Posts Tagged ‘Illustration’

September 03, 2010
On a Mission

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As autumn approaches and the inevitable rainy season knocks at our doors, Jessica and I are dreaming of the sunny skies of Arizona—where the not-so-sunny SB 1070, the state’s contentious new immigration reform bill, was signed into law earlier this year. At every turn, controversy pricks underfoot and looms overhead—with no easy, clear-cut answers in sight. So for our newest Dead Feminist broadside, we decided to challenge the controversy face-to-face-to-hand-to-heart with the words of Tejana activist Adina De Zavala:

There was nothing else for me to do but hold the fort. So I did.

In complete contrast with our last broadside, we had a short n’ sweet quote to work with this time—which gave me every reason and all kinds of room to go completely nuts with the imagery. I think my subconscious had a hand in steering us toward Adina and her quote, because I suddenly had the chance to explore a whole slew of filed-away themes and images that I had never been able to work into a piece before. My brain was swimming with ideas, and I found myself cackling out loud (which probably had Zooey, who’s been back helping out this summer, freaked out a little bit) at the prospect of finally getting the chance to put so many of my favorite things into one crazy illustration. Green skies! Monument Valley! Mexican blackletter! Milagros! Cactus spine patterns based on fractal geometry! Mwa ha ha!

Easy there, tiger. Ahem. I should probably give you the whole nerdy spiel.

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On a Mission teems with icons of both the American Southwest and Mexican folk culture. A desert landscape—framed with metallic scrollwork and Crazy Lace agate cabochons— stretches to the horizon, while saguaro sentinels tower over a tangled mess of prickly pears and barrel cacti. That was the easy part—thorny issue? Check.

The hard part was putting in all of our nebulous and conflicted feelings about the Alamo (represented here as an absence of imagery; a silhouette of negative space) and the topic at hand. So for answers I looked to Mexican folk art—so prominent on both sides of the Border, and so beautifully expressive, layered in history and meaning.

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The text itself helped us get right to the point about that. The typography is influenced both by the American Old West and modern-day Mexico—particularly the latter. Mexico’s strong tradition of hand-lettering survives today, particularly in the form of hand-painted signs and advertisements. Inspiration ranged from the fluid folksiness of drop-shadowed cursive—

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—to the proud refinement of blackletter, a hold-out of the early Spanish colonial printers that has evolved to attain near-sacred importance in Mexican and Mexican-American popular culture. As we were conscious of our desire to “reclaim” some of the connotations behind the Alamo, blackletter provided the perfect weight and cultural twist to the phrase “Hold the fort.”

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And then there’s my favorite part of the whole project: strewn all over the lower half of the illustration is a collection of milagros. Literally translated to “miracles,” milagros are small, stamped-metal votives that are typically hung in the shrines and churches of many Catholic countries—offered up in thanks for prayers answered and blessings received.

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On my lifetime list of All-around Best Things Ever, milagros are very near the top—as evidenced by the growing collection in my studio. When I lived in Rome (where they are called ex votos), I used to pick them up on Sunday-mornings at the Porta Portese flea market for next to nothing.

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Those little disembodied limbs and organs been marinating in my head ever since, but until now they’ve only ever made one cameo appearance in my work—a page, and a poem, in my artist book A Riddler’s Compass.

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Well, now they get to be the stars of the show. If the Alamo were still the mission I picture in my head, the walls would be covered, floor to ceiling, with milagros. And since Adina herself has become a bit of a legend for her place in the Alamo’s history, illustrated devotionals adorn her name and portrait like pinned hopes.

It may seem strange to get so giddily excited about illustrating such a serious topic, but somewhere along the way I realized that it’s that excitement over the positive that has given me perspective on the issue at hand. That what we think of as the “American” Southwest is so iconic and so dear to us because of the peoples with whom we share it. That the Southwest wouldn’t be what it is without its link to hundreds of years of both native and newcomer culture—just as America wouldn’t be America without immigration and cultural diversity. That keeping our multicultural vibrance alive is what makes us whole.

So in that spirit, a portion of the proceeds from On a Mission will be donated to the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting justice and legal rights for immigrants and refugees from more than 100 countries around the world.

I don’t know if any of this stuff crossed Adina De Zavala’s mind while she camped out inside the Alamo. She was just an individual who fought to keep an old, rotting building standing—and the place was a controversial symbol, even then (it certainly still is today). But she knew that the controversy was part of the legend of the place, and part of our heritage. And she knew the value of preserving that heritage for everyone’s benefit, without exception—so she held the fort. I think she deserves a few milagros on our wall for that.

