Monday, 10 March 2025

March 10, 2025

Drawn at Art Buddies in Albuquerque:







































EXHIBITIONS

Barbara Endicott has a large painting at the GALLERY 3017, in the bottom of the Albuquerque Artisans art store -- in the WOMAN'S EMPOWERMENT exhibition -- March 8th - April 8th, 2025:

Barbara Endicott standing in front of her painting
during the opening on March 8, 2025
of the WOMAN'S EMPOWERMENT exhibition


ARTS THRIVE 
exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum

There were many artists that I know who were showing at the 34th ARTS THRIVE exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum:  March 2 - 7, 2025.  This is the last year of this annual exhibition:













































UPCOMING

MARCH 14, Friday:


MARCH 16, Sunday:



MARCH 21, Friday:
  • MASTERWORKS NEW MEXICO is opening in the Hispanic Arts Gallery at New Mexico Expo/State Fair in Albuquerque on Friday, March 21, 2025, and continues until April 13, 2025


MAY 13, TUESDAY:


Sunday, 9 March 2025

PORTABLE PRESS

The FISKARS FUSE Creativity System for Die -cutting promises to be the easiest portable press for making 8x8 inch prints. We saw this press at the SOUTHWEST PRINT FIESTA 2024, as Mark Zepezauer was printing with it:


The best thing is that the press folds up and has a handle, for carrying it around to print on location (though it is not light):


However the FISKARS FUSE was originally made more for hobby die cutting -- and thus one needs to fashion a press bed in order to pull 8x8 inch relief prints from it.


The above video recommends a 3/4 inch thick board as a press bed, which I found to be too thick.  Therefore I cut down a 5/8ths inch piece of particle board from Lowes to make a 24 inch long press bed (from a 24x24 inch square board):

FISKARS FUSE with a 5/8ths inch thick press bed --
with linoleum, paper, cardboard

The press bed still is not thick enough.  We need an additional sheet of acetate or acrylic to protect the board (and make registration marks).  Any additional slack could be taken care of with a blanket, or piece of gasket to put over the paper and linocut.


PROOFING PRESS


Essentially the FUSE works like a letterpress. Ellie came into a Showcard proofing press recently, which should pull 8x8 inch prints perfectly.  This press is small enough to take on location, however it is too heavy for one person to move by herself:




MOKUHANGA

We also need to experiment with MOKUHANGA relief printmaking. My friend Toru Sugita is going back to Japan to work further with this technique, as he explains in the video below:


I met Toru back in San Francisco in the 90s. The last time I saw him though was in Oaxaca in 2016/17, when he was printing with Taller Grafica Libre in Zaachila:


At that time Toru also exhibited in Oaxaca, and the celebrated artist Maestro Shinzaburo Takeda came to his opening on December 29, 2016:

Misayo Tsutsui and Fumiyo Yoshikawa (artist and Toru's wife)

A more detailed look into the Taller Grafica Libre studio in Zaachila, Oaxaca:



LIQUID SCULPTURES



Programs used to make the video above:

I started by altering some sculpturish drawings that I made with Paint 3D in 2021, with AI using my de Chirico Midjourney Moodboard (--profile 25juclq):


Midjourney --profile 25juclq
Fake de Chirico sculpture


Midjourney --profile 25juclq
Fake de Chirico sculpture


Midjourney --profile 25juclq
Fake de Chirico sculpture


FLUID

Then I continued reiterating in Midjourney and it got out-of-hand:

Liquid animation