase them or pay a materials fee for ones on hand at the studio.

Letterpress and the Price of Crude

Painted Tongue Studios — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:46:35 GMT

By Bill Denham

When you see and feel the beauty of crisp letters and images, debossed into the paper or gently kissed upon its surface, that is the hallmark of letterpress printing, you are not likely to go immediately in your mind to the cost of a barrel of crude.

But the centuries of the development of printing technology that resulted in the creation, in the early years of the twentieth century, in the very birth place of printing itself, of the Heidelberg windmill
press, is inexorably tied to the existence of lubrication, to the existence of oil that allows the literally hundreds of moving parts to move smoothly and with the exact precision, repetition after repetition after repetition, as we, the printers, tweak the impression or roller adjustment and monitor each page as it drops from the jaw of the windmill, in our never ending and never successful pursuit for perfection.

It is a very physical universe and, in that sense, quite different from the world of cyberspace, though our end product, most often, is a marriage of those two worlds, since we employ photopolymer plates in most of our printing. And those plates originate as digital files, transformed into photographic negatives, which are in turn laid atop the polymer, exposed to ultraviolet light, which hardens the exposed portion, and then placed in a water bath, which dissolves the unexposed polymer. Following drying time and additional exposure to ultraviolet light, for additional hardening of the text and image, we are ready to enter that very physical and empirical world of the actual printing.

And here, we come back to that barrel of crude. Before we crank up the Heidelberg, our daily ritual is
applying the lubrication—VACTRA EX-HVY OIL—with an oil gun to the dozen and a half, or so oil fittings, marked in red (for daily application) or yellow (for weekly application) and an oil can for another couple of dozen, or so, open oil points around the press In the above photograph, which looks into the guts of the press from the rear, the cast iron door resting open, you can see two oil fittings in the foreground and
behind, on the main shaft you can see two vertical cylinders with little caps. Those cylinders must be filled with oil each day to lessen the friction on that shaft. You can also see a couple of small tubes that are part of the oil distribution system, though I don’t know exactly where they come from or where they go to.

So there you are. Letterpress printing is an act of “taking care” and that “taking care” begins with the press, before moving on to “taking care” of the images on the paper and “taking care” of the vision of our clients.

Fare-Thee-Well Chicago!

Painted Tongue Studios — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:07:34 GMT

By Kim Vanderheiden

The Painted Tongue Press Chicago Studio has closed as of Thursday, September 5th, 2007 as I prepare to return to the San Francisco Bay Area where my husband will continue his career in the biotech investment field. I will return to the Oakland Studio to work side by side with our Head of Production, Bill Denham.

Apprenticeships and workshops can resume in October. Those who are interested may contact me at info@paintedtonguepress.com.

I was about to have my large Griffin etching press shipped in, and was on the lookout for more letterpresses, when it began to appear that I may have to move. The workshop was on the third floor of an active factory that manufactures photo albums. I will attach a picture of it soon.

I’m sad to leave Chicago, where my children would have grown up closer to extended family members, where there are mighty thunderstorms and beautiful fall colors, hoards of children, and exciting public spaces and public art. Yet I’m excited to return to my bay area friends, resume teaching, enjoy early springs, gorgeous hiking grounds, polite drivers, and have access to my presses. It did feel a bit strange to be known about my Chicago studio space as ‘the letterpress printer,’ when I had only a small etching press with me!