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On a Mission: No. 9 in the (Dead) Feminist Broadside series
Edition size: 175
Poster size: 10 x 18 inches

Printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press, on archival, 100% rag paper. Each piece is hand-colored and signed by both artists.

Colophon reads:
As a young Tejana teacher, Adina Emilia De Zavala (1861 – 1955) shared her love of Texas history and legends in her classroom, and spent time outside of school soliciting building supplies to repair San Antonio’s missions. In honor of her Mexican grandfather, the Republic’s first Vice President, she founded the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (DRT) in order to preserve the Mission San Antonio de Valero. The compound was built in 1718 by the Spanish to evangelize local Native Americans, then later—as the Alamo—housed the Mexican Army. De Zavala was especially focused on restoring the long barracks, which she believed was the site of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. In 1905, days before the Alamo lease would expire and rumors spread of imminent conversion to a hotel, De Zavala locked herself in the rat-infested structure without food, demanding that the entire compound be preserved. “If people—especially children—can actually see the door through which some noble man or woman passed,” she said, “they’ll be impressed; they’ll remember.” After three days, De Zavala was released as the Governor took possession, then returned control to the DRT. Thanks to De Zavala’s persistence and the DRT’s ongoing stewardship, the legendary Alamo is preserved as a museum and National Historic Landmark, open to all people.

Illustrated by Chandler O’Leary and printed by Jessica Spring, as thorny issues arise and tear at our shared history and heritage: a multicultural miracle that demands tolerance even in the most trying times. 175 copies were printed by hand, with heart, at Springtide Press in Tacoma. August 2010

Price: $35

Available now in the shop!

A few copies of End of the Line, The Curie Cure and Just Desserts are also still available, as are reproduction postcards of the first eight broadsides.

One more thing: thanks to all of your amazing support, we have now reached our subscription capacity for the Dead Feminists series. But while we’re no longer able to take new subscribers, the series is still going strong because of the critical mass of subscribers who have had faith in us since the very beginning, and who have committed to stick by us until the end. So thanks, everyone.

¡Les agradecemos a todos por su apoyo!

(The next Dead Feminist Broadside will be released a smidge early, on November 6, 2010—just in time for Studio Tour. We’ll be back to our every-three-months schedule after that.)

Posted by Chandler at 5:37 PM in Dead Feminists, Illustration, Letterpress, Mumbo-Jumbo  |  Permalink  |   Comments (3)
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June 09, 2010
Drill, Baby, Drill

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Okay, I know the title is a bit controversial. But it was either that or something laden with obscenities—Jessica and I are feeling murderous less than charitable towards the oil industry at the moment. Thus far the Deepwater Horizon/British Petroleum oil “spill” (leak? deluge? hemorrhage?) has poured tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico—a fact that stopped us in our tracks, mid-way through a different piece, and changed our course for this season’s broadside.

I wish I could say this was a fun piece to create; dwelling on current events and spending days poring through images of oil-soaked animals has been one of the most depressing, enraging experiences I’ve had in my career. Luckily, I could spend the rest of my energy drawing the inspiring quote by writer, scientist and environmentalist Rachel Carson:

“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the sun lines of the continents for untold thousands of year … is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.”

This is by far the longest quote we’ve tackled yet, and I needed convincing before I could justify the pins and needles I’d feel in my hand afterward. But it turns out that the quote reads like a poem, and it opened up all kinds of image possibilities.

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I couldn’t face the idea of drawing any of the oil spill’s destruction, so I chose instead to focus on the wildlife affected by the spill—including several already-endangered species. A manatee and dolphin play in deep ocean blue, while plovers dash by in a sandy gold that becomes the sickly tea-colored oil pouring from a hidden offshore rig (okay, so maybe a little of my anger found its way into the drawing). Baby sea turtles inch their way to the shore; a roseate spoonbill nests in a corner; a brown pelican sits, surveying the scene. How many creatures can you find?

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One positive note that we can hold onto is the hope that we might make a bit of difference with our art. Our Dead Feminists have made their way to 40 states and 9 countries outside the U.S., so the word is definitely spreading. And we’ll be donating a portion of the proceeds from Drill, Baby, Drill to Oceana, an international organization focused on ocean conservation and dedicated to ending offshore drilling.

There. I said it. We want to ban offshore drilling outright. Forever.

I don’t mean to offend any readers on the other side of that particular fence (if any are left; I hope the series hasn’t already alienated half of the population…), but this is one issue around which I simply cannot tiptoe.

I do have to admit, though, that researching images of baby river otters did help to take my mind off of the bad news…even if all that ridiculous cuteness did distract me a bit from the task at hand. If you can afford to be sucked in, go visit that link, and prepare to melt.

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Drill, Baby, Drill: No. 8 in the (Dead) Feminist Broadside series
Edition size: 136
Poster size: 10 x 18 inches

Printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press, on archival, 100% rag paper. Each piece is hand-colored and signed by both artists.

Colophon reads:
Rachel Louise Carson (1907 – 1964) was born in rural Pennsylvania, where she was “happiest with wild birds and creatures as companions.” After majoring in science in college, Rachel won a fellowship at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole and pursued marine zoology at Johns Hopkins. Carson had a long career with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and wrote numerous books and articles, including Under the Sea-Wind, The Sea Around Us, The Sense of Wonder, and the best-seller Silent Spring, in which she warned an uninformed public about the dangerous overuse of chemicals like DDT. The book—reminding us of our critical part in nature and the potential to cause irreversible harm—launched the environmental movement that led to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Endangered Species Act. Carson is memorialized with a National Wildlife Refuge in her name and a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Illustrated by Chandler O’Leary and printed by Jessica Spring, as oil pours into the Gulf Coast, leaving tar balls on the beaches and moving inland towards salt marshes. 136 copies were printed by hand at Springtide Press in Tacoma. June 2010

Price: $35
(Subscribers to the entire series pay $30. If you’re interested in subscribing, send me a note at chandler [at] anagram-press [dot] com.)

Available now in the shop!

We’ve now got postcard reproductions of the first 7 broadsides, too. Everyone who subscribes starting with any of the broadsides still available will receive one free set of postcards.

(The next Feminist Broadside will be released in late August 2010…we hope. Maybe I’m jinxing ourselves by even mentioning it.)

Posted by Chandler at 5:44 PM in Dead Feminists, Illustration, Letterpress, Mumbo-Jumbo, Sustainability  |  Permalink  |   Comments (10)
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February 14, 2010
Vandercooks never knock twice

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This is my friend Adam Agee, one of my favorite people on the planet.

Adam and I go way back—we were at RISD together, and shared a house in Rome, where he rode a unicycle everywhere and taught me to juggle. He also planted the seed that grew into an artist book: many years ago he told me of a fountain in Bologna, Italy, with a shocking secret that was obvious from a single vantage point, and invisible otherwise. No matter how much I pressed him, he would only answer that I had to go there myself to find out. The year we lived in Italy he finally took me there personally (it’s true: shocking!), and the experience became a clue in A Riddler’s Compass.

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Adam is probably the most talented person I know. In art school a teacher of ours was always saying Adam was born in the wrong century, and I’m inclined to agree. But like any Renaissance Man, his interests and skills range far and wide, from inventions (he majored in Industrial Design) to graphic design to painting to comics and back again.

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Many artists with diverse interests turn to printmaking for its versatility, and Adam is no exception. A few years ago he invested in a floor-model platen press, and created an ambitious series of prints called the Dream Press Cycle. You’d never know this was his first attempt at letterpress, but then this is Adam we’re talking about.

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Since then letterpress has been a staple in Adam’s personal and professional work.

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I’ve been able to have a front-row seat for his growth as a printmaker,

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and have collected a few pieces myself.

Now it appears that a golden opportunity has presented itself to Adam: a Vandercook cylinder press (the press every letterpress printer—including myself—dreams of having one day) in perfect working order is for sale, just minutes from his studio (Boulder, CO), and he’s got first dibs. The trouble is, he’s only got a few days before he has to say yea or nay.

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So to help fund the spur-of-the-moment purchase, Adam is offering extra-super-cheap custom poster printing and original artwork right now. Since this isn’t a chance that happens every day (try every decade or so), I told him to jump at it, and signed up to be his first customer. So if you’re looking for some seriously affordable custom design or handmade artwork, or if you’re in a band in need of a concert poster, read more about it here.

Best of luck, Adam!

Posted by Chandler at 10:25 AM in Kindred Spirits, Letterpress  |  Permalink  |   Comments (2)
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January 26, 2010
File under: weird résumé gold

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Since my job description reads, among other things, “Draws pictures all day,” I often have to be my own model. (This is a common problem for artists—I once shared a studio with a seriously talented comic book artist, and I remember frequently turning around to find him suddenly shirtless and drawing himself in a mirror balanced precariously on one knee.) For the most part, this works out fine, but hands are a tricky business—especially when you need to draw both hands at once, and you need one to operate a pencil.

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Since I’m currently working on the illustrations for a cookbook being published this year by the Tacoma Community House, I’m drawing a whole lot of hands lately. Hands carrying dishes, maneuvering chopsticks, folding samosas, kneading dough, etc. And since I had the lovely Zooey here, I decided to enlist her as hand model.

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(Firefox and Internet Exploder users: hit the ESC key to stop the annoying animation.
Everyone else: hit the “stop reloading” button in your browser.)

We spent a couple of afternoons shooting reference photos. Zooey rolled and unrolled pretend spring rolls made of fabric and made “samosas” with a scrap of denim. We took turns ripping a baguette to shreds for the camera (to mix up the hand anatomy, y’know), and mimed with nearly every dish in the house, just in case.

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One thousand and nineteen photos later, I was satisfied I’d have enough to go on. We made a mess of the bread, but my illustrations are better and Zooey has some pretty unique on-the-job training under her belt.

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In other news, I did a little website tweaking over the weekend. My “commissions” page felt clunky, so I imploded it and replaced it with an F.A.Q. (I prefer to pronounce it “Fack.”) If you ever wondered what I mean about half the things I say around here (and judging by the volume of questions I get on a nearly daily basis, you might), go and check it out here—it’s a whopper.

It ended up being a lot of fun to write (less fun to engineer, although I feel like a complete rock star for actually figuring out the coding all by myself!), because I got to play the part of the snarky interrogator (not that I get many of those, but it’s fun to write like one). I did practice some restraint, however; I was tempted to include a question I get more often than I’d like to admit: “Wait, aren’t you a guy?” True story. Sigh.

Also in the running was “Will you print 1000 coffee mugs with ‘World’s Number One Dad’ for me?” Because I really did get that email once, along with quite a few others mistaking my business for something entirely different. Maybe this will clear things up just a bit…

Posted by Chandler at 6:34 PM in Behind the Scenes, Drawing, Illustration, Kindred Spirits, T-Town  |  Permalink  |   Comments (5)
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November 05, 2009
C’mon over

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One of the biggest highlights of Tacoma’s annual Art At Work Month is the huge, city-wide Studio Tour circuit, when artists of all stripes (painters, sculptors, printers, photographers, dancers, weavers, jewelers, glassblowers, etc.) open their work spaces to the public and share their processes and products. This year (the eighth year of the event!) there are 39 stops on the tour, and yours truly is joining in on the fun.

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I’ll be firing up the little Kelsey press, so stoppers-by can print their own keepsake and catch the letterpress bug (watch out, it’s contagious!),

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and I’ll have lots of sketches, layouts, tools, and other process materials on display. This is the best part for me, since letterpress and artist books always bring up a lot of questions, and this time I’ll have plenty of visual aids at hand.

studiotour_5535(Stuffed owlets by Mirka Hokkanen, another studio tour artist!)

And since the holidays are just around the corner (or already here, if you believe the Christmas muzak blaring at the grocery store; I proudly promise that Anagram Press will be a carol-free zone), there will be all kinds of goodies for sale, including a boatload of brand-new items. I’ll have copies of the Art At Work poster, a preview of nine (!) new bird prints and several holiday card designs to pre-order, and the unveiling of the newest Feminist Broadside. Jessica and I are featuring Marie Curie and the issue of health care this time—but that’s all we’ll share for now. Look for photos and details online next week, but if you want a head start and first pick, you’ll have to come to the tour!

studiotour_bjorklund(From Victoria Bjorklund’s “Glass Figments” series, currently on view at the 23 Sandy Gallery in Porland, OR)

The only drawback to being open both days this weekend is that I won’t be able to visit any of the other studios on the circuit. Springtide Press, for example, will also be open (Sunday only), and along with Jessica’s work and our collaborations, she’ll be hosting a special guest: the brilliant Victoria Bjorklund, T-town photographer and fellow Artist Initiative grant recipient. Victoria will be sharing her latest work and demonstrating cyanotype photo processing, while Jessica will be on the Vandercook, churning out all kinds of surprises.

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So grab an umbrella, ’cause it’s going to rain (are you surprised?), and take a walk around the neighborhood—Anagram Press and other participating studios will be open from 10 am to 4 pm, this Saturday and Sunday, November 7 and 8. And best of all, the event is free and open to everyone! You can find more information about Studio Tours (including maps, addresses and directions) here. This is my first time participating in the Studio Tours (Alec Clayton from the Weekly Volcano included me in his list of “must-see studios,” so now I’m officially nervous), so please bear with me while I work out the kinks of hosting a hundred or so guests in my little space—I’ll do my best not to run out of munchies or keepsakes. Come on by and say hello.

Posted by Chandler at 7:25 PM in Adventure, Behind the Scenes, Dead Feminists, Letterpress, T-Town  |  Permalink  |   Comments (2)
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October 02, 2009
On display

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Finally, something tangible to show you! This is the point where all of the elements for my new body of work are just starting to come together. The past couple of months have been somewhat of a nail-biter—sometimes I wonder what possessed me to create twenty-six new pieces for a last-minute show. Now that the promo postcards (see above) are in hand and I can see the finish line, however, I can tell that my instincts knew what they were doing.

Mnemonic Sampler is my new solo show, opening October 14 at the PLU University Gallery. Here are the details:

Mnemonic Sampler: An Abecedary by Chandler O’Leary
October 14 to November 11
University Gallery, Ingram Hall
Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA
Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 14, 5-7 pm
Open Monday – Friday, 8 am – 4 pm
For more information, call 253.535.7573 or email soac [at] plu [dot] edu

On display will be something of a room-sized artist book, consisting of twenty-six hand-embroidered monoprints on calico (a monoprint is the opposite of an edition, a one-of-a-kind piece). Together the prints form an abecedary, or alphabet, and tell the story of how our concepts and ideals of “Home” are linked to the everyday objects that surround us. More on this topic when the show opens, but for now, here’s a peek (since the work is not quite finished, a peek is all I’ve got for now):

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Many, many thanks to the talented and infinitely helpful Katie Skovholt at PLU, who took care of having show postcards printed and mailed (!), orchestrated every logistic detail, and who has made the whole process as smooth as pumpkin pie. I would have long since lost my mind if it weren’t for you, Katie!

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Speaking of amazing women who run galleries, another big thank-you and shout-out to Laura Russell of 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, for featuring End of the Line on the promo materials for another new show that opens tonight. Broadsided! is national, juried exhibition of letterpress broadsides featuring the work of thirty-four artists. Here are the details from the 23 Sandy website:

Broadsided! The Intersection of Art and Literature
October 2-31, 2009
23 Sandy Gallery
623 NE 23rd Avenue
Portland, OR 97232
Opening reception: Friday, October 2, 6-9 pm
Open Thursday-Saturday 12-6 pm and by appointment

Before books, before blogs and before broadcasts, there were broadsides. Historically, single sheet broadsheet posters were ephemeral in nature. They were developed in the fifteenth century for royal proclamations, official notices and even advertisements. Today, broadsides hang at the intersection of art and literature. Letterpress printed broadsides are valued as fine art designed and printed by a true craftsperson; but also as fine literature featuring stellar poetry or prose.

The best part about the Broadsided! exhibit is that you don’t have to be local to see it! Laura has set up a fantastic online catalogue of the work in the show, with photos and the complete text from each broadside. Nothing beats seeing art in person, of course, but if you can’t make it to Portland this fall, this is a brilliant alternative.

Posted by Chandler at 9:27 AM in Behind the Scenes, Book Arts, Dead Feminists, Illustration, Letterpress, Pacific Northwest, T-Town  |  Permalink  |   Comments (1)
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August 03, 2009
Daughter of Kura

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Lest you think this has become a food blog, a whole lot of exciting things have been happening around the studio lately. Two new birds from the Flock series will make their debut this week, and the next Feminist Broadside is coming out later this month. And tomorrow will be a day of celebration for an author I’ve had the pleasure of working with this summer.

Daughter of Kura, the debut novel by Debra Austin, is being released tomorrow. To promote the book, Debra and the folks at Mary Holste Design put together an in-depth website, and asked me to contribute my illustrations to the project (full disclosure: I’m not the book jacket illustrator).

This was no ordinary illustration gig; in fact, I’d say this project was one of the biggest creative challenges I’ve faced yet. You see, Daughter of Kura is a novel about a pre-human culture—the only reference materials available were the fossil record and educated conjecture. It took a lot of research on everybody’s part to bring all of this together, and we hope you’ll be as pleased with the final product as we are. You can learn more about the book and see all of the illustrations here.

Posted by Chandler at 9:29 AM in Behind the Scenes, Drawing, Illustration  |  Permalink  |   Comments (2)
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July 22, 2009
Kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk

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Maybe I’m still not over the shock of moving from Zone Three to Zone Eight, but the sheer variety of fresh produce ’round these parts never ceases to amaze me. Now, if I can barely contain my excitement over what I see at the farmer’s market every week, you can imagine the heart attack I had when the Tailor and I discovered Tacoma’s very own Blueberry Park.

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That’s right: a public park. Filled to the brim with blueberry bushes. Four thousand of them. Once upon a time this was a working blueberry farm—after the farm folded or moved on, the land sat vacant and overgrown for years. Eventually Metro Parks took over the land, and decided to free the sixty-year-old bushes from the bracken.

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It took years of volunteer labor and many passes by a goat herd to hack back (or eat, depending on one’s preference) the scotch broom and blackberry vines. Now, though, the jungle is mostly kept at bay, and the result is an incredible bounty of pesticide-free berries. The best part? The pickin’ is free. Yes—all the fresh blueberries you, or I, or anyone and their maiden aunt can possibly pick, as many times as we like, for free. And with 4,000 bushes, there’s more than enough to go around. Talk about your tax dollars at work.

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The Tailor and I woke up before the sun today for our third berry-picking session. Our two previous trips to Blueberry Park didn’t yield much, as we were a little early for blueberry season. Today, though, an impressive crop was ready to take home, so with metal pails in hand, we dove right in.

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The sound of those first berries hitting the bottom of my pail—kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk—reminded me of one of my favorite children’s books of all time.

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Since we had big plans for these berries, we made sure to arrive with a full stomach.

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Well, alright, I did eat a few (even with my dirty hands).

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This is the yield of three hours’ work.

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That’s a two-gallon bucket, mind you. We don’t mess around!

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Our ultimate goal? The same as Sal’s mum: winter preserves. After all, if you’re a seasonal foodie, the only way to indulge a January craving for berries is to pop open one of your home-canned mason jars.

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This sparkling jam, yielded by just four quarts of berries, is only the beginning.

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Our house is filled with the scent of baking and the excitement of so many possibilities—pies, pancakes, syrup, glazes, dried berries. What would you do with all the berries you can pick?

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Grab a pail, head to East D and 75th Streets, and find out.

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P.S. Tomorrow (Thursday, July 23) I’ll be one of the artists featured on “Cityline,” a TV Tacoma program. Tune in to channel 12 at 9 am for a live broadcast, or watch it online here.

Posted by Chandler at 3:35 PM in Adventure, Life, Pacific Northwest, Sustainability, T-Town  |  Permalink  |   Comments (11)
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May 30, 2009
Public nudity

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Sorry for the long absence. I’m running a little behind to begin with (deadlines and out-of-town visitors have moved to the front burner lately), and there were a lot of photos to sift through. But I’ve been meaning to share these for some time now—better late than never, I suppose.

The window displays in the old Woolworth’s store downtown have been converted into a twenty-four-hour gallery, with artist exhibitions and installations rotating quarterly. Shortly after I moved to Tacoma, I found out that they were accepting applications for the 2009 gallery slots. I thought it might be a good opportunity to play with some completely non-letterpress (un-letterpress?) ideas I’ve been nurturing, so I gave it a shot.

For many years I’ve carried a sketchbook everywhere I go, but for the last couple I’ve been experimenting with something a little different. One day I was in a hurry, and knew I wouldn’t have time to fill an entire spread with the watercolor sketch I wanted to make. So I chose a page that already had some figure drawings on it, and just painted within the negative space around the figures.

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And from then on I couldn’t stop. Once the number of watercolor paintings began to catch up with my stock of line drawings, I started attending model sessions again. This time, though, I used the figure drawings to compose the page, with the expectation that eventually I’d go back in with another sketch later.

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Several people told me they’d like to see these drawings on canvas or framed on a wall—and more than one suggested a wall mural version. Besides, the conceptual link between nude figure drawings and mannequins in a store windows was too tempting to resist. So I applied for a Woolworth Windows show, but I guess I never expected that my proposal would be accepted. I was talking about gigantic nudes on a busy street, after all. When the notification date came and went without a word, I assumed the project had been rejected and moved on. And then, three months later, I received an email that said, “Congratulations! By the way, your show begins next weekend.”

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Now, I’m not normally an installation artist, but I do have six years of technical theatre and several large-scale murals under my belt. Still, there was something rather daunting about being thrown in the deep end of a double installation project, which involved attempting to paint proportionally accurate, ten-foot-tall nudes inside a narrow, very public glass box. A very monkey-cage-at-the-zoo glass box. To be fair, every mural I’ve ever painted has begun with a ripple of fear, and thoughts ranging from “Oh, right, I forgot how big walls are” to “For the love of Pete, how did I ever convince these people that I was capable of painting something that actual humans would be able to see from a distance?” Depending on the scale of the project, of course—hey, if blank pages can be intimidating, blank walls (and tall ladders) are pretty terrifying. So this time, what with the many passers-by glancing in at me, I needed a few extra deep breaths. It’s funny that I still get that little moment of panic—because once I finally start in with either pencil or brush, I feel right at home, and even the ladder becomes an old friend. There’s just something so satisfying about slathering paint on a wall.

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One of the challenges of the Woolworth Windows was getting my design up on the wall, at the correct size, without distorting anything. If I were painting a scenic flat for the theatre, I’d just photocopy my design onto a transparency, hook up a projector, and blow up the drawing to whatever size I needed. In a window display, however, there simply isn’t room to put a projecter far enough away from the wall. So I did it the old fashioned way: made my rendering to scale, laid a grid over it, and drew the same grid at the larger size on the wall.

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You can see a little of the pencil grid in the top photo; in the left-hand window the pattern repeats did most of the work for me.

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Like the drawings in my sketchbook, the inspiration came from a variety of sources. This pattern was an original design, but I was heavily influenced by the patterned brocades I saw at Versailles (see below).

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Another element from this collage found their way into the design—my sketches of the inlaid floor of Saint Chapelle in Paris became the basis for the floor of the right-hand window.

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The windows also contain elements found closer to home: a bit of the restored Harmon sign in Tacoma,

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and a stained-glass window in the home of my friend Christina, who lives in a former church.

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Since I had a lot of equipment to stash in such a small space, I had to paint in a piecemeal fashion,

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moving my supplies closer to the door as I painted myself into a corner.

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Despite the challenges of the installation, this has been one of the most interesting and fun mural projects I’ve ever done. For one thing, I fulfilled a secret childhood wish to be “one of those people” who designed and created window displays (I was a big fan of Mannequin). For another, the best part about painting in public is that you get to meet all kinds of wonderful people. Everyone I’ve seen has been incredibly supportive, curious, and thoughtful. Mothers wheeled their strollers right up to the window so their toddlers could press up against the glass and watch. School kids on a field trip gathered around my rendering and recognized the Harmon sign immediately. Street-smart teenagers stopped to ask insightful and challenging questions about gender roles in art. Friends brought me coffee on a chilly day, or kept me company when I started to get tired. Business people flashed me a thumbs-up on their way to work, and neighborhood regulars shouted their encouragement through the glass. I guess I didn’t have to worry about the public reaction to a bunch of naked ladies after all.

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There’s a catch to all of this, however: the installation is temporary. The last day of my show is June 13, and then I have to paint everything white once more. So stop by while you can—you’ll find these ladies on Broadway, close to the corner of South Eleventh Street (on the same block as the Thursday farmer’s market).

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I guess that’s another thing all those years of theatre taught me: how to practice a little detachment when you have to dismantle what you built.

Even if it were only up for a day, though, it would have been worth it.

Posted by Chandler at 10:45 PM in Behind the Scenes, Drawing, Illustration, T-Town  |  Permalink  |   Comments (12)
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May 16, 2009
Dead Feminists, part two

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When it comes to letterpress printing, process is everything. And since that process is not always evident in the final product, I thought I’d share the technical aspects of the Feminist Broadside series. Now, as I said in the last post, letterpress printing is traditionally done using metal or wooden type—or in the case of the photo above, relief images cut into type-high (.918 inches in the US and UK, in case you wondered) blocks. What Jessica and I have been doing, however, ain’t your grandpa’s letterpress. Thanks to a fairly new technology called photopolymer, we’re able to create our own relief plates right in the studio, without having to carve a block by hand or etch a plate with nasty chemicals. Photopolymer has also created a bridge between the traditional print shop and the modern digital world—as you’ll see in a moment. As far as the Dead Feminists go, Jessica and I still have both feet firmly planted in the traditional world—we just dip a toe into the digital realm now and again. Here, let me explain.

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This is how it begins for each print: a pencil drawing, at full size. This is the stage where I not only design and illustrate the piece, but also start thinking about color choices: what the colors will be, what element will be which color, where the colors will overlap, how to make things work logistically. Now, this pencil layout isn’t enough to make a plate; for the photopolymer process to work properly, I have to translate the sketch into a solid black-and-white ink drawing.

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After everything is pencilled in, I lay a sheet of vellum over the drawing and trace everything in ink.

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Since each broadside is printed in two colors, each color means a separate run through the press. So as a result, I had to trace each color separately—being careful to stay as true as possible to the original drawing, since the colors had to line up exactly on press. If you were to line these two color separations up, on top of one another, you’d see how the colors will interact in the final piece.

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Here’s what I mean. You can see the separation that will become the grey color in Tugboat Thea here, laid directly over the inked octopus below. This is definitely the old-fashioned way of doing things; there are plenty of digital methods of color separation. I guess I just prefer the physical connection between the pen and the hand—even despite the greater risk of screw-ups (as you can see if you look closely at the word “to” above).

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Here’s where I dip that toe into digital waters. Once I’m finished inking, I scan the finished line drawings at a super-high resolution and load them into Photoshop (above is the pink separation for Prop Cake). This is where I clean up any mistakes (ahem) and convert the drawings into bitmap (pure black and white, with no grey) files. Jessica sends me her written colophon, and I set the text digitally. Then I export everything to the proper file type, and send the files to a local service bureau to have film negatives made. So now we’ve gone from analog to digital and back again.

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Here are the negatives for Tugboat Thea; grey separation on the top half of each one, teal on the bottom. As you can see, there aren’t any right angles in the bottom half (octopus) of the teal separation, so if you look closely you can see the little tick marks I added (above and to the right of the starfish) to aid with color registration. Those marks line up with a grid etched on the metal base we use to lock up the plates on press; once we had the plates exactly where we wanted them, I simply shaved those little tick marks off with an Xacto knife, so they’d no longer print. Real slick.

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Anyway, photopolymer is a light-sensitive plastic that works just like making a contact exposure in a darkroom does. First I take a negative, place it face-down on an unexposed plate, and load both pieces onto the exposure tray of Jessica’s platemaker (which looks remarkably like an Easy-Bake Oven).

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The negative is held flush with the plate by a layer of plastic and a vacuum system; the plate is exposed with UV light (some DIY enthusiasts also accomplish this using glass and a bright, sunny day, but photopolymer is awfully expensive to use in sketchy experiments in the cloudy Northwest).

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Next I place the exposed plate in the wash-out unit, where it is scrubbed gently with soft bristle brushes in a tank of cool water. Everything that is exposed is hardened enough to resist scrubbing, while everything else dissolves away. (And turns the water a sickly shade of yellow. Mmmm….plastic byproducts. Still, it’s less toxic than many other printmaking techniques.)

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What we’re left with is a raised plate ideal for relief printing. The real benefit of photopolymer is that it can reproduce nearly any image, and can hold an incredible amount of detail. I can transfer my drawings directly to the plate, without adding the laborious step of carving the image into wood or linoleum (backwards!), or etching copper with acid, for example. It’s not exactly an economical option for letterpress printing, but the results can be exquisite, and the possibilities are nearly endless.

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Here’s our new octopus plate on press, all inked up and ready to print—it’s stuck to that gridded base with removable adhesive. The thickness of the plate and base together add up to exactly .918 inches. Ah, precision feels good.

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And here’s how it looks on paper.

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Here you can see the registration between the colors. This is the hard part—I’m sure that despite my best separation efforts and useful tick marks, Jessica is ready to tear her hair out whenever she sees what insane registration issues I’ve thrown at her this time. She’s not a master printer for nothing, though—tiny, 9-point colophon type? No problem! Large, solid color blocks? Bring ‘em on! Exacting registration with no margin of error? Sigh. Just get those plates locked up, will you?

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Actually printing these broadsides is where all our careful planning and preparation goes right out the window. We can sketch and plot as much as we like, but many of our artistic decisions end up being made on the fly, right on press. Here Jessica is mixing ink for Prop Cake, according to some choices I suggested in our handy-dandy color recipe book.

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You can see our original draw-down (color test) in the upper left corner. So far, so good.

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The orange turned out exactly as we’d hoped, but when we started printing the pink separation, we hated the result. What looked so good in the draw-down lost all its contrast in the print. It was awful, trust me.

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So Jessica changed the color right on press, until we were happy with it.

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Action shot!

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Here’s the finished product, all lined up in the drying rack.

If lining up the color areas is the hardest part of printing, keeping an eye on the ink consistency was probably the most fiddly. We’re using a very unusual paper for the series—one made from recycled clothing—that is extremely “thirsty.” Not only are there inconsistencies in the paper that can throw off the overall quality of color; but we had to add ink to the press after every fourth or fifth print. As you can see, this is a pretty organic process—lots of variables, small corrections and compromises along the way. (And a whole lot of cursing and starting over.)

All of this is par for the course for a letterpress project—it’s an exacting, sometimes frustrating process, but that’s what I love about it. And the finished product … well, it’s like nothing else. Ah, letterpress, how I love thee.

Now if only it didn’t require several metric tons worth of equipment…

Posted by Chandler at 1:35 PM in Behind the Scenes, Dead Feminists, Drawing, Illustration, Kindred Spirits, Letterpress, Mumbo-Jumbo, Pacific Northwest, T-Town  |  Permalink  |   Comments (6)
